"I did not expect to see you again so soon, Gabriel, but as quickly as the news reached me, and I heard that our friend Hall had a warrant for you, I started after him. I would have got here before him, but my horse gave out." He paused, and looked steadily at Gabriel. "Well!" Gabriel looked at him in return, but did not speak. "I supposed you would need professional aid," he went on, with a slight hesitation, "perhaps _mine_--knowing that I was aware of some of the circumstances that preceded this affair." "Wot circumstances?" asked Gabriel, with the sudden look of cunning that had before prejudiced his captors. "For Heaven's sake, Gabriel," said Maxwell, rising with a gesture of impatience, "don't let us repeat the blunder of our first interview. _This_ is a serious matter; _may be_ very serious to you. Think a moment. Yesterday you sought my professional aid to deed to your wife all your property, telling me that you were going away never to return to One Horse Gulch. I do not ask you now _why_ you did it. I only want you to reflect that I am just now the only man who knows that circumstance--a circumstance that I can tell you as a lawyer is somewhat important in the light of the crime that you are now charged with." Maxwell waited for Gabriel to speak, wiping away as he waited the usual smile that lingered around his lips. But Gabriel said nothing. "Gabriel Conroy," said Lawyer Maxwell, suddenly dropping into the vernacular of One Horse Gulch, "are you a fool?" "Thet's so," said Gabriel, with the simplicity of a man admitting a self-evident proposition, "Thet's so; I reckon I are."