“Do you know who killed my uncle?” demanded Lane point-blank.  “Did you see it done?”

Olson’s eyes narrowed.  A crafty light shone through the slitted lids.  “Hold yore hawsses.  I ain’t said I knew a thing.  Not a thing.  I was stringin’ you.”

Kirby knew he had overshot the mark.  He had been too eager and had alarmed the man.  He was annoyed at himself.  It would take time and patience and finesse to recover lost ground.  Shrewdly he guessed at the rancher’s state of mind.  The man wanted to tell something, was divided in mind whether to come forward as a witness or keep silent.  His evidence, it was clear enough, would implicate Hull; but, perhaps indirectly, it would involve himself, too.

“Well, whatever it is you know, I hope you’ll tell it,” the cattleman said.  “But that’s up to you, not me.  If Hull is the murderer, I want the crime fastened on him.  I don’t want him to get off scot free.  An’ that’s about what’s goin’ to happen.  The fellow’s guilty, I believe, but we can’t prove it.”

“Can’t we?  I ain’t sure o’ that.”  Again, through the narrowed lids, wary guile glittered.  “Mebbe we can when the right time comes.”

“I doubt it.”  Lane spoke casually and carelessly.  “Any testimony against him loses force if it’s held out too long.  The question comes up, why didn’t the witness come right forward at once.  No, I reckon Hull will get away with it—­if he really did it.”

“Don’t you think it,” Olson snapped out.  “They’ve pretty nearly got enough now to convict him.”

The rough rider laughed cynically.  “Convict him!  They haven’t enough against him even to make an arrest.  They’ve got a dozen times as much against me an’ they turned me loose.  He’s quite safe if he keeps his mouth shut—­an’ he will.”

Olson flung a greasewood shrub on a pile of brush.  His mind, Kirby could see, was busy with the problem before it.  The man’s caution and his vindictive desire for vengeance were at war.  He knew something, evidence that would tend to incriminate Hull, and he was afraid to bring it to the light of day.  He worked automatically, and the man on horseback watched him.  On that sullen face Kirby could read fury, hatred, circumspection, suspicion, the lust for revenge.

The man’s anger barked at Lane.  “Well, what you waitin’ for?” he asked harshly.

“Nothin’.  I’m goin’ now.”  He wrote his Denver address on a card.  “If you find there is any evidence against Hull an’ want to talk it over, perhaps you’d rather come to me than the police.  I’m like you.  If Hull did it I want him found guilty.  So long.”

He handed Olson his card.  The man tossed it away.  Kirby turned his horse toward town.  Five minutes later he looked back.  The settler had walked across to the place where he had thrown the card and was apparently picking it up.

The man from Wyoming smiled.  He had a very strong hunch that Olson would call on him within a week or ten days.  Of course he was disappointed, but he knew the game had to be played with patience.  At least he had learned something.  The man had in his possession evidence vitally important.  Kirby meant to get that evidence from him somehow by hook or crook.