“God knows him, Zindorf, and I know him!... The man who murdered Ordez
made a fatal blunder... He used a sign of God in the service of the
devil and he is ruined!”
The big man stepped slowly backward into the room, while my father's
voice, filling the big empty spaces of the house, followed after him.
“You are lost, Zindorf! Satan is insulted, and God is outraged! You are
lost!”
There was a moment's silence; from outside came the sound of men and
horses. The notes of the girl, light, happy, ascended from the lower
chamber, as she sang about her preparations for the journey. Zindorf
continued to step awfully backward. And Lucian Morrow, shaken and sober,
cried out in the extremity of fear:
“In God's name, Pendleton, what do you mean; Zindorf, using a sign of
God in the service of the devil.”
And my father answered him:
“The corpse of Ordez lay in the bare cut of the abandoned road, and
beside it, bedded in the damp clay where he had knelt down to rifle the
pockets of the murdered body, were the patch prints of Zindorf's knees!”