particularly from the voices he had overheard on the Fair Plains Road, it seemed to him that Pedro was more capable of mercenary intrigue than physical revenge.  He was not aware of the irrevocable affront put upon Pedro by Peyton, and he had consequently attached no importance to Peyton’s own half-scornful intimation of the only kind of retaliation that Pedro would be likely to take.  The unsuccessful attempt upon himself he had always thought might have been an accident, or if it was really a premeditated assault, it might have been intended actually for himself and not Peyton, as he had first thought, and his old friend had suffered for him, through some mistake of the assailant.  The purpose, which alone seemed wanting, might have been to remove Clarence as a possible witness who had overheard their conspiracy—­how much of it they did not know—­on the Fair Plains Road that night.  The only clue he held to the murderer in the spur locked in his desk, merely led him beyond the confines of the rancho, but definitely nowhere else.  It was, however, some relief to know that the crime was not committed by one of Peyton’s retainers, nor the outcome of domestic treachery.

After some consideration he resolved to seek Jim Hooker, who might be possessed of some information respecting Susy’s relations, either from the young girl’s own confidences or from Jim’s personal knowledge of the old frontier families.  From a sense of loyalty to Susy and Mrs. Peyton, he had never alluded to the subject before him, but since the young girl’s own indiscretion had made it a matter of common report, however distasteful it was to his own feelings, he felt he could not plead the sense of delicacy for her.  He had great hopes in what he had always believed was only her exaggeration of fact as well as feeling.  And he had an instinctive reliance on her fellow poseur’s ability to detect it.  A few days later, when he found he could safely leave the rancho alone, he rode to Fair Plains.

The floods were out along the turnpike road, and even seemed to have increased since his last journey.  The face of the landscape had changed again.  One of the lower terraces had become a wild mere of sedge and reeds.  The dry and dusty bed of a forgotten brook had reappeared, a full-banked river, crossing the turnpike and compelling a long detour before the traveler could ford it.  But as he approached the Hopkins farm and the opposite clearing and cabin of Jim Hooker, he was quite unprepared for a still more remarkable transformation.  The cabin, a three-roomed structure, and its cattle-shed had entirely disappeared!  There were no traces or signs of inundation.  The land lay on a gentle acclivity above the farm and secure from the effects of the flood, and a part of the ploughed and cleared land around the site of the cabin showed no evidence of overflow on its black, upturned soil.  But the house was gone!  Only a few timbers too heavy to be removed, the blighting erasions of a few months of occupation, and the dull, blackened area of the site itself were to be seen.  The fence alone was intact.