Garth Conway, not a small man by two inches or fifty pounds, although he appeared so beside his companion, made a reply which Wanda did not hear in full, but which reached her sufficiently to tell her that the two men were talking about some trifling matter of range management and that his theory had provoked Sledge Hume's blunt comment. The two men came on, Hume striding a couple of paces in front of Conway, until they caught sight of her. Conway lifted his hat, his sullen eyes brightening. Hume, staring at her with the keen eye of appraisal, did not trouble himself to touch his hat and gave her no greeting beyond one of his curt nods. "They have not heard," Wanda thought with a little thrill of pity for Garth Conway who was so soon to learn of the death of the man who had been more like a brother than cousin to him. "Mamma will tell them." She hurried down the veranda to her room which was at the far end, at the southeast corner of the house. But she paused at the door as she heard her mother's voice, shaken and tearful, and the reply that one of the men made. It was Garth Conway. As though the utterance were drawn from him by the shock of the surprise, jerked from him involuntarily, he cried: "Dead? Murdered? My God! And he and Wayne quarrelled. . . ." "Go on!" It was Sledge Hume's heavy, colourless voice. "Just because two men quarrel it doesn't mean that one kills the other, does it?" "Garth!" cried Mrs. Leland. "You mustn't . . ." "I didn't say that," cried Conway. "I didn't mean . . ." Wanda waited to hear no more. She hurried into her room, to stand there trembling behind the closed door, her face as white as that other face she had looked upon earlier in the day. "He didn't do it!" she whispered. "He didn't. I know he didn't." But the thing which she carried in her bosom seemed to be demanding rudely: "Must you shut your eyes to believe with your heart?" And if other eyes than her own saw it? There was her closet, the open door showing the party dresses she had brought back from school. She shook her head. Her room was so plainly furnished with just a little dressing table, her bed, a chair, a stand with some wild flowers on it, a smaller table with half a dozen books scattered about. Then her eyes rested on the big trunk which had not yet been carried down into the basement. Running to it she flung up the lid and jerked out the tray. The bottom was half filled with odds and ends, stockings, slippers, linen. She took the revolver from her bosom, dropped it to the bottom of the trunk, covered it hastily with loose clothing, replaced the tray and closed the lid. But she could not feel that her secret was safe until she had found the key on her dressing table. The lock was troublesome, it was always troublesome. She was down on her knees, had just heard the little click which told her that the lock was fast, and was trying to work the key out again when the door opened softly and her mother came in.