“I knew he was there at the time, but he never told me anything.”
Here Dr. Hosmer spoke.
“Saurez died yesterday. It must have been shortly after he made this deposition. He died in Vorse’s saloon, which gives a color of suspicion to his death. In addition, Martinez, as you know, was dragged away somewhere.”
“Then Vorse learned old Saurez had blabbed, and killed him,” Johnson said, in a convinced tone. “Vorse is a bad bird, I want to say. But so are all of them, Sorenson, Burkhardt and Judge Gordon as well.”
Janet brought the talk back to the subject.
“You make me still wonder, Mr. Johnson,” she said. “You seemed to think there’s more to the account than is told in this paper.”
Again the rancher and his daughter glanced at each other, hesitatingly.
“Tell them, father,” Mary broke forth all at once. “They know this much, and you know you can trust them.”
The man, however, shook his head with a certain dogged purpose.
“If this is just a paper in some trifling lawsuit or other, it will be better if I keep my own counsel,” he stated. “I’ve riled Sorenson considerable as it is now, and I don’t care particularly about having him gunning on my trail active-like. If it really mattered–––”