“Well, it made a devil of me. I was only a kid then, but it seemed as if I grew to be a man between two days. I tried to kill Parker. Maybe you know that, too.” “Yes; I have heard about it.” “He didn’t die; and he spent his money like water until he got me indicted. Then I broke my father’s heart by showing the yellow streak--running away. I’ve been hid out down in Arizona ever since, but I always meant to come back and stand the gaff some day.” “Go on,” said Tregarvon gravely. “I didn’t come back by the railroad. The yellow streak showed up again, and I dodged the sheriff by walking in over the mountain from Piketown. The McNabbs hid me out in the ‘Pocket.’ They told me you were Parker’s man, and that you had come to finish what he’d begun. Afterward they told me you were making love to my sister, and that settled it.” “I see,” said Tregarvon. Then: “Why didn’t you come out in the open like a man and find out a few things for yourself?” “I couldn’t. The indictment was still hanging over me; as it is yet. And I was crazy mad. I swore I’d run you out of the country or kill you if you didn’t go. I made Morgan McNabb help me. He’d been mixed up in a feud years ago and had ambushed a man, and I was the only one who knew it. I told him I’d give him away if he didn’t help me run you off.” “Your sister knew you had come back?” “Yes; but she didn’t know anything else. She thought I was afraid to show myself on account of the old trouble--as I was. She was trying to fix things so that I could come back here to my father and Westwood House. I did come, but they brought me on a stretcher. Somebody set the leaves afire that night in the old negro burying-ground, and the dynamite went off and caught me while I was trying to stamp the fire out. The jig’s up now. All you’ve got to do is to send for the sheriff.” Tregarvon saw that it was time to intervene. The sick man’s breath was coming in gasps and his face was livid. “You mustn’t try to talk any more now,” he said, rising and taking the thin hand that was so much like Richardia’s in his own. “For a good many reasons you have nothing to fear from me. Of course, you know now that I am in no sense Parker’s representative. So far from it, the papers are already drawn which will restore to your father and his friends the property that Parker stole from them. I meant to do that from the first, if I should be lucky enough to find the coal.” The grip of the thin fingers tightened upon the hand of reassurance. “My God!” breathed the prodigal, “and I’ve been trying to kill you! Mr. Tregarvon, can you go one step farther and--and turn Morgan McNabb loose? That’s what made me frame it up with sister and Hartridge and Mr. Carfax to bring you here to-night.” “McNabb will not be brought back; I promise you that. Shall I send your sister up to you?”