For a thoughtful half-hour they sat before the dying embers of the fire and discussed the murderous attempt in all its bearings, Tregarvon stoutly maintaining to the last that Hartridge could not possibly have been an accomplice. But disregarding that single slight clue, they were left completely in the dark as to the identity or motive of the man or men who had tried to wreck the car. In the early stages of the discussion Tregarvon had suggested the McNabbs; and after every other guess had been exhausted he returned to them. But Carfax demurred at this. “No,” he said. “As I told you yesterday, you have two of the McNabbs in your working gang, and they have had a thousand chances to extinguish you since you came down here. Besides, I’ve been over in the Pocket neighborhood to-day, and have found out a lot about the clan McNabb. They’re perfectly harmless, I should say. I ran across both Morgan and Sill, and they took me in and fed me fat bacon and corn pone. It is all of ten miles to their shack in the Pocket, and they would have had to walk out to get on this side of Pisgah. Besides that, Wilmerding gave me a lot of pointers about the McNabb tribe.” “Who is Wilmerding?” “He is the man who rode down the mountain with Hartridge and me, and made the quick dash for the up-train. He is the chief of staff for the C. C. & I. in the Wehatchee Valley; has the oversight of all the various mines of the company. He is a fine fellow; a mining engineer with a few German university finishing touches.” “How did you happen to meet him?” “I hunted him up this morning; drove down to the Cardiff Mine for that purpose. They told me yesterday at Whitlow that he was at the Cardiff. I found him, and we foregathered on the spot. He is having some labor troubles, and was about to drive over the mountain to the Swiss settlement at New Basel to see if he couldn’t pick up a little new blood. I didn’t have to persuade very hard to get him to abandon his horse and buckboard, and I drove him over and back.” “He is all right, you think?” “As straight as a string. If the C. C. & I. is crooked, he is no party to the underhand work. Also, he told me a lot about the McNabbs. He seems to be quite certain that they have no grudge of their own to work off. Laster McNabb, who is the grandfather of the outfit and the chief of the clan, has talked very freely with Wilmerding about the Ocoee lawsuit, and if the McNabbs have it in for anybody, it is for the lawyer who dragged them into the fight with the New Englanders.” Tregarvon stood up to rest an elbow against the rough stone mantel. “If your estimate of Wilmerding is correct, the C. C. & I. can’t be held responsible; and, on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be the mountaineers. Yet we have had the accidents with the drilling machinery, and somebody has just tried to assassinate you. You may say it’s Hartridge, but I can’t follow you there. The motive is lacking.”