"Hold your hands quiet--higher, you fool! That's it. Now, don't play with me. I honestly didn 't know for certain I did want you, Murphy, when I first started out on this trip. I merely suspected that I might, from some things I had been told. When somebody took the liberty of slashing at my back in a poker-room at Glencaid, and drove the knife into Slavin by mistake, I chanced to catch a glimpse of the hand on the hilt, and there was a scar on it. About fifteen years before, I was acting as officer of the guard one night at Bethune. It was a bright starlit night, you remember, and just as I turned the corner of the old powder-house there came a sudden flash, a report, a sharp cry. I sprang forward only to fall headlong over a dead body; but in that flash I had seen the hand grasping the revolver, and there was a scar on the back of it, a very peculiar scar. It chanced I had the evening previous slightly quarrelled with the officer who was killed; I was the only person known to be near at the time he was shot; certain other circumstantial evidence was dug up, while Slavin and one other--no, it was not you--gave some damaging, manufactured testimony against me. As a result I was held guilty of murder in the second degree, dismissed the army in disgrace, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. So, you see, it was not exactly you I have been hunting, Murphy,--it was a scar." Murphy's face was distorted into a hideous grin. "I notice you bear exactly that kind of a scar, my man, and you spoke last night as if you had some recollection of the case." The mocking grin expanded; into the husky voice crept a snarl of defiance, for now Murphy's courage had come back--he was fronting flesh and blood. "Oh, stop preachin'--an' shoot--an' be damned ter ye!" "You do me a grave injustice, Murphy. In the first place, I do not possess the nature of an Indian, and am not out for revenge. Your slashing at me down in Glencaid has n't left so much as a sting behind. It's completely blotted out, forgotten. I haven't the slightest desire to kill you, man; but I do want to clear my name of the stain of that crime. I want you to tell the whole truth about that night's work at Bethune; and when you have done so, you can go. I 'll never lay a finger on you; you can go where you please." "Bah!--ye ain't got no proof--agin me--'sides, the case is closed--it can't be opened agin--by law." "You devil! I 'd be perfectly justified in killing you," exclaimed Hampton, savagely. Murphy stared at him stupidly, the cunning of incipient insanity in his eyes. "En' whar--do ye expect--me ter say--all this, pervidin', of course--I wus fule 'nough--ter do it?" "Up yonder before Custer and the officers of the Seventh, when we get in." "They'd nab me--likely."