Only three persons--Danvers, the doctor and Moore--knew of the hidden octopus of Burroughs' insatiable vindictiveness, whose tentacles, first fastening on Eva, had finally crushed Latimer. Moore knew, if the others did not, that Blair was doomed if he once again came within its radius. Then for the others! But he made no immediate move, and decorously gave regard to the proprieties, both for himself and as a substitute for Mr. Burroughs. His chief was almost as hysterical as Eva herself over the judge's untimely death, for he thought his prospects endangered thereby. His panic made him hasten to leave Helena for a few days. Moore had tried to secure some other man to change to Burroughs, someone who did not hold himself as high as Blair had done on the night of the club dinner; but he had finally been obliged to report his non-success. He suggested to Burroughs that he approach Senator Blair once more, offering twenty thousand dollars. He felt sure that Charlie would take less--now! Just before Burroughs ordered a special train to hurry him away from the prevailing gloom, the two conspirators had their final word on the subject of Senator Blair. "We've got to get this thing over," said Burroughs, savagely. "There's too much talk. We'll be hung as high as Haman or sent to the pen for twenty years if we don't get a move on. And there are but six days more of the session. Give Charlie Blair his price--and be damned to him!" "That's all right, Bob," retorted Moore, angrily. "I'll give him the money if you say so. But I don't think the whole business of being a United States senator is worth thirty thousand dollars. And if I do get it to him (and the Lord knows how I can)--what then? He is sick in bed, and who can tell when he can get to the capitol?" "_Get_? We'll _take_ him, alive or dying! Thirty thousand! It's my money, isn't it? You are nothing out of pocket. Get it to him while the rest of his folks are at the--the funeral!" The word chilled them both. Were they responsible for this death? "Get it to him! He'll keep it! Montana'll be too hot for him from now on, let me tell you! He'll take the money, vote for me, and skip--all in the same day. There's been too much talk to be agreeable to a man who's never before been mixed up with a woman--except that squaw!" Burroughs walked nervously back and forth, then: "You wire me when you've given the money to him and I'll come back. It'll all be clear sailing then." This delay! As Burroughs reviewed the results of his schemes he felt that he had been hardly used. Not so had fortune treated him in the past. Most of all he bewailed the inclusion of a woman in the necessary chicanery of diverting votes. Catch him again being over-persuaded by Bill Moore's sophistry!