Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/259

 understand everything, more than your cousin, Mr. McCloud, or Marion Sinclair understand—Sinclair is a train-wrecker and a murderer. That makes you breathe hard, doesn’t it? but it is so. Sinclair is fairly educated and highly intelligent, capable in every way, daring to the limit, and, in a way, fascinating; it is no wonder he has a following. But his following is divided into two classes: the men that know all the secrets, and the men that don’t—men like Rebstock and Du Sang, and men like your cousin and a hundred or so sports in Medicine Bend, who see only the glamour of Sinclair’s pace. Your cousin sympathizes with Sinclair when he doesn’t actually side with him. All this has helped to turn Sinclair’s head, and this is exactly the situation you and McCloud and I and a lot of others are up against. They don’t know all this, but I know it, and now you know it. Let me tell you something that comes close to home. You have a cowboy on the ranch named Karg—he is called Flat Nose. Karg was a railroad man. He is a cattle-thief, a train-robber, a murderer, and a spy. I should not tell you this if you were not game to the last drop of your blood. But I think I know you better than you know yourself, though you never saw me until last night. Karg is Sinclair’s spy at your ranch, and you must never feel it or know it; but he is 235