“Then listen to me, Mr. Thaxter. Some scoundrels--possibly you and your people--have harried me like a lot of pirates. Nothing has been left undone in the effort either to swindle me out of my property on the one hand, or to force me out of it on the other. But now the shoe is on the other foot”--he was leaning across the corner of the desk and emphasizing the words with a clenched fist beating softly upon the oak--“we have Sawyer where we can make him talk. We know that he can implicate you, individually, in one of the criminalities; and perhaps he can tell us something about the others. Mr. Thaxter, I am going to sift these bushwhackings to the bottom, and you know best whether or not you or the combination you represent can afford to heap more fuel on the fire now by fighting me in the manner you have suggested. That is all I have to say, I believe, and I shall have to ask you to excuse me. This is my busy day.” In the early evening of the fourth day after Thaxter’s visit, Carfax made one of his infrequent descents of the mountain, driving a ridiculously high-priced car, the purchasing of which had been his latest extravagance. The coke-ovens in the long rank were aglow with the fires of the initial charging, and the air of the valley was murky with the smoke of the new industry. Wilmerding and Duncan were at the mine, and Tregarvon had just finished his dinner when Carfax entered the dining-room. “You do turn up once in a while, don’t you?” said the solitary diner not too hospitably. “You’re late for dinner, but doubtless Uncle William can find you something. You will have to eat alone. I have some work to do.” Carfax followed the worker into the front office and, when the lights were turned on, dropped into a chair. “I don’t want any dinner,” he said. “Or rather I should say, I’m due to show up at Mrs. Caswell’s at the proper dinner-hour.” Tregarvon had a telegraph pad under his hand and he took time to write a brief message before he said, half-absently: “We keep working-men’s hours here.” “Which is a delicate way of intimating that I’d better go chase myself and quit bothering you?” put in the intruder with a gentle chuckle. “All right; I’ll vanish presently. But first I’d like to ask if you are still clinging to your fantastic idea of making somebody suffer for the dynamiting?” “I am; and I don’t see anything fantastic about it. A number of crimes have been committed, and I have no notion of compounding a felony by letting the perpetrators get away. Morgan McNabb is the key to the situation, and I have never understood why you and Judge Birrell turned him loose and gave him a chance to disappear. It has cost me a pretty penny to trace him, but I’ve got him now. He is under arrest in Dallas, Texas.” “And you are going to have him brought back and given the third degree?” “Precisely. I have just written the telegram.” Carfax was feeling in his pockets for his cigarette-case, going about it leisurely as one who would gain time.