ection. To be in trouble was
a sure passport to the sympathy of Sheba. Now both her lovers were in
a sad way. Diane wondered which of them would gain most from this new
twist of fate.

Sheba turned to Mrs. Paget with an impulsive little burst of feminine
ferocity. "Why do they put him in prison when they must know he didn't
do it--that he couldn't do such a thing?"

"They don't all know as well as you do how noble he is, my dear,"
answered Diane dryly.

"But it's just absurd to think that he would plan the murder of a man he
has broken bread with for a few hundred dollars."

Diane flashed another odd little glance in the direction of her cousin.
Probably Sheba was the one woman in Kusiak who did not know that
Macdonald had served an ultimatum on Elliot to get out or fight and that
their rivalry over her favor was at the bottom of the difficulty between
them.

"It will work out all right," promised the older cousin.

Returning from their walk, they met Wally Selfridge coming out of the
Paget house.

"Did you see Mr. Macdonald?" asked Diane.

"Yes. He's quite rational now." There was a jaunty little strut of
triumph in Wally's cock-sure manner.

Mrs. Paget knew he had made himself very busy securing evidence against
Gordon. He was probably trying to curry favor with his chief. The little
man always had been jealous of Peter. Perhaps he was attempting to rap
him over the shoulder of Elliot because the Government official was a
friend of Paget. Just now his insolent voice suggested a special cause
for exultation.

The reason Wally was so pleased with himself was that he had dropped a
hint into the ear of the wounded man not to clear Elliot of complicity
in the attack upon him. The news that the special investigator had been
arrested for robbery and attempted murder, flashed all over the United
States, would go far to neutralize any report he might make against
the validity of the Macdonald claims. If to this could be added later
reports of an indictment, a trial, and possibly a conviction, it would
not matter two straws what Elliot said in his official statement to the
Land Office.

Since the attack upon his chief, Selfridge had moved on the presumption
that Elliot had been in a conspiracy to get rid of him. He accepted the
guilt of the field agent because this theory jumped with the interest
of Wally and his friends. As a politician he intended to play this new
development for all it was worth.

He had bee