"But aren't you hurt--isn't there something to do?" "I've _been_ hurt. I'm just weak. Don't think about it. But you're Mr. Wilmot Allen all right, aren't you?" "Yes." "It's hard to be sure of a man you never knew and who's grown a beard since you saw him last." "I assure you," Wilmot smiled, "that I'm only waiting to reach a first-class barber-shop." "Perhaps you will change your mind." "Why should I?" "You know a man named O'Hagan?" Wilmot nodded. "I had a talk with him up in the mountains yesterday. He spoke truth for once. You know a man in New York--Blizzard?" "He's been a good friend to me." "Why?" asked the stranger. "I don't know. I've asked myself that question a thousand times." "He's helped you with your debts in return for your services in teaching a lot of foreigners to shoot straight?" Wilmot frowned. "Did it ever occur to you that he could have obtained half a dozen teachers for a tenth of the money?" "That _has_ occurred to me," said Wilmot stiffly. "Obviously then he has some ulterior use for you." "Very possibly." "Please don't take offence. There are reasons why you shouldn't. I am coming to them. Remember, O'Hagan talked to me, and talked truth. Blizzard is planning a revolution. You are to be one of the leaders. You imagine that one of the hell-governed Latin republics is to be the seat of operations, or you wouldn't have gone into the thing. But Blizzard is after bigger game than undeveloped wildernesses. Mr. Allen, you are part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government of New York City." "Say that again." The stranger smiled. "O'Hagan at the last made a clean breast of everything. He had to. I came West to make him." "At the _last_? What does that mean?" "When a man won't talk you have to make him--even if you fix him so that he can never talk again." "Is O'Hagan _dead_?" "He had his choice. But he _had_ to talk. If I had let him off afterward--I couldn't have gotten away with the information. One of us had to go out, and I had the power to decide which. I chose that O'Hagan should be the one. He was a man steeped in crime. I am not." "You killed him?" "I am a very poor talker if I have conveyed another meaning. I tracked him into the mountains. He shot me twice before I could get my hands on him. I twisted the truth out of him, and then as I was about to faint like a school-girl, and as my information was precious, I flung him over a cliff. If I hadn't, you see, he could have fixed me while I was unconscious." The man's voice was very quiet, very matter-of-fact. Wilmot stared at him with a sort of wondering horror, for he knew that the man was telling the truth. "He shot you twice. That was some time yesterday. You've seen a doctor?" "There was none, and I had to ride all night to get here." "Are you badly hit?"