nd how the fugitive
had disclosed the conspiracy of Steptoe and Hall against the bank and
Marshall as the price of his own release. On this news, remembering that
Stacy had passed the Divide on his way to the station, he had first sent
a dispatch to him, and then met him at the first station on the road.
"I reckon, gentlemen," said Hamlin, with an unusual earnestness in his
voice, "that he'd not only got my telegram, but ALL THE NEWS that had
been flying around this morning, for he looked like a man to whom it
was just a 'toss-up' whether he took his own life then and there or was
willing to have somebody else take it for him, for he said, 'I'll go
myself,' and telegraphed to have the surveyor stopped from coming. Then
he told me to tell you fellows, and ask you to come too." Jack paused,
and added half mischievously, "He sort of asked ME what I would take
to stand by him in the row, if there was one, and I told him I'd
take--whiskey! You see, boys, it's a kind of off-night with me, and
I wouldn't mind for the sake of old times to finish the game with old
Steptoe that I began a matter of five years ago."

"All right," said Demorest, with a kindling eye; "I suppose we'd better
start at once. One moment," he added. "Barker boy, will you excuse me if
I speak a word to Hamlin?" As Barker nodded and walked to the rails of
the veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, "You and I," he said hurriedly,
"are SINGLE men; Barker has a wife and child. This is likely to be no
child's play."

But Jack Hamlin was no fool, and from certain leading questions which
Barker had already put, but which he had skillfully evaded, he surmised
that Barker knew something of his wife's escapade. He answered a little
more seriously than his wont, "I don't think as regards HIS WIFE that
would make much difference to him or her how stiff the work was."

Demorest turned away with his last pang of bitterness. It needed only
this confirmation of all that Stacy had hinted, of what he himself had
seen in his brief interview with Mrs. Barker since his return, to shake
his last remaining faith. "We'll all go together, then," he said, with
a laugh, "as in the old times, and perhaps it's as well that we have no
woman in our confidence."

An hour later the three men passed quietly out of the hotel, scarcely
noticed by the other guests, who were also oblivious of their absence
during the evening. For Mrs. Barker, quite recovered from her fatiguing
ride, was in hi