Alma looked at the naturalist with startled eyes. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, if it destroys any ideals you may have had. It does you credit to think so well of Nicholas Caldwell, and to pay him back so handsomely in loyalty and love for the material advantages he gave you. But, after all, you may as well know all sides of the man’s character. Nicholas was a leader among the cattle rustlers, as has been charged. That much I know, but I also know that his rustling operations were carried on merely as a blind to hide larger operations in the interests of the cattle interests. He and Swingley were in the inner circle which was dominating those great interests, but they had a personal falling out. Swingley had vowed that he would kill Nicholas at the first opportunity, on account of their personal feud, which had developed suddenly, and which not even I had suspected. When Swingley led his invaders into this county his first thought was to kill Nicholas Caldwell. That was why he went to such lengths to burn the cabin on the Lower Powderhorn. “All this I found out when this young Texan was brought to my place, wounded. In his clothing I found letters, which he had evidently taken from the body of Nicholas, just before you and Jimmy came upon him. I did not scruple to read those letters, because they concerned my own kin. As soon as he recovered sufficiently to ask for his clothes and to stir about a little, the young Texan burned the letters, thinking no doubt that by so doing he would protect Nicholas Caldwell’s name, and thereby save you from any heartache.” “But the go-devil,” said Alma. “I was told that he was responsible for making the machine that was really the cause of my stepfather’s death.” “I happen to know that he was not,” replied Uncle Billy. “It is true that he made such a machine, or rather completed it, under Swingley’s orders. But Archie Beam told me that the machine was really the cause of Bertram’s desertion of Swingley’s invaders. Rather than continue with an outfit that made war in such a way, Bertram smashed the go-devil which he had just completed, and then he started alone into the hills. Beam was present when the machine was smashed, and he tried to dissuade the young Texan from going to what seemed sure death. The go-devil was fixed up later, when the invaders’ blacksmith arrived, but Bertram really caused a great delay in the final attack on the cabin.