“Then Clifton learned, somehow or other, of Clark’s legacy to Henry, and he put two and two together.  There was a bad time, but Henry denied it and they went upstairs to bed.  That night Clifton broke into Henry’s desk and found some letters from Elihu Clark that told the story.

“He almost went crazy.  He took the papers up to Henry’s and wakened him, standing over Henry with them in hand, and shaking all over.  I think they had a struggle, too.  All Henry told me was that he took them from him and threw them in the fire.

“That was a year before Henry died, and at the time young Jud Clark’s name was in all the newspapers.  He had left college after a wild career there, and although Elihu had tied up the property until Jud was twenty-one, Jud had his mother’s estate and a big allowance.  Then, too, he borrowed on his prospects, and he lost a hundred thousand dollars at Monte Carlo within six weeks after he graduated.

“One way and another he was always in the newspapers, and when he saw how Jud was throwing money away Clifton went wild.

“As Henry had burned the letters he had no proofs.  He didn’t know who his mother was, but he set to work to find out.  He ferreted into Elihu’s past life, and he learned something about Hattie Burgess, or Thorwald.  She was married by that time, and lived on a little ranch near Norada.  He went to see her, and he accused her downright of being his mother.  It must have been a bad time for her, for after all he was her son, and she had to disclaim him.  She had a husband and a boy by that husband, however, by that time, and she was desperate.  She threw him off the track somehow, lied and talked him down, and then went to bed in collapse.  She sent for Henry later and told him.

“The queer thing was that as soon as she saw him she wanted him.  He was her son.  She went to Henry one night, and said she had perjured her soul, and that she wanted him back.  She wasn’t in love with Thorwald.  I think she’d always cared for Clark.  She went away finally, however, after promising Henry she would keep Clark’s secret.  But I have a suspicion that later on she acknowledged the truth to the boy.

“What he wanted, of course, was a share of the Clark estate.  Of course he hadn’t a chance in law, but he saw a chance to blackmail young Jud Clark and he tried it.  Not personally, for he hadn’t any real courage, but by mail.  Clark’s attorneys wrote back saying they would jail him if he tried it again, and he went back to Dry River and after Henry again.

“That was in the spring of 1911.  Henry was uneasy, for Clifton was not like himself.  He had spells of brooding, and he took to making long trips on his horse into the mountains, and coming in with the animal run to death.  Henry thought, too, that he was seeing the Thorwald woman, the mother.  Thorwald had died, and she was living with the son on their ranch and trying to sell it.  He thought Hines was trying to have her make a confession which would give him a hold on Jud Clark.