scare into him. If he were that kind,
he wouldn't have told us who he is. He wanted us to know he's after
us, that's my opinion. He wants to shake our nerve--and he shook the
Judge's all right that day at my bar."

"He did," Gordon admitted. "The thing was so infernally unexpected.
Almost like Joe Weir himself appearing. I didn't sleep a wink that
night, what with my heart being bad and what with seeing him."

"Suppose he _has_ proofs?" Vorse asked after a pause, while his
narrowed eyes moved from one to another of his companions.

A considerable silence followed. The question jerked into full light
the issue that had all the while been lurking in the recesses of their
minds--an issue full of ghastly possibilities. Judge Gordon's fingers
trembled as he wiped with handkerchief the cold sweat on his brow.

"We're all in it," Vorse added.

Burkhardt brought his fist down on the desk with a sudden crash.

"If he has proofs, then it's him or us," he exclaimed, while the
blood suffused his face. "Him or us--and that means him! I'll never go
behind bars!"

"Sure not. None of us," Vorse said.

"It will mean----" Judge Gordon began in an agitated voice, but did
not finish.

Sorenson gave a nod of his head. His bear-trap mouth was compressed in
a determined evil line.

"Exactly. He'll never use his proofs. We're in too far to halt now if
matters come to the point of his trying to use them. He has a grip on
us in one way; he knows we can't declare his father, Joe Weir, did the
killing; that would make us--what do you call it, Judge?"

"Accomplices after the fact. Besides, it would then come out that we
had taken over and shared among us his stuff, fifty thousand apiece.
It's a deplorable situation we're in, gentlemen, deplorable. If we
were but able to start the story Joe Weir believed and fled because
of, it would cut the ground out from under this man's feet at once."

"It's him we'll cut, not the ground under him," Burkhardt growled,
thrusting his hairy chin forward towards the lawyer. "And cut his
damned throat."

"I hate to think of our being forced to--to homicide. Even justifiable
homicide."

"Homicide nothing! It's just killing a rattlesnake waiting in the
brush to strike. That's the way we used to do in the old days, and if
he's going to bring them back that's what we'll do again."

Sorenson smiled grimly.

"We'll wait till we're sure he has the proofs, then----"

"Then we'll act quick and sure," Vor