cook had been interested in the explosion. He tried
to talk of it with Corrigan, but the latter adroitly directed the
conversation otherwise. The cook would have said they had a pleasant talk.
Corrigan seemed very companionable this morning. He laughed a little; he
listened attentively when the cook talked. After a while Corrigan fumbled
in his pockets. Not finding a cigar, he looked eloquently at the cook's
pipe, in the latter's mouth, belching much smoke.

"Not a single cigar," he said. "I'm dying for a taste of tobacco."

The cook took his pipe from his mouth and wiped the stem hastily on a
sleeve. "If you don't mind I've been suckin' on it," he said, extending
it.

"I wouldn't deprive you of it for the world." Corrigan shifted his
position, looked down at the table and smiled. "Luck, eh?" he said,
picking up a black brier that lay on the table behind him. "Got plenty of
tobacco?"

The cook dove for a box in a corner and returned with a cloth sack,
bulging. He watched while Corrigan filled the pipe, and grinned while his
guest was lighting it.

"Carson'll be ravin' today for forgettin' his pipe. He must have left it
layin' on the table this mornin'--him bein' in such a rush to get down, to
the explosion."

"It's Carson's, eh?" Corrigan surveyed it with casual interest. "Well,"
after taking a few puffs "--I'll say for Carson that he knows how to take
care of it."

He left shortly afterward, laying the pipe on the table where he had found
it. Five minutes later he was in Judge Lindman's presence, leaning over
the desk toward the other.

"I want you to issue a warrant for Patrick Carson. I want him brought in
here for examination. Charge him with being an accessory before the fact,
or anything that seems to fit the case. But throw him into the cooler--and
keep him there until he talks. He knows who broke into the dynamite shed,
and therefore he knows who did the dynamiting. He's friendly with
Trevison, and if we can make him admit he saw Trevison at the shed, we've
got the goods. He warned Trevison the other day, when I had the deputies
lined up at the butte, and I found his pipe this morning near the door of
the dynamite shed. We'll make him talk, damn him!"

* * * * *

Banker Braman had closed the door between the front and rear rooms, pulled
down the shades of the windows, lighted the kerosene lamp, and by its
wavering flicker was surveying his reflection in the