quite according to the customs and ideas of the time; George Pollock should have been justified a thousand times over in sight of God and man.  Those things were to Bob’s mind indisputable.  To deprive the one man of a very small portion of his fraudulently acquired property, it was apparently necessary to punish three men who should not be punished.  These men were, furthermore, all dear to Bob personally.  It did not seem right that his decision should plunge them into undeserved penalties.  But now the situation was materially altered.  Bob also stood in danger from his action.  He, too, must suffer with the others.  All were in the same boat.  The menace to his own liberty justified his course.  The innocent must suffer with the guilty; but now the fact that he was one of those who must so suffer, raised his decision from a choice to a necessity.  Whatever the consequences, the simplest, least perplexing, most satisfying course was to follow the obvious right.  The odium of ingratitude, of lack of affection, of disloyalty, of self-reproach was lifted from him by the very fact that he, too, was one of those who must take consequences.  In making the personal threat against the young man’s liberty, Oldham had, without knowing it, furnished to his soul the one valid reason for going ahead, conscience-clear.

Though naturally Oldham could not follow out this psychology, he was shrewd enough to understand that he had failed.  This surprised him, for he had entertained not the slightest doubt that the threat of the penitentiary would bring Bob to terms.

On arriving in the city, Oldham took quarters at the Buena Vista and sent for Saleratus Bill, whom he had summoned by wire as soon as he had heard from that individual of Bob’s intended visit to Fremont.

The spy arrived wearing a new broad, black hat, a celluloid collar, a wrinkled suit of store clothes, and his same shrewd, evil leer.  Oldham did not appear, but requested that the visitor be shown into his room.  There, having closed the transom, he issued his instructions.

“I want you to pay attention, and not interrupt,” said he.  “Within a month a case is coming up in which Orde, the Forest man, is to appear as witness.  He must not appear.  I leave that all to you, but, of course, I want no more than necessary violence.  He must be detained until after the trial, and for as long after that as I say.  Understand?”

“Sure,” said Saleratus Bill.  “But when he comes back, he’ll fix you just the same.”

“I’ll see to that part of it.  The case will never be reopened.  Now, mind you, no shooting——­”

“There might be an accident,” suggested Saleratus Bill, opening his red eyes and staring straight at his principal.

“Accidents,” said Oldham, speaking slowly and judicially, “are always likely to happen.  Sometimes they can’t be helped.”  He paused to let these words sink in.

Saleratus Bill wrinkled his eyes in an appreciative laugh.  “Accidents is of two kinds:  lucky and unlucky,” he remarked briefly, by way of parenthesis.