s no
longer necessary.

All mystery was banished. The whole thing, in spite of Kate's denial,
was as plain as daylight. Charlie was a whisky-runner. The head of
the gang. His little "one-eyed" ranch was the merest blind. His
prosperity, if prosperity he possessed at all, was the prosperity of
successful defiance of the law. To the simple brother this realization
was a terrible one. Charlie, the brother to whom he had always been so
devoted, was a crook, a mere common crook.

His discovery of the previous evening had come as a far greater shock
than might have been expected, considering all Bill had heard and
witnessed of his brother's doings. But then it is the way of things to
make the witnessing of a disaster far more terrible than listening to
the story told in language however lurid. Last night he had watched
his brother supplying contraband liquor to the saloonkeeper.

It had happened in this way. After his first experiences on the night
of his arrival he had been determined to avoid so unpleasant a
sequence of occurrences on the second. Charlie had ridden off directly
after supper, and Bill took the opportunity of paying an evening call
upon Kate and Helen Seton. The chance he had deemed too good to miss.
At least there was nothing of mystery and suspicion there, and he
desired more than anything to breathe a wholesome air of frank
honesty. These girls, particularly Helen, were the one bright spot in
this crime-shadowed valley. To his mind Helen was a perfect ray of
sunshine, which made the shadows in the place something more than
possible of endurance.

His call was welcomed in a manner that was obvious, even to his
simple mind. And never in his life had he spent an evening of more
whole-hearted enjoyment than he did with Helen, while her less
volatile sister considerately kept herself more or less out of the
way.

Had his evening ended there his peace of mind might have suffered no
further shock, but, as it was, the comparatively natural desire to
celebrate his successful evening with a drink at O'Brien's sent him
off in the direction of the village.

Proceeding rapidly along the trail, full of happy thoughts of Helen,
with her ready wit and gaiety, he was dreaming pleasantly all those
delightful dreams, which every man at some time in his life, finds
running through his head. Then suddenly he was aroused to the scene
about him by the yellow light of a back window of O'Brien's saloon,
just ahead of him.