“Certainly. Where else would she be?”
Hobart stopped short and flung the stump of his cigar far out down the slope.
“Brant,” he said solemnly, “I thank God your mother is dead.”
“Amen,” said Brant softly.
There was another pause, and then Hobart spoke again. “There was a brother, George; what became of him?”
“He went to the bad, too—the worst kind of bad. He laid hold of the situation in the earliest stages, and bled me like a leech year in and year out, until one day I got him at a disadvantage and choked him off.”
“How did you manage it?”
“It was easy enough. He is an outlaw of the camps, and he has killed his man now and then when it seemed perfectly safe to do so. But the last time he slipped a cog in the safety wheel, and I took the trouble to get the evidence in shape to hang him. He knows I have it, and he’d sell his soul, if he had one, to get his fingers on the documents. In the meantime he lets me alone.”
“He will murder you some day for safety’s sake,” Hobart suggested.
“No, he won’t. I have made him believe that his life hangs on mine; that when I die the dogs of the law will be let loose.”