He shut the door and turned upon the post-trader.  “Now, then, father-in-law,” he said, briskly, “you’ve got to cut and run, and you’ve got to run quick.  We’ll tell ’em you’re going to Fort Worth to buy the engagement ring, because I can’t, being under arrest.  But you go to Duncan City instead, and from there take the cars, to—­”

“Run away!” Cahill repeated, dazedly.  “But you’ll be court-martialled.”

“There won’t be any court-martial!”

Cahill glanced around the room quickly.  “I see,” he cried.  In his eagerness he was almost smiling.  “I’m to leave a confession and give it to you.”

“Confession!  What rot!” cried Ranson.

“They can’t prove anything against me.  Everyone knows by now that there were two men on the trail, but they don’t know who the other man was, and no one ever must know—­especially Mary.”

Cahill struck the table with his fist.  “I won’t stand for it!” he cried.  “I got you into this and I’m goin’—­”

“Yes, going to jail,” retorted Ranson.  “You’ll look nice behind the bars, won’t you?  Your daughter will be proud of you in a striped suit.  Don’t talk nonsense.  You’re going to run and hide some place, somewhere, where Mary and I can come and pay you a visit.  Say—­ Canada.  No, not Canada.  I’d rather visit you in jail than in a Montreal hotel.  Say Tangier, or Buenos Ayres, or Paris.  Yes, Paris is safe enough—­and so amusing.”

Cahill seated himself heavily.  “I trapped you into this fix, Mr. Ranson,” he said, “you know I did, and now I mean to get you out of it.  I ain’t going to leave the man my Mame wants to marry with a cloud on him.  I ain’t going to let her husband be jailed.”

Ranson had run to his desk and from a drawer drew forth a roll of bills.  He advanced with them in his hand.

“Yes, Paris is certainly the place,” he said.  “Here’s three hundred dollars.  I’ll cable you the rest.  You’ve never been to Paris, have you?  It’s full of beautiful sights—­Henry’s American Bar, for instance, and the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, and Maxim’s.  All good Americans go to Paris when they die and all the bad ones while they are alive.  You’ll find lots of both kinds, and you’ll sit all day on the sidewalk and drink Bock and listen to Hungarian bands.  And Mary and I will join you there and take you driving in the Bois.  Now, you start at once.  I’ll tell her you’ve gone to New York to talk it over with father, and buy the ring.  Then I’ll say you’ve gone on to Paris to rent us apartments for the honeymoon.  I’ll explain it somehow.  That’s better than going to jail, isn’t it, and making us bow our heads in grief?”

Cahill, in his turn, approached the desk and, seating himself before it, began writing rapidly.

“What is it?” asked Ranson.

“A confession,” said Cahill, his pen scratching.

“I won’t take it,” Ranson said, “and I won’t use it.”

“I ain’t going to give it to you,” said Cahill, over his shoulder.  “I know better than that.  But I don’t go to Paris unless I leave a confession behind me.  Call in the guard,” he commanded; “I want two witnesses.”