at loss of memory stunt again. That's one of his best little
bets," he added sneering, "to lose his memory."

"I've never lost it yet!"

"No--then you can forget things awfully easy. Such as coming out here
and pretending not to know who you were. Guess you forgot your
identity for a minute, didn't you? Just like you forgot signing this
lease and stumpage contract! Yeh, you're good at that--losing your
memory. You never remember anything that happens. You can't even
remember the night you murdered your own cousin, can you?"

"That's a--"

"See, sheriff? His memory's bad." All the malice and hate of pent-up
enmity was in Fred Thayer's voice now. One gnarled hand went forward
in accusation. "He can't even remember how he killed his own cousin.
But if he can't, I can. Ask him about the time when he slipped that
mallet in his pocket at a prize fight and then went on out with his
cousin. Ask him what became of Tom Langdon after they left that prize
fight. He won't be able to tell you, of course. He loses his memory;
all he will be able to remember is that his father spent a lot of money
and hired some good lawyers and got him out of it. He won't be able to
tell you a thing about how his own cousin was found with his skull
crushed in, and the bloody wooden mallet lying beside him--the mallet
that this fellow had stolen the night before at a prize fight! He
won't--"

White-hot with anger, Barry Houston lurched forward, to find himself
caught in the arms of the sheriff and thrown back. He whirled,--and
stopped, looking with glazed, deadened eyes into the blanched,
horrified features of a girl who evidently had heard the accusation, a
girl who stood poised in revulsion a moment before she turned, and,
almost running, hurried to mount her horse and ride away. And the
strength of anger left the muscles of Barry Houston. The red flame of
indignation turned to a sodden, dead thing. He could only realize that
Medaine Robinette now knew the story. That Medaine Robinette had heard
him accused without a single statement given in his own behalf; that
Medaine, the girl of his smoke-wreathed dreams, now fully and
thoroughly believed him--a murderer!

CHAPTER XII

Dully Houston turned back to the sheriff and to the goggle-eyed
Ba'tiste, trying to fathom it all. Weakly he motioned toward Thayer,
and his words, when they came, were hollow and expressionless:

"That's a lie, Sheriff. I'll admit that I ha