Clattering Hoofs. William MacLeod Raine

made it nice for Mr. Packard,” Sloan drawled. “Showing how all things work together for good to them that love the Lord.”

      “How dreadful!” Sandra murmured. “For him and his poor mother, if she was still living.”

      “She was then,” Ranger replied. “She isn’t now. Two years after he went to prison I read in the paper of her death.”

      “And the son—he’s still in the penitentiary?”

      “I reckon so, Sandra. Maybe he deserved what he got. When a man kills he can’t kick if he has to pay the price. But one thing is sure. Jug Packard brought about that killing. He was more to blame than the boy.”

      “Men with as much money as Packard don’t go to prison,” Sloan said, a cynical bitterness in his face.

      “Oh, I hope that isn’t true in this country,” Sandra cried.

      “In the land of the free, where all men are born equal,” the ranch guest mocked.

      “It isn’t true, Sandra,” the girl’s father said. “Though I’m afraid it is true that a rich man can often buy delays and even avoidance of punishment that a poor one can’t afford. In Packard’s case there was no evidence that he had committed a crime. I’ve said too much. I don’t know he slickered Mrs. Webb out of her mine. That’s only my private opinion.”

      Sloan rose and said he thought he would be turning in for the night. Sandra was shocked at his face. His mouth was a thin tight slit and there was something wolfish in his tortured eyes.