been sendin' spies all around to find out all about your son, had been
foolin' you and tryin' to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, I
knew that HE knew it, too."

"LIAR!"

The door fell in with a crash. There was the sudden apparition of a
demoniac face, still half hidden by the long trailing black locks of
hair that curled like Medusa's around it. A cry of terror filled the
room. Three of the men dashed from the door and fled precipitately. The
man who had spoken sprang toward his rifle in the chimney corner.
But the movement was his last; a blinding flash and shattering report
interposed between him and his weapon.

The impulse carried him forward headlong into the fire, that hissed and
spluttered with his blood, and Lance Harriott with his smoking pistol,
strode past him to the door. Already far down the trail there were
hurried voices, the crack and crackling of impending branches growing
fainter and fainter in the distance. Lance turned back to the solitary
living figure--the old man.

Yet he might have been dead, too, he sat so rigid and motionless, his
fixed eyes staring vacantly at the body on the hearth. Before him on the
table lay the cheap photographs, one evidently of himself, taken in some
remote epoch of complexion, one of a child which Lance recognized as
Flip.

"Tell me," said Lance hoarsely, laying his quivering hand on the table,
"was Bob Ridley your son?"