But he was in little doubt concerning that of Tom Wilkins. The man, he decided almost at first glance, was distinctly dangerous. Years of life in the West had rubbed away any smugness that might have characterized him in early life, and had made him bold and aggressive. The quickly arising necessities of the frontier had developed him, implanting or improving the power of quick decision and action, until it was almost automatic. Caruth had never known a Western “bad man,” but he felt instinctively that Tom Wilkins would fall into that category. On his first visit to the Chimneystack Building Wilkins had said little to Caruth, but that little had been calculated to disturb the younger man, and to show him how thin was the ice over which he was skating. “There ain’t been no special affectation lost between me and Jim,” he declared. “I ain’t laid eyes on him for years. Jim stayed here in the effete East and played the human doormat; I went West and played pretty nearly everything and everybody in reach. Once in so often I’d hear of a chance in stocks or horses or something that Jim could use, and I’d put him wise about it. Now and then Jim would learn of something that I could use, and he’d put me wise. Jim cat-footed through life, and I bulled through it. We played into each other’s hands reasonable well.” “Yes?” “Yes! I got sort of tired last month, an’ made up my mind to emigrate. I had a bunch of sheep over on the Gunnison that I’d been herdin’, and I was yearning for the company of something that wouldn’t say baa whenever you addressed ’em. Playing collie to a bunch of muttons ain’t what it used to was when shepherds carried crooks and wore loose effects, and I found it mighty monumentous and unsatiated, so I shakes the job and lines out for Denver, and there I finds a letter from Jim telling me to come to New York P. D. Q. So I comes, and gets here to find he got croaked just about the time his essay was postmarked. How about it?” As gently as he could, Caruth repeated the gist of his tale concerning the theft of the money and the murder. It was a somewhat delicate matter to tell this violent-looking individual that his brother was a thief, and Caruth stumbled more or less over the details. Wilkins, however, did not seem worried. “I never thought Jim would go into the hold-up business,” he commented, “especially for a measly one thousand eight hundred dollars. Maybe you don’t know it, but Jim was gettin’ tolerable plethoric. He was mighty saving and propinquous, Jim was; and he had some property out West--maybe ten thousand dollars’ worth. I’m his heir, and as I ain’t been in no ways intimidated with him, of course I ain’t inconsolable about his decease, nor I ain’t pretendin’ to be. But this hold-up story don’t explain none about that letter from Bill that he sent me.” Caruth’s heart stopped for an instant; then raced madly. “What letter?” he questioned, as calmly as he could.