"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!"
"Yes; I know that, too. I reckon I might as well make a clean breast of it while I'm at it."