oyle said
quietly. Halbeck did so. There was no other way.

Foyle drew it over to himself. His brother made a motion to rise.

"Sit still, Dorl," came the warning voice.

White with rage, the freebooter sat still, his dissipated face and heavy
angry lips looking like a debauched and villainous caricature of his
brother before him.

"Yes, I suppose you'd have potted me, Dorl," said the ex-sergeant.

"You'd have thought no more of doing that than you did of killing
Linley, the ranchman; than you did of trying to ruin Jo Byndon, your
wife's sister, when she was sixteen years old, when she was caring for
your child--giving her life for the child you brought into the world."

"What in the name of hell--it's a lie!"

"Don't bluster. I know the truth."

"Who told you-the truth?"

"She did--to-day--an hour ago."

"She here--out here?" There was a new cowed note in the voice.

"She is in the next room."

"What did she come here for?"

"To make you do right by your own child. I wonder what a jury of decent
men would think about a man who robbed his child for five years, and
let that child be fed and clothed and cared for by the girl he tried to
destroy, the girl he taught what sin there was in the world."

"She put you up to this. She was always in love with you, and you know
it."

There was a dangerous look in Foyle's eyes, and his jaw set hard. "There
would be no shame in a decent woman caring for me, even if it was
true. I haven't put myself outside the boundary as you have. You're
my brother, but you're the worst scoundrel in the country--the worst
unhanged. Put on the table there the letter in your pocket. It holds
five hundred dollars belonging to your child. There's twenty-five
hundred dollars more to be accounted for."

The other hesitated, then with an oath threw the letter on the table.
"I'll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you'll stop this damned
tomfoolery," he said sullenly, for he saw that he was in a hole.

"You'll pay it, I suppose, out of what you stole from the C.P.R.
contractor's chest. No, I don't think that will do."

"You want me to go to prison, then?"

"I think not. The truth would come out at the trial--the whole
truth--the murder, and all. There's your child Bobby. You've done him
enough wrong already. Do you want him--but it doesn't matter whether
you do or not--do you want him to carry through life the fact that his
father was a jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carr