“Looky' here, Sid!” Hoag's beetling brows ran together, and his tone was fierce and direct. “I want to git at this thing right now, so as to know what to depend on. Like the rest of us, you are under oath of secrecy to the klan. Did you say anything to Paul Rundel to lead him to suspect that--” “No, I didn't,” Trawley groaned. “I kept it all back, an' thar's right whar I think my chief trouble lies. I've taken an oath that binds me to the devil an' his imps. Paul says, to git the real thing you've got to go at it with a clean breast, an' I can't be that way with you fellows tellin' me to come to your secret meetin's an' layin' claim to me. I hain't give you all away, an' I ain't goin' to, but I'm in a bad fix. I want to clean up an' git right, but I don't know how. It seems wrong to break my oath, an' wuss to keep it.” “I can say to you right here, Sid”--Hoag moved toward the door, a dark, red flush on his face--“if you do betray our body you'll regret it, an' you know well enough why.” So speaking, and without another glance at the man he was leaving, Hoag strode away. Aflame with fury, he mounted his horse and rode homeward. CHAPTER X |THE following night was dark and sultry. A slight, brief rain had pattered upon the hot and dusty earth, leaving a warm, thick moisture in the air. The clouds, shifting, dissolving, and massing overhead, alternately revealed and hid the stars. The moon's white disk hung behind a filmy veil above the mountain-top. Hoag had retired to his room in anything but a pleasant mood. He could count on browbeating the average man under him, the man who was afraid of the good or ill opinion of his fellows; but the man who was afraid of the Infinite, as in Trawley's case, was different. Hoag had removed his coat and his shirt was open in front. He sat in a chair at a window overlooking his tannery. He was smoking, as usual. In fact, the habit had grown upon him to such an extent that he was afraid of what he called “a tobacco-heart.” There were occasional warnings, in certain muscular flutterings and lapses into drowsiness that had not belonged to his more buoyant period. He told himself that he was taking on flesh too rapidly. He was sure he was eating more than he should; that his toddies were acting as an unnatural stimulant to an appetite which had always been too vigorous.