"Well, there's a little more of the story, it seems, after all. There was a plot between Shanklin and another to file Peterson on a certain tract and then buy him out, I suppose."
He told her of the telegram signed "Jerry," and of Shanklin's reply.
"So I concluded," he said, "that if the land described by their numbers was valuable to them it would be valuable to me. That my guess was good, I had proof when I filed. The chap who was piloting Peterson up to the window, and who I suspect was the 'Jerry' of the message, wanted to know where I got the figures. He wasn't a bit nice about it, either."
A swift pallor overspread Agnes Horton's face; a look of fright stood in her eyes.
"Was he a tall man, dark, with heavy eyebrows?" she inquired, waiting his answer with parted lips.
"That fits him," said he. "Do you know him?"
"It's Jerry Boyle, the Governor's son. He is Walker's friend; Walker brought him to camp the day after you disappeared. He had an invitation for Mrs. Reed and her party from his mother--you know they had been expecting it. And he said--he said----"
"That is, he told Walker that he saw you--_drunk_ at two o'clock that morning."
"Hum-m," rumbled the doctor, running his hands through his hair. "Hum-m! I thought I knew that voice!"
He got to his feet in his agitation. Agnes rose quickly, placing her hand on his arm.
"Well, it's a serious charge to lay against the Governor's son," he replied, "but I'm afraid he was the other man."
There was such a look of consternation in her face that he sought to calm her.
"He's not likely to go any further with it, though," Slavens added.
"Oh, you don't know him. You don't know him!" Agnes protested earnestly.
He searched her face with a quick glance.
"There is something bad in his face--something hiding, it seems to me," she said, without show of conscious evasion.
"I'll call him, no matter what move he makes," Slavens declared, looking speculatively across the gorge. "Look how high the sun is up the wall over yonder. I think we'd better be going back."
"Oh, I've kept you too long," she cried in self-reproach. "And to think you were in the saddle all night."
"Yes; I lost the trail and rode a good many miles out of the way," said he. "But for that I'd have been on hand an hour sooner."