"Out with it," Simon stormed. His tone was really urgent now, not insolent as usual. "Good Lord, man, don't you know that if Bruce gets that down to the settlements before the thirtieth of next month we're lost--and nothing in this world can save us? We can't drive _him_ off, like we drove the Rosses. There's too much law down in the valleys. If he's got that paper, there's only one thing to do. Help me saddle a horse." "Wait a minute. I didn't say he had it. I only said he knew where it was. He's still an hour or two walk from here, toward Little River, and if we have to wait for him on the trail, we've got plenty of time. And of course I ain't quite sure he _does_ know where it is." Simon smiled mirthlessly. "The news is beginning to sound like the rest of yours." "Old Hudson is dead," Dave went on. "And don't look at me--I didn't do it. I wish I had, though, first off. For once my judgment was better than yours. The Killer got him." "Yes. Go on." "I was with him when it happened. My gun got jammed so I couldn't shoot." "Where is it now?" Dave scrambled in vain for a story to explain the loss of his weapon to Bruce, and the one that came out at last didn't do him particular credit. "I--I threw the damn thing away. Wish I hadn't now, but it made me so mad by jamming--it was a fool trick. Maybe I can go back after it and find it." Simon smiled again. "Very good so far," he commented. Dave flushed. "Bruce was there too--fact is, creased the bear--and the last minute before he died Hudson told him where the agreement was hidden. I couldn't hear all he said--I was too far away--but I heard enough to think that he told Bruce the hiding, place. It was natural Hudson would know it, and we were fools for not asking him about it long ago." "And why didn't you get that information away from Bruce with your gun?" "Didn't I tell you the thing was jammed? If it hadn't of been for that, I'd done something more than find out where it is. I'd stopped this nonsense once and for all, and let a hole through that tenderfoot big enough to see through. _Then_ there'd never be any more trouble. It's the thing to do now." Simon looked at his brother's face with some wonder. More crafty and cunning, Dave was like the coyote in that he didn't yield so quickly to fury as that gray wolf, his brother. But when it did come, it seared him. It had come now. Simon couldn't mistake the fact; he saw it plain in the glowing eyes, the clenched hands, the drawn lips. Dave was remembering the pain of the blow Bruce had given him, and the smart of the words that had preceded it. "You and he must have had a little session down there by the creek," Simon suggested slowly, "when your gun was jammed. Of course, he took the gun. What's the use of trying to lie to me?" "He did. What could I do?" "And now you want him potted--from ambush."