He was gripping Kent's hands in the fierce clasp of a friendship
that nothing could kill. Kent winced, but the pain of it was joy.
He had feared that O'Connor, like Kedsty, must of necessity turn
against him. Then he noticed something unusual in O'Connor's face
and eyes. The staff-sergeant was not easily excited, yet he was
visibly disturbed now.

"I don't know what the others saw, when you were making that
confession, Kent. Mebby my eyesight was better because I spent a
year and a half with you on the trail. You were lying. What's your
game, old man?"

Kent groaned. "Have I got to go all over it again?" he appealed.

O'Connor began thumping back and forth over the floor. Kent had
seen him that way sometimes in camp when there were perplexing
problems ahead of them.

"You didn't kill John Barkley," he insisted. "I don't believe you
did, and Inspector Kedsty doesn't believe it--yet the mighty queer
part of it is--"

"What?"

"That Kedsty is acting on your confession in a big hurry. I don't
believe it's according to Hoyle, as the regulations are written.
But he's doing it. And I want to know--it's the biggest thing I
EVER wanted to know--did you kill Barkley?"

"O'Connor, if you don't believe a dying man's word--you haven't