The only doubt in Harwood's own mind had been left there by Bassett himself.
He recalled now Bassett's remark on the day he had taken him into his confidence in the Ranger County affair.

"I might have some trouble in proving it myself," Bassett had said.

Harwood thought it strange that after that first deliberate confidence and his introduction to Atwill, Bassett had, in this important move, ignored him.

It was possible that his relations with Allen Thatcher, which Bassett knew to be intimate, accounted for the change; or it might be due to a lessening warmth in Bassett's feeling toward him.

He recalled now that Bassett had lately seemed moody,--a new development in the man from Fraser,--and that he had several times been abrupt and unreasonable about small matters in the office.