'," declared the spy
in conclusion. "He didn't nuver take no part hisself, but he used two
men thet didn't dast disobey him--two men thet he rules over like nigger
slaves--an' ther riders hev got one object over an' above everything
else, thet he aims ter hev 'em carry through. Thet is ter kill Parish
Thornton."

Hump Doane walked over and stood looking up from his squat, toad-like
deformity into the face of the man who towered above him, yet in his
eyes was the blaze with which a giant might look down on a pigmy.

"Ye says he used two men, Sim," the falsetto of the hunchback's voice
was as sharp as a dagger's point. "Ef ye came hyar fer any honest
purpose, I calls on ye, now, ter give me them two names."

Squires' face turned even paler than it had been. The veins along his
temple were pulsing, and his words caught and hung in hesitancy; but he
gulped and said in a forced voice: "I was one of 'em, Hump."

"An' t'other one? Who war he?"

Again the informer hesitated, this time longer than before, but in the
end he said dully:

"Hump, t'other one war--yore own boy, Pete."

CHAPTER XXXI

Strangely enough it was as though the old man's capacity for being
shocked or infuriated had been exhausted. There was no roar of maddened
wrath or denunciation of denial now. Never had Sim seen on a human face
such a despair of stricken grief. Hump Doane only passed an open palm
across his forehead. Somehow this hideous recital, which had made him an
old man in the space of a few minutes, blasting him like a thunder bolt,
could not be seriously doubted. It was not allegation but revelation.

Pete was young and impressionable. He was clay upon the wheel of Bas
Rowlett's domination, and of late he had been much away from home.

The father tried to straighten his twisted shoulders and his warped
back. He turned his eyes to the west where the fires of sunset were
crimson and purple, then he spoke again in a manner of recovered and
hard-held self-control.

"Ef these things ye tells me be true," he said, "I hev need ter know 'em
an' I'm beholden ter ye. Ef they're false ye've done struck me a blow I
kain't nuver fergive, an' I don't see how you an' me kin both go on
livin'. I aims ter find out fer myself, an' meanwhile--I'll keep my
pledge ter ye." He paused, then the leader triumphed over the stricken
individual.

"Keep right on goin' ter every meetin' ther riders holds," he directed,
quietly. "Don't suffer 'em ter susp