Then ensued a pause that made me bring to mind a picture of Wright's glum face.
"George, what's the matter ?" asked Diane presently.

"I never saw papa as he is to-night, nor you so--so worried.

Tell me, what has happened ?" "Well, Diane, we had a jar to-day," replied Wright, with a blunt, expressive laugh.
"Jar ?" echoed both the girls curiously.
"Jar?
We had to submit to a damnable outrage," added Wright passionately, as if the sound of his voice augmented his feeling.
"Listen, girls.

I'll tell you all about it." He coughed, clearing his throat in a way that betrayed he had been drinking.
I sunk deeper in the shadow of my covert, and stiffening my muscles for a protracted spell of rigidity, prepared to listen with all acuteness and intensity.
Just one word from this Wright, inadvertently uttered in a moment of passion, might be the word Steele needed for his clue.
"It happened at the town hall," began Wright rapidly.

"Your father and Judge Owens and I were there in consultation with three ranchers from out of town.