I'll say good night. Come on, boys."
The four deputy United States marshals marched in single file from the
house, mounted their horses, and rode away into the west just as the sun
poked its head above the eastern horizon.
CHAPTER XVI.
A LETTER FROM THE DEAD.
Ted was brooding over the appearance of Farnsworth, and the startling
events which followed, and particularly the crime at Rodeo, of which the
young fellow had fallen under suspicion.
Ted believed that Farnsworth was innocent of the crime.
But his flight from the town, and the question he had put to Ted when
they met in the road, as to whether Ted had heard the news from Rodeo,
were enough to convict him in the mind of any person prone to suspicion.
But Ted looked at matters of this sort differently than most people. In
the first place, his experience had taught him that actions which seemed
most suspicious often proved most innocent.
That Farnsworth knew of the murder of Helen Mowbray before he quitted
Rodeo his question to Ted left no doubt, and the shadow of suspicion
under which he had lived was reason enough for him to leave the town
before its discovery. He knew the dangerous temper of the people, and
that it would take very little to arouse them against him, and
precipitate them into a lynching, with himself as the central figure.
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