Page:Son of the wind.djvu/49

 mountains, the sulkier he grew, until finally he denied up and down everything he had told me, ate his words like a sword swallower, and when we got away up the cañon, he insisted on getting out of the buggy and leaving me. Fortunately I hadn't paid him his money yet, and it was on that account I got the two words I did get out of him. 'Try Rader's,' he said and as soon as he had said it you should have seen his face! Scared—scared to death! He looked as if he wanted to kill me."

Rader slowly rubbed one dry hand over the other. He looked troubled, even vaguely distressed. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I thought certainly he would never have spoken of it."

Carron wrinkled his forehead. "I'm sorry, too, Mr. Rader, if he has abused your confidence. But you see the horse is public property. It never occurred to me that there could be any sworn oaths of secrecy about it."

"Oh, he hasn't abused my confidence," Rader said.

"I see!" Carron saw at once a great deal that had been obscure to him. The thing seemed an endless chain. "I suppose you know whose confidence he is abusing, then?"

Rader leaned back in his chair, his head still bent forward, looking up inquiringly from under his