“Did you notice any excitement around the hotel as you drove away?”

“Excitement? Reckon not. A feller I know spoke to me, but I was too durn mad to answer him decent.”

“But didn’t you notice anything else?”

Low thought a moment.

“Now I think of it,” he said, “I do remember seein’ two or three men runnin’ down the street at the side of the hotel, but I was so durn mad that I didn’t turn my head. The hull town mought ha’ been on fire fer all I cared. I was thinkin’ of how I’d been cheated.”

“I understand.”

If Nick had had any doubt of this man’s innocence it was all gone now.

Low was no actor; just a plain, honest farmer—bullheaded, quick-tempered and unreasonable, perhaps, but no murderer.

He couldn’t have told his story of the afternoon in that straightforward way, if he had been guilty.