passed on. The furtive smile which had betrayed his content at pocketing
the six thousand dollars still lingered at the corners of his mouth.

Though he did not know the legally innocent McMahon whom he had just
passed, McMahon was not so ignorant. There was no one in all the
countryside whom the McMahons did not know. It was their habit--or
something else--to be familiar with the history of everybody thereabouts,
although they lived secluded lives at Arrowhead Ranch, which adjoined
that belonging to Orlando Guise.

When Tom McMahon saw Mazarine leave Burlingame's office, his furtive eye
lighted. Then it was true, what he had heard from the hired girl at Slow
Down Ranch: that old Mazarine was to receive six thousand dollars in cash
from Orlando Guise by the hands of Burlingame! Only that very morning,
at the moment of his own release from jail, his brother Bill McMahon had
told him of the conversation overheard between Orlando and his mother, by
Milly Gorst, the hired girl.

He turned and watched Mazarine go down the street and enter a barber's
shop. If Mazarine was going to have his hair cut, he would be in the
barber's shop for some time. With intense reflection in his eyes,
McMahon entered Burlingame's office. He had come to settle up accounts
for a clever piece of court-room work on the part of Burlingame. It was
very well worth paying for liberally.

When he entered the office, Burlingame was not there. A clerk, however,
informed him that Burlingame would be free within a few moments--and
would he take a chair? Thereupon, the clerk left the room. McMahon took
a chair--not the one towards which the clerk pointed him, but one beside
the desk whereon were lying a number of open letters.