"Who is that?" Steele demanded of the girl. "I can't see him." "That"--Janet Hosmer's speech faltered--"that is Mr. Sorenson. Oh, they misunderstand! Let me push in there and tell them how it happened." The engineer's hand closed about her arm. "You'll do nothing of the kind," he commanded, low. "But----" "No. Remain quiet and listen." Her eyes flew up to his at this extraordinary course, so injurious to his own interests. She was anxious to press to the front and declare his innocence in the affair of everything but defending his life from an assassin. She could not understand why he also was not eager to spring forward, why he restrained her. Then she saw the implacable hatred on his face. A thrill quivered through her body. The feeling she had at that instant was one of being on the point of seeing behind the curtain of a mystery, of making a discovery so sinister that she would gasp. Her very finger almost rested upon it. Why were Mr. Sorenson and Mr. Burkhardt talking as they were? Trying by innuendo to make it seem her companion might have been guilty of a crime? Could it be---- Her blood slowly congealed to ice at the horror of where her reasoning led. _Could it be they were the enemies he meant!_ Such a thing was too dreadful, too absurd. They, the respected leaders of the community, could never put a pistol in the dead wretch's hand to slay this man beside her. Mr. Sorenson! The father of Ed, whom---- She stared blankly at her left hand. Yet the banker's heavy, smooth words continued to assail her ears steadily. She grasped their import once more. "--for the story is too thin. No man could hit another across the street in the dark as this engineer claims, not only once but twice put a bullet where it would kill. Probably the dead man had something on this Weir, and the latter knew it. It's not impossible he found the fellow in his path, drew and murdered him at once, quickly put a hole in his own hat and then carried the body across the way, running back to Martinez' office. The thing could have been done in a minute. Martinez' himself wouldn't have seen how it was worked. I'm not saying that was exactly how it was done, or that this Weir did actually murder him, but--investigate, Madden, investigate." Steele Weir felt an angry tug at his sleeve. He looked around and beheld Janet Hosmer's eyes distended with incredulity. "Come away, come away," she whispered. "I should never have believed it if I hadn't heard with my own ears!" Keeping close to the line of buildings, they skirted the crowd, still unnoticed, and left it behind. She walked with quick nervous steps; her hand yet unconsciously grasped his coat sleeve. All the way to her home, which they found dark since a messenger had called the doctor to the court house and the Mexican girl servant also was gone, she said nothing. "Come up on the veranda; I want to talk," she announced when he opened the gate.