"I can tell you this much: Sidney Prale did something that wrecked and ruined several lives. Certain prominent persons have decided to punish him. He is to have his life made miserable, he is to have his fortune taken away from him, he is to be subjected to petty annoyances and hard blows alike, driven from this, his home town, forced to realize that a man cannot do what he did and escape retribution." "Sounds like he murdered a nation!" Jim Farland commented. "Did he wreck the national treasury or turn traitor to the flag?" "I am not jesting, Mr. Farland." "Neither am I. My eyes have got to be opened, sir. You've got to come clean with me. Prale's enemies may strike at him from the dark, but Jim Farland never works in the dark! I want to see where I'm stepping. I never like to trip over anything." "I have told you all that I can at present." "Why?" "Because I do not care to give you information if you are still to work for Prale." "You say that Prale knows his enemies and why they are fighting him. If he does, he never has told me. Tell me that much--since you say Sid Prale knows it already. It couldn't hurt your side at all." "We might tell you later." "You've got some very good reason for not telling me!" Farland accused. "It is the truth, isn't it, that Prale does not know a single thing about it. You are afraid to tell me because I may inform him of what you say, and we may straighten out the tangle? I can see through you, sir, as easily as through a newly cleaned window." "I see that you have faith in Sidney Prale," the masked man said. "But I assure you that your faith is misplaced. Is there any way in which I can get you to stop your work for him?" "Meaning against his influential enemies, or on the Rufus Shepley murder case?" Farland asked. "We simply want you to stop working for him. If he stands alone, we can punish him the sooner." "I understand about that, of course. But how about the murder case? Do you think Sid Prale is guilty of that crime?" Farland asked. "I do not know, I am sure. I understand that the evidence against him is damaging. But we are not awaiting the outcome of that. He may manage to have the charge against him dismissed, and we are going ahead with our plans for punishment." "Then you want me to quit Prale so I won't be helping him work against his enemies, and not because you are afraid that, in clearing him of the murder charge, I may find something detrimental to other persons?" "That is the idea," the masked man replied. "The murder case can take care of itself, I suppose." "Suppose I refuse to make this deal with you?" "In that event, we may feel called upon to detain you--and perhaps to use further violence."