"I haven't got any home--or anything--just you. Don't go to the door yourself. Leave the front door open. Stand behind the end of the piano till you are awfully sure who it is."

"What a head, Nan!"

De Spain cut off the lights, threw open the front door, and in the darkness sat down on the piano stool. A heavy step on the porch, a little while later, was followed by a knock on the open door.

"Come in!" called de Spain roughly. The bulk of a large man filled and obscured for an instant the opening, then the visitor stepped carefully over the threshold. "What do you want?" asked de Spain without changing his tone. He awaited with keenness the sound of the answer.

"Is Henry de Spain here?"

The voice was not familiar to de Spain's ear. He told himself the man was unknown to him. "I am Henry de Spain," he returned without hesitation. "What do you want?"

The visitor's deliberation was reflected in his measured speaking. "I am from Thief River," he began, and his reverberating voice was low and distinct. "I left there some time ago to do some work in Morgan's Gap. I guess you know, full as well as I do, that the general office at Medicine Bend has its own investigators, aside from the division men. I was sent in to Morgan's Gap some time ago to find out who burned the Calabasas barn."

"Railroad man, eh?"

"For about six years."

"And you report to----?"

"Kennedy."

De Spain paused in spite of his resolve to push the questions. While he listened a fresh conviction had flashed across his mind. "You called me up on the telephone one night last week," he said suddenly.

The answer came without evasion. "I did."

"I chased you across the river?"

"You did."

"You gave me a message from Nan Morgan that she never gave you."

"I did. I thought she needed you right off. She didn't know me as I rightly am. I knew what was going on. I rode into town that evening and rode out again. It was not my business, and I couldn't let it interfere with the business I'm paid to look after. That's the reason I dodged you."

"There is a chair at the left of the door; sit down. What's your name?"

The man feeling around slowly, deposited his angular bulk with care upon the little chair. "My name"--in the tenseness of the dark the words seemed to carry added mystery--"is Pardaloe."

"Where from?"

"My home is southwest of the Superst.i.tion Mountains."

"You've got a brother--Joe Pardaloe?" suggested de Spain to trap him.

"No, I've got no brother. I am just plain Jim Pardaloe."

"Say what you have got to say, Jim."

"The only job I could get in the Gap was with old Duke Morgan--I've been working for him, off and on, and spending the rest of my time with Gale and Dave Sa.s.soon. There were three men in the barn-burning.

Dave Sa.s.soon put up the job."

"Where is Dave Sa.s.soon now?"

"Dead."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say."

Both men were silent for a moment.

"Yesterday morning's fight?" asked de Spain reluctantly.

"Yes, sir."

"How did he happen to catch us on El Capitan?"

"He saw a fire on Music Mountain and watched the lower end of the Gap all night. Sa.s.soon was a wide-awake man."

"Well, I'm sorry, Pardaloe," continued de Spain after a moment.

"n.o.body could call it my fault. It was either he or I--or the life of a woman who never harmed a hair of his head, and a woman I'm bound to protect. He was running when he was. .h.i.t. If he had got to cover again there was nothing to stop him from picking both of us off. I shot low--most of the lead must have gone into the ground."

"He was. .h.i.t in the head."

De Spain was silent.

"It was a soft-nose bullet," continued Pardaloe.

Again there was a pause. "I'll tell you about that, too, Pardaloe," de Spain went on collectedly. "I lost my rifle before that man opened fire on us. Nan happened to have her rifle with her--if she hadn't, he'd 've dropped one or both of us off El Capitan. We were pinned against the wall like a couple of targets. If there were soft-nose bullets in her rifle it's because she uses them on game--bobcats and mountain-lions. I never thought of it till this minute. That is it."

"What I came up to tell you has to do with Dave Sa.s.soon. From what happened to-day in the Gap I thought you ought to know it now. Gale and Duke quarrelled yesterday over the way things turned out; they were pretty bitter. This afternoon Gale took it up again with his uncle, and it ended in Duke's driving him clean out of the Gap."

"Where has he gone?"

"n.o.body knows yet. Ed Wickwire told me once that your father was shot from ambush a good many years ago. It was north of Medicine Bend, on a ranch near the Peace River; that you never found out who killed him, and that one reason why you came up into this country was to keep an eye out for a clew."

"What about it?" asked de Spain, his tone hardening.

"I was riding home one night about a month ago from Calabasas with Sa.s.soon. He'd been drinking. I let him do the talking. He began cussing you out, and talked pretty hard about what you'd done, and what he'd done, and what he was going to do--" Nothing, it seemed, would hurry the story. "Finally, Sa.s.soon says: 'That hound don't know yet who got his dad. It was Duke Morgan; that's who got him. I was with Duke when he turned the trick. We rode down to de Spain's ranch one night to look up a rustler.' That," concluded Pardaloe, "was all Sa.s.soon would say."

He stopped. He seemed to wait. There was no word of answer, none of comment from the man sitting near him. But, for one, at least, who heard the pa.s.sionless, monotonous recital of a murder of the long ago, there followed a silence as relentless as fate, a silence shrouded in the mystery of the darkness and striking despair into two hearts--a silence more fearful than any word.

Pardaloe shuffled his feet. He coughed, but he evoked no response. "I thought you was ent.i.tled to know," he said finally, "now that Sa.s.soon will never talk any more."

De Spain moistened his lips. When he spoke his voice was cracked and harsh, as if with what he had heard he had suddenly grown old.

"You are right, Pardaloe. I thank you. I--when I--in the morning.

Pardaloe, for the present, go back to the Gap. I will talk with Wickwire--to-morrow."

"Good night, Mr. de Spain."