e mostly out for
a big piece of money quick. Anyway, in this thing Allan found Murray
and brought him along a partner in a gold stake. He brought him
because the proposition was too big, and too rich for him to handle on
his own. Get that. And Murray knew what he was coming to. That was
Allan's way. He handed him the whole story because he was a straight
dealing feller who didn't understand the general run of crookedness
lying around. It was no partnership in a bum trading outfit. It was a
big gold proposition, and _it had to be kept secret_.

"Murray came along up. Maybe he had no thought then of what he was
going to do later. Maybe he had an eye wide open anyway. He got a
grip on things right away. He found a feller who didn't know how to
distrust a louse. He found two white women, as simple as the snow on
the hilltops, and a boy who hadn't a heap of sense. He found an old
priest who just lived for the love of helping along the life of those
around him. And he found gold, such as maybe he'd dreamed of but never
thought to see. Do you get it? Do I need to tell you? Murray, hard
as a flint, and with a pile set out in front of him for the taking.
Can you hear him telling himself in that old Fort that he's there on a
share only, while he runs the things for a simple feller, and his
folks, who haven't a real notion beyond the long trail? I can hear
him. I can hear the whole rotten story as he thinks it out. It's the
same, always the same. The mania for gold gets men mad. It drives
them like a slave under the lash. But Murray is cleverer than most. A
heap cleverer. This thing is too big for any fool chance. It wants to
go so no tracks are left. So no one, not even those simple women, or
that honest priest, can make a guess. So there isn't a half-breed or
Indian around the Fort can get wise. There's just one way to work it,
and for nigh ten years he schemes so the Bell River terror under Louis
Creal gets busy. We've seen the result here. We heard his yarn from
old Thunder-Cloud, and to fix things the way he needed he only had to
buy over a dirty half-breed, which is the best production of hell
walking the earth.

"With the murder of Allan, _by the Indians_, his whole play begins. He
goes up with an outfit. There's no fooling. His outfit sees the
result. There's nothing to be done. So he gets right back with the
mutilated body, and mourns with the folk he's injured. Yes, it's
clever. T