"You must be afraid that I am finding out some things," Jim Farland suggested.
"That is scarcely the reason," the masked man answered. "We want Sidney Prale to stand alone, to be without help of any sort—that is all."
"But I am more than Sidney Prale's employee. I am his friend!" Farland protested.
"You were his friend ten years ago, sir, but a man may change a great deal in ten years. Are you quite sure that the Sidney Prale of to-day is the boyish, friendly Sidney Prale of ten years ago?"
"I am quite sure; and that is why I am trying to help him," Jim Farland declared.
"I fear that he is fooling you—as he is deceiving others. He is not worthy of such friendship as you are giving him."
"How do I know that?" Farland asked. "If I could have some sort of an explanation——"
He awaited the other's reply. If he could get some inkling as to why Prale had powerful enemies, it might help a lot.
"I can tell you this much: Sidney Prale did something that wrecked and ruined several lives. Certain prominent persons have decided to punish him. He is to have his life made miserable, he is to have his fortune taken away from him, he is to be subjected to petty annoyances and hard blows alike, driven from this, his home town, forced to realize that a man cannot do what he did and escape retribution."
"Sounds like he murdered a nation!" Jim Farland commented. "Did he wreck the national treasury or turn traitor to the flag?"