She was shaken, there was no denying it. He could see the ebb of blood from her cheeks, the sudden stiffening of the slender figure. She did not speak until she had control of her voice. "Dear me! What has all that to do with me?" "A good deal, I'm afraid. You know how much, better than I do." "Perhaps I'm stupid. You'll have to be a great deal clearer before I can understand you." "I've noticed that it's a lot easier to understand what you want to than what you don't want to." Sharply a thought smote her. "Have you seen Phil Norris lately?" "No, I haven't. Do you think it likely that he would confess?" "Confess?" she faltered. "I see I'll have to start at the beginning, after all. It's pretty hard to say just where that is. It might be when Morse got hold of your father's claim, or another fellow might say it was when the Boone-Bellamy feud began, and that is a mighty long time ago." "The Boone-Bellamy feud," echoed the girl. "Yes. The real name of our friend Norris is Dunc Boone." "He's no friend of mine." She flamed it out with such intensity that he was surprised. "Glad to hear it. I can tell you, then, that he's a bad lot. He was driven out of Arkansas after a suspected murder. It was a killing from ambush. They couldn't quite hang it on him, but he lit a shuck to save his skin from lynchers. At that time he was a boy. Couldn't have been more than seventeen." "Who did he kill?" "One of the Bellamy faction. The real name of T. L. Morse is----" "--Richard Bellamy." "How do you know that?" he asked in surprise. "I've known it since the first day I met him." "Known that he was wanted for murder in Arkansas?" "Yes." "And you protected him?" "I had a reason." She did not explain that her reason was Jack Flatray, between whom and the consequences of his rustling she had stood. He pondered that a moment. "Well, Morse, or Bellamy, told me all about it. Now that Boone has recognized him, the game is up. He's ready to go back and stand trial if he must. I've communicated with the authorities in Arkansas and I'll hear from them in a day or two." "What has this to do with the hold-up?" "That's right, the hold-up. Well, this fellow Boone got your father to drinking, and then sprung it on him to rob the stage when the bullion was being shipped. Somehow Boone had got inside information about when this was to be. He had been nosing around up at the mine, and may have overheard something. O' course we know what your father would have done if he hadn't been drinking. He's straight as a string, even if he does go off like powder. But when a man's making a blue blotter of himself, things don't look the same to him. Anyhow he went in." "He didn't. I can prove he didn't," burst from Melissy's lips. "Be glad to hear your proof later. He ce'tainly planned the hold-up. Jim Budd overheard him." "Did Jim tell you that?"