something else resulting in death--that was the switchman's wife. And
the law is hard in the West where a woman's in the case--quick and hard.
Yes, you've swung wide on your tether; look out that you don't swing
high, old man."

"You can prove nothing; it's bluff;" came the reply in a tone of malice
and of fear.

"You forget. I was your lawyer in Jimmy Tearle's case, and a letter's
been found written by the switchman's wife to her husband. It reached me
the night he was killed by the avalanche. It was handed over to me by
the post-office, as the lawyer acting for the relatives. I've read it.
I've got it. It gives you away."

"I wasn't alone." Fear had now disappeared, and the old man was
fighting.

"No, you weren't alone; and if the switchman and the switchman's wife
weren't dead and out of it all; and if the other man that didn't matter
any more than you wasn't alive and hadn't a family that does matter,
I wouldn't be asking you peaceably for two thousand dollars as my fee for
getting you off two cases that might have sent you to prison for twenty
years, or, maybe, hung you to the nearest tree."

The heavy body pulled itself together, the hands clinched. "Blackmail-
you think I'll stand it?"

"Yes, I think you will. I want two thousand dollars to help a friend in
a hole, and I mean to have it, if you think your neck's worth it."