“I’ve lived for months in Blue Stone Cañon. It was I who found where the willows blow out from the wall. It was Sheriff Selwood who took his life in his hand to help your men drive Bossick’s steers into Rainbow Cliff. It was all of us together, as you see us here, who put two and two together and determined to get you—and to get you good—you and all your outfit of rustlers—all of whom owe something to Lawrence Arnold yonder. We’ve picketed the mouth of your passage into Blue Stone and would have caught you there—or rather at Marston, where I have had arrangements made for some time. We’ve been holding off for Selwood’s word—he’s worked too faithfully all these years to lose the credit now.”
Not once had Fair taken his eyes from Kate Cathrew’s face, else he might have seen the tragic figure by the wall at the right, the grotesque woman whose blood-stained features worked with hysterical laughter.
“Brother!” whispered Nance Allison to herself, “it was his brother—not—not—himself! Oh. Lord, I—thank Thee!”
Neither did he see the newcomers streaming through the cut into the basin—the men from Cordova under Rod Stone.
Minnie Pine’s black eyes went flashing round the Pot to light instantly upon the figure of the girl.
“Poor Eagle Eyes!” she said to Stone, “she has walked in hell!”
There was one other actor in the small drama whom no one noticed—Bud Allison, on foot now, since Big Dan stood at the base of the last rise, completely done—Bud Allison dragging his lame foot wearily, his Pappy’s old gun on his shoulder.
The boy stood between the last riders and the wall, looking at them all with puzzled eyes. Brand Fair continued:
“While we are about this we’ll finish it completely. I want the men of Nameless and the Upper Country to know just what sort of criminals they have been dealing with—to know that Lawrence Arnold there is a clever New York lawyer who defends guilty men and frees them—by buying juries. That he is getting rich by selling through agents and aids the cattle which you, Kate, steal here, drive into the river, up to the cliff, down this wonderful underground passage into Blue Stone Cañon and out across the desert to Marston for the shipping. It has been an amazing system in a more amazing setting. The mystery of the steers that left no tracks is solved by the fact that every time you stole a big herd you drove them up the night before you drove your own brand down—therefore, they left no trace. Also, I want to say here and now before these witnesses, that all the money you brought with you into the Deep Heart hills belonged to poor Jack Fair, the father of your child—the man you betrayed into prison through the devilish legal trap laid by Lawrence Arnold—and that is why I’ve followed you. Sonny Fair has a right to his father’s property—and I intend to see that he gets it. Have you anything to say?”
Lawrence Arnold, trapped and conscious of the fact, wet his thin lips and glanced desperately around. He saw only stern faces, cold and angry eyes.