"How long did 'David' stay?" Bassett had tried to keep his tone
carefully conversational, but he saw that it was not necessary.
She was glad of a chance to talk.

"Well, I'd say about three or four weeks. He hadn't seen his brother
for years, and I guess there was no love lost. He sold everything
as quick as he could, and went back East." She glanced at the clock.
"My husband will be in soon for dinner. I'd be glad to have you stay
and take a meal with us."

The reporter thanked her and declined.

"It's an interesting story," he said. "I didn't tell your husband,
for I wasn't sure I was on the right trail. But the David and Lucy
business eliminates this man. There's a piece of property waiting
in the East for a Henry Livingstone who came to this state in the
80's, or for his heirs. You can say positively that this man was
not married?"

"No. He didn't like women. Never had one on the place. Two ranch
hands that are still at the Wassons' and himself, that was all.
The Wassons are the folks who bought the ranch."

No housekeeper then, and no son born out of wedlock, so far as any
evidence went. All that glib lying in the doctor's office, all that
apparent openness and frankness, gone by the board! The man in the
cabin, reported by Maggie Donaldson, had been David Livingstone.
Somehow, some way, he had got Judson Clark out of the country and
spirited him East. Not that the how mattered just yet. The