Bertram had hardly seated himself in the hotel restaurant before Swingley saw him and came over to his table. “Milt,” he said, “you’re too good a man to be wastin’ your young years on a hopeless homestead proposition like the one you’ve got. If you’ve come up here, prepared to listen to reason and to throw in with us again, I can put you where you’ll be on the road to a fortune in the cow game.” “I’m glad it’s the cow game and not making go-devils,” said the young Texan, as he poured his coffee with a steady hand. Swingley smiled saturninely. “I’ve got it figgered out what’s turned you wrong,” he said. “When you first agreed to go along with us you didn’t have any particular idee of kickin’ over the traces, did you?” “Maybe not.” “Well, you met this girl, and then you got some foolish idees in your head. As a matter of fact the killin’ of Nick Caldwell wasn’t nothin’ for you to be sore about, as Nick deserved what he got. It is true he was good enough to that stepdaughter of his, who took his name, and who looked on him as a father. But he was the leader of the rustler crowd.” “I don’t know whether he was or not,” replied the Texan, with a keen glance at Swingley. “I’ve sort of drawn some conclusions of my own to the effect that Caldwell was really a power with the cattle interests, though maybe only a little inside circle knew what he was doing. He might have had a falling out with a big man in that inside circle. Maybe that other man was jealous of Nick’s power. Maybe Nick had some information about the other man’s crookedness. Anyway, the other man figured that Nick had to go. So there wasn’t any powder spared in getting him when the chance opened up.” Swingley turned pale with rage, but he choked back his inclination to denounce Bertram. “Do you mean to say that I was mixed up in any deal with Nick Caldwell?” he demanded. “I said it looked as if some other man was, that man being in the confidence of the cattle interests,” responded the Texan coolly. “I didn’t say it was you, but it might have been. Do you want me to spring any documentary evidence I might have?” “Do you mean you’ve got letters, papers of any kind?” Here a note of anxiousness crept into Swingley’s voice. “You had it right the first time. There are some letters of interest, and I want to tell you to quit your high-handed persecutions in this county, or they’re going to be made public.” “That girl’s turned ’em over to you, if there is anything of the sort,” said Swingley, his face working convulsively, his voice thick with anger and fear. “The girl has had nothing to do with it,” responded Bertram. “But she’s one of the people around here that you’ve got to let alone from now on.”