"You don't dare to go!" stormed Murgatroyd. "What have I been paying you, for? Tell me that. You'll stay away from Fort Totten, Newt. I've brought money enough to take you to South America, and that's where you're going."
Newt's eyes brightened a little.
"I wonder if you really mean to shell out enough to take me that far?" he asked.
"Yes," cried the broker, "and I'll pay you well for going, too."
"You won't go, Newt," put in Matt. "You're not going to let this scoundrel wheedle you into leaving the country just to get you out of the way and prevent you from telling what you know about the accident to Harry Traquair."
Silence followed the launching of this bolt, silence that was broken only by the startled breathing of the two men. Both of them kept their eyes riveted on the prisoner.
"Traquair, the inventor of the aëroplane," continued Matt, "tried out his machine in Jamestown, several weeks ago, and an accident happened. Some part of the mechanism broke. Why did it break?" Matt's voice grew solemn as he turned his eyes on Murgatroyd. "Why did it break?" he asked, again.
The broker's face turned ashen. Drops of sweat stood out on his forehead, his hands clinched spasmodically, and his lips moved without sound.
"Murgatroyd," Matt pursued mercilessly, "had a mortgage on Harry Traquair's homestead, in Wells County. For some reason of his own, Murgatroyd wants that piece of prairie land. If Traquair had lived, he would have sold his aëroplane to the government, and have paid off the mortgage. But he didn't live, because a supposed accident happened to his aëroplane."