"Go on," he said.

"I had been away nearly a week. I sat up and wrote a long letter to
Marjie. It would stand as clean evidence in court. I'm not ashamed of
what I put on paper, although it is my own business. Then I went out to
a certain place under the cliff where Marjie and I used to hide our
valentines and put little notes for each other years ago."

"The post-office is safer, Phil."

"Not with Tell Mapleson as postmaster."

He assented, and I went on. "I had come to the top again and was looking
at the beauty of the night, when somebody caught me by the throat. It
was Jean Pahusca."

Briefly then I related what had taken place.

"And after that?" queried my questioner.

"I ran into Lettie Conlow. She may have been there all the time. I do
not know, but I felt no obligation to take care of a girl who will not
take care of herself. It was rude, I know, and against my creed, but
that's the whole truth. I may be a certain kind of a fool about a girl I
know. But I'm not the kind of gay fool that goes out after divers and
strange women. Bill Mead told me this morning that he and Bud Anderson
passed Lettie somewhere out west alone after one o'clock. He was in a
hurry, but he stopped her and asked her why she should be out alone. I
think Bud went home with her. None of the boys want harm to come to her,
but she grows less pleasant every day. Bill would have gone home with
her, but he was hurrying out to Red Range. Dave's girl died out there
last night. Poor Dave!"

"Poor Dave!" my father echoed, and we sat in silence with our sympathy
going out to the fine young man whose day was full of sorrow.

"Well," my father said, "to come back to our work now. There are some
ugly stories going that I have yet to get hold of. Cam Gentry is helping
me toward it all he can. This land case will never come to court if
Mapleson can possibly secure the land in any other way. He'd like to
ruin us and pay off that old grudge against you for your part in
breaking up the plot against Springvale back in '63 and the suspicion it
cast on him. Do you see?"

I was beginning to see a little.

"Now, you go out to the stone cabin to-morrow afternoon and make a
thorough search for any papers or other evidence hidden there. The man
who owned that land was a degenerate son of a noble house. There are
some missing links in the evidence that our claim is incontestable. The
other claimant to the land is entirely under Tell Mapleson's contro