a good listener. An’the chance to look at a pretty gal—well, say, I don’t need no specs to enjoy that.”
They said good-bye, and left the lonely old man standing by the trolley-car there on the barren desert. For a long moment they rode in silence.
“Well,” said Eden finally, “you’ve heard something, lady.”
“I certainly have. Something I find it difficult to believe.”
“Perhaps you won’t find it so difficult if I go back and tell you a few things. You’ve been drawn into the big mystery at Madden’s at last, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t know as much as I do about it. So I’m going to talk.”
“I’m keen to hear,” she admitted.
“Naturally, after today. Well, I came down here to transact a bit of business with P.J.—I needn’t go into that, it has no particular bearing. The first night I was on the ranch—” He proceeded to detail one by one the mysterious sequence of events that began with the scream of the parrot from the dark. “Now you know. Some one had been killed, that was evident. Some one before Louie. But who? We don’t know yet. And by whom? Today gave us that answer, anyhow.”
“It seems incredible.”
“You don’t believe Cherry’s story?” he suggested.
“Well—these old boys who wander the desert get queer sometimes. And there was that about his eyes—the doctor at Redlands, you know—”
“I know. But all the same, I think Cherry told the truth. After a few days with Madden, I consider him capable of anything. He’s a hard man, and if any one stood
