Armitage spoke now in a very different key, and the change displeased Chauvenet, for he much affected ironical raillery, and his companion's sterner tones disconcerted him.
"I take this opportunity to give you a solemn warning, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet, alias Rambaud, and thereby render you a greater service than you know.

You have undertaken a deep and dangerous game--it is spectacular--it is picturesque--it is immense! It is so stupendous that the taking of a few lives seems trifling in comparison with the end to be attained.

Now look about you for a moment, Monsieur Jules Chauvenet! In this mountain air a man may grow very sane and see matters very clearly.
London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna--they are a long way off, and the things they stand for lose their splendor when a man sits among these American mountains and reflects upon the pettiness and sordidness of man's common ambitions." "Is this exordium or peroration, my dear fellow ?" "It is both," replied Armitage succinctly, and Chauvenet was sorry he had spoken, for Armitage stopped short in a lonely stretch of the highway and continued in a disagreeable, incisive tone: "I ran away from Washington after you told that story at Claiborne's supper-table, not because I was afraid of your accusation, but because I wanted to watch your plans a little in security.

The only man who could have helped me immediately was Senator Sanderson, and I knew that he was in Montana." Chauvenet smiled with a return of assurance.
"Of course.

The hour was chosen well!" "More wisely, in fact, than your choice of that big assassin of yours.
He's a clumsy fellow, with more brawn than brains.