The prisoner rose and walked a little before he made answer. When he
spoke at last it was in a more serious tone.

"You see, I've got inside information. I know several things you
don't know, that give a different meaning to all this evidence and all
these tracks."

"Well," said Gwinne, "you need it. A horse's track leads from the dead
man to Garfield--a track that lacks one shoe."

"My horse had lost a shoe," said Johnny.

"Yes. You tacked one on him at Sam Gray's store. But that is not the
worst. The worst is that there are three of them and only one of you."
Johnny felt of his neck again, delicately. "By your tell there isn't
any man in the world to help out your bare word. If you have any fresh
dope, spill it."

"I happen to be in a position to state certainly, at first hand,
something which modifies the other evidence," said Dines slowly and
confidentially. "I happen to know positively that I didn't murder that
man. That's exclusive. You only hear me say it--but I know it. So you
mustn't be hurt if I'm not convinced. If the horse tracks say I'm the
killer--the tracks are wrong, that's all. Or wrongly read. You will be
best served if you either accept the full assurance of my guilt, and
so base your deductions on that, or else accept my innocence as sure,
and read sign with that in mind. It gets you nowhere to fit those
tracks to both theories. Such evidence will fit in with the truth to
the last splinter, like two broken pieces of one stick. It won't fit
exactly with any lie, not the cleverest; there'll be a crack here, a
splinter left over there, unaccountable. For instance, if my accusers
are right, the dead man's horse went down Redgate ahead of me; my
tracks will be on top of his wherever we took the same trail."

"Exactly. That's what they say. They might have been mistaken. It is
hard and stony ground."

"They may have been mistaken, yes. Someone else will see those tracks.
Now you listen close. Listen hard. If it turns out that Jody Weir and
his two pardners, coming down Redgate on a run to give the alarm, rode
over and rubbed out all tracks made by my horse and the dead man's
horse, wherever they crossed each other--then that's another mistake
they made. For when I left Forbes there were only two fresh tracks in
the canyon--tracks of two fresh-shod horses going up the canyon,
keeping to the road, and made yesterday. I'm sorry they didn't take me
back to Garfield. I would have liked a peek at those