ing. No one stirred and after a moment she went on:

"I have asked my old friends, my real friends, to meet me here that
they, too, may learn the truth. Most of you have heard the legend of
the Lost Souls' Pool; Mr. Larkin heard it from Ben Hallock and sent
Kearn Thode down here to find it, if he could. Mr. Chase also learned
it, and his partner came on the same errand, but I had the story from
the lineal descendant of the first Spanish owner, and the one person in
the world who knew where it was located, Juana Reyes. In her youth she
married a cousin of the same name, and her only relative living now is
her crippled grandson, Jose. My foster father scoffed at the truth of
the legend, but I had faith in Tia Juana's knowledge.

"When El Negrito, the butcher, came down from the hills on his
murderous raid and killed Dad among the rest, I learned that his visit
had been prearranged and paid for by a white man. He had been hired to
burn and rape and slay in order to evoke United States intervention, by
a man in this room!"

"By God----" Jim Baggott leaped to his feet, and Henry Bailey and Ben
Hallock emitted a simultaneous roar of rage; but she silenced them.

"The government men are here as much to protect him as to see that he
does not escape, and hard as it is we must let the law take its
course." She spoke with frank regret, but her steady, significant
smile never wavered. "In Dad's name I dedicated my life to getting
that man. I had a witness to prove his conspiracy, but I wanted to
play a lone hand. Nothing else mattered, nothing else has ever
mattered!

"When the Blue Chip was sold and Jim Baggott handed over the money to
me I knew it wouldn't be enough; if I was to beat the man at his own
game I must be able to match finances as well as wits. I thought then
of the Pool of the Lost Souls and the fabulous profits to be made from
it.

"Three days before Mr. North came to Limasito I took Tia Juana away,
and she guided me to the Pool. It had been passed over by the
searchers for generations, but she possessed an old map of its true
location. I bought the Pool with the money from the sale of the Blue
Chip, recorded it in her name with the Notary at Victoria and gave her
a half interest. All she cared about, anyway, was the home of her
ancestors.

"Then Mr. North brought the news of my inheritance. I didn't want it
at first, as he can tell you. The name and the money meant little to
me until I rea