t have got their horses out. A week or so later, with a crust of ice
over it, a few of them began again, with no expectation, however, of
finding Clark alive. They came across his horse on the second day, but
they did not find him, and there were some among them who felt that,
after all, old Elihu Clark's boy had chosen the better way.

Bassett closed his notebook and lighted a cigar.

There was a big story to be had for the seeking, a whale of a story. He
could go to the office, give them a hint, draw expense money and start
for Norada the next night. He knew well enough that he would have to
begin there, and that it would not be easy. Witnesses of the affair
at the ranch would be missing now, or when found the first accuracy of
their statements would either be dulled by time or have been added to
with the passing years. The ranch itself might have passed into other
hands. To reconstruct the events of ten years ago might be impossible,
or nearly so. But that was not his problem. He would have to connect
Norada with Haverly, Clark with Livingstone. One thing only was simple.
If he found Livingstone's story was correct, that he had lived on a
ranch near Norada before the crime and as Livingstone, then he would
acknowledge that two men could look precisely alike and come from the
same place, and yet not be the same. If not--

But, after he had turned out his light and got into bed, he began to
feel a certain distaste for his self-appointed task. If Livingstone
were Clark, if after years of effort he had pulled himself up by his own
boot-straps, had made himself a man out of the reckless boy he had been,
a decent and useful citizen, why pull him down? After all, the world
hadn't lost much in Lucas; a sleek, not over-intelligent big animal,
that had been Howard Lucas.

He decided to sleep over it, and by morning he found himself not only
disinclined to the business, but firmly resolved to let it drop. Things
were well enough as they were. The woman in the case was making good.
Jud was making good. And nothing would restore Howard Lucas to that
small theatrical world of his which had waved him good-bye at the
station so long ago.

He shaved and dressed, his resolution still holding. He had indeed
almost a conscious glow of virtue, for he was making one of those
inglorious and unsung sacrifices which ought to bring a man credit in
the next world, because they certainly got him nowhere in this. He was
quite affable to the