In the meantime, I had been holding a whispered colloquy with Westmore.

“He sneaked in on me at dark, sir,” he told me, “on foot.  I don’t know how he got in without being seen.  They’d have found his tracks anyway in the morning.  I don’t think he knew quite what he wanted to do.  Him and me were old pals, and he wanted to ask me about things.  He didn’t expect to stay, I fancy.  He told me he had left his horse tied a mile or so down the road.  Then a while back orders came to close down, air tight.  We’re used to such orders.  Nobody can go out or come in, you understand.  And there are guards placed.  That made him uneasy.  He told me then he was a hop fiend.  I’ve seen them before, and I got uneasy, too.  If he came to the worst I might have to tie and gag him.  I know how they are.”

“Go ahead,” I urged.  He had stopped to listen.

“I don’t like that Cortinez being so handy like out there,” he confessed.

“Hooper told him he could sleep.  He’s not likely to pay attention to us.  Miss Emory and I have been talking aloud.”

“I hope not.  Well, then, Ramon came by and stopped to talk to me for a minute.  I had to hide Artie in a box-stall and hope to God he kept quiet.  He wasn’t as bad as he is now.  Ramon told me about you being caught, and went on.  After that nothing must do but find you.  He thought you might have his dope.  He’d have gone into the jaws of hell after it.  So I came along to keep him out of mischief.”

“What are you going to do now?” asked the girl, who had kicked off her slippers and had been walking a few paces to and fro.

“I don’t know, ma’am.  We’ve got to get away.”

“We?”

“You mean me, too?  Yes, ma’am!  I have stood with the doings of this place as long as I can stand them.  Artie has told me some other things.  Are you here of your free will, ma’am?” he asked, abruptly.

“No,” she replied.

“I suspected as much.  I’m through with the whole lot of them.”

Brower opened his eyes.  He was now quite calm.

“Hooper sold the Morgan stallion,” he whispered, smiled sardonically, and closed his eyes again.

“Without telling me a word of it!” added Tim with heat.  “He ain’t delivered him yet.”

“Well, I don’t blame you.  Now you’d better quietly sneak back to your quarters.  There is likely to be trouble before we get through.  You, too, Brower.  Nobody knows you are here.”

Brower opened his eyes again.

“I can get out of this place now I’ve had me hop,” said he, decidedly.  “Come on, let’s go.”

“We’ll all go,” I agreed; “but let’s see what we can find here first.  There may be some paper—­or something——­”

“What do you mean?  What sort of papers?  Hadn’t we better go at once?”

“It is supposed to be well known that the reason Hooper isn’t assassinated from behind a bush is because in that case his killers are in turn to assassinate a long list of his enemies.  Only nobody is sure:  just as nobody is really sure that he has killers at all.  You can’t get action on an uncertainty.”