What that whispered word was no one knew save he who spoke it and he to whom it was addressed. But whatever it might have been, it seemed to rouse the young man to life and a realisation of his position. With a leap he was at the long window and had sprung out on to a verandah, which ran round three sides and three stories of the house. The room was on the first floor, and it was easy enough for an active young fellow to let himself down by one of the twisted pillars which supported the verandah of the lower storey. It could not have been so easy to escape those who half-heartedly followed; but the boy must have found some safe sanctuary near by, for not only did he evade his pursuers, but was never found or brought to trial. The other, an Australian, calling himself Willis Collins, known as a gambler, suspected as a card "sharper," was less fortunate. But for the cry of the dying man he might have cleared himself; but his reputation was against him to begin with; it was proved that the other was a young Englishman who had lost his money through Collins, and been duped by him, and altogether matters went hardly with the elder of the two confederates. He was tried and condemned (not for murder, as it happened, but manslaughter), and sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years. The incident had passed out my mind until, on a visit to America six years later (four years previous to my present one), a man who had been of our bear-shooting party in the Rocky Mountains had chanced to mention that the fellow had very cleverly succeeded in making his escape from the prison where he had been confined. I had had no personal interest in the affair, and though it had made considerable impression upon me at that time, through being called up at the trial as a witness, I do not suppose I had summoned it to my recollection for many a long day until now, at the mention of the Santa Anna Hotel. It was no wonder, I told myself, that I had not been able to decide where and how I had seen Carson Wildred previous to the night when Farnham had introduced us to each other at the theatre. Unless I could collect proofs not at present in my possession, it would even now be useless to instill my conviction into the mind of anyone else.