"Get it down. You haven't much time."
Horton's pen scratched and spluttered, as sinking now and then almost beyond hearing, the disjointed words fell from the lips that could scarcely frame them; but it was nevertheless with a horrible vividness that Damer told his story, and those who sat listening gasped with relief when at last it was finished and everything was plain. Then he signed to the doctor, who raised his head a trifle and once more held a glass to his lips.
"Read it. I want to see you've got it straight," he said. For a space Horton's voice rose and fell monotonously as he read in haste. Then he approached the bed with the paper, and the dying man seized the pen. He traced a few straggling characters upon the document, and let it fall again, watched with strained impatience while Horton and the surveyor signed, and then turned his head from the light.
"Now," he said, "I guess I've fixed the man who held the whip over me up quite tight."
It was probably ten minutes before he moved again, and then he signed to Alton very feebly with his fingers, while a curious look that afterwards puzzled the rancher, who could not forget it, crept into his eyes. There was vindictiveness in it, but whether there was more than this he could never tell.
"There's just another thing," he said in a hoarse, strained whisper as Alton bent over him. "Come nearer—a little nearer still. Now there was another man as well as Hallam."
Alton glancing round saw that the others had not heard, and stooped a trifle further as the cracked lips moved again. Nobody caught what Damer told him, but when he straightened himself again his face was white and grim, and he went out without a word to any one. Then the flicker of a smile came into the eyes of the dying man, and he moved his head so that his face was hidden. The doctor, crossing over softly, looked down on him and signed to the others that they might leave the room.
"He may last an hour or two, but I don't think he will speak again," he said.
In the meanwhile Alton strode with hands clenched into the shadows of the silent pines. He had long been troubled by vague suspicions, and had driven them away, but he could not doubt what Damer had told him, and groaned as he stood face to face with the verity. He had been too proud to stoop at any time to take an unfair advantage of an enemy, but he could not lightly forget a wrong, and there was a trace of stubborn vindictiveness within him. Hallam had brought him down to ruin, and thrice struck at his life by treachery, and now Damer's testimony had placed his enemy in his hand. He had but to close it and crush him, but he also realized with fierce anger what this would cost him, for Hallam had, it seemed, protected himself effectively. If he dragged Hallam down Deringham must fall with him, and while that consideration alone would not have stayed him in spite of the curious pride of race and family which he had become sensible of of late, it was evident that his daughter must suffer too. She had done no wrong, and Alton, who thought of her with a great tenderness, dare not contemplate all that the revelation would cost her.
It would have been bitter to let his enemy go free, had he stood alone, but that was, he realized, what no man can do, and there were behind him with their future linked to his the ranchers of Somasco whose safety demanded that he should put it out of Hallam's power to do them a further injury. It would also be so simple. He had but to hold his hand, and Horton would take all the action that was needful.