“You know what has led up to the present wretched involvement—­my involvement,” Blount went on.  “When I took the railroad job, I did it in good faith and went about preaching the gospel of the square deal for everybody, including the corporations.  But in a very short time I discovered that my own people were not keeping faith with me; had no intention of keeping it.  Later on, a number of corporation officials and managers, men who had formerly made corrupt deals with the railroad company, and are to this day profiting by them, became frightened.  Assuming that I was the chief broker for the railroad company in the present campaign, these men wrote me letters which were in the highest degree incriminating.”

The big man who was staring into the heart of the fire nodded thoughtfully.

“I remember; you told me something about that before, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and we needn’t go into the details again.  I meant to use those letters as a club to hammer a little honesty into my own employers.  Up to that time I had been trying to believe that the machine—­your machine—­and the railroad lawbreakers were not one and the same thing.”

“But you changed your mind about that?”

“I had to, after I found out that you had corrupted one of my clerks and had sent one of your thugs to dynamite my safe.  That is past and gone; but you can see where it left me.  As you and everybody in the State know, I had been committing myself publicly everywhere, doing it with the assurance that when it came to the pinch I could bring Gantry and Kittredge and even Mr. McVickar himself to terms—­the terms of honesty and fair dealing.  With my weapon stolen, I was left helpless, facing the certainty that on the day after the election I should be pilloried in every hole and corner of my native State as the most shameless liar that ever breathed.  Do you wonder that I was desperate?”

“No, son; I reckon you wouldn’t have been much of a Blount if you hadn’t been.”

“I was desperate.  I said to myself that I would find another weapon, even if I should have to take a leaf out of your own book, dad, to do it.  I took the leaf, and I have the weapon.  You drove Gryson away, but you made one small miscalculation.  You didn’t believe that his desire for revenge would be stronger than his fear of the gallows.”

Again the older man nodded thoughtfully.

“Yes, son; I know.  He came back twice:  once when he found you in your office last Wednesday night; and again yesterday, or rather last evening, when you got out of your bed and went to help him make his getaway on the east-bound Overland.”

Evan Blount started back, and his exclamation was of pure astoundment.

“You knew all this?” he gasped.

“Oh, yes; I reckon there isn’t much happening that such a double-dyed old villain as I am doesn’t find out, Evan,” was the sober rejoinder.

“But, good heavens! if you know so much, you must know what Gryson came back for, and what he gave me!”