Donald McCrae listened gravely, his face expressionless. Sandy wore a faint, ironic smile which irritated Farwell.
"You don't think so?" asked the engineer pointedly.
"You're doing the talking—I'm not," said Sandy.
Farwell reddened angrily. There was more in the tone than in the words. It implied that talk was Farwell's long suit. Farwell disliked Sandy extremely, but with a self-control which he rarely exercised, forbore to retort. Hot-tempered as he was, he realized that he could not declare his belief in the guilt of any person without some evidence. His smouldering eye measured Sandy, taking him in from head to foot, and rested on the smoky golden tan of a pair of new moccasins which he wore.
Now, Sandy had acquired the moccasin habit in childhood and retained it. It was rarely that he wore boots around the ranch. Farwell, looking at the new moccasins, which were handsomely embroidered with silk thread, noted the straight inner line of the foot, from toe to heel. It was like the foot of an aborigine; undeformed, undeflected from nature's lines by fashionable footgear. By suggestion the moccasin track at the dam occurred to him. He recalled its straight inner line. McCrae's moccasined foot would make just such a track. Was it possible that he, at least, was one of the dynamiters?
Not only possible, Farwell decided, after a moment's reflection, but probable. The elder man he exonerated mentally. The son, young, hostile, possessing unlimited nerve, was just the man for such an enterprise. And if he were concerned in it, and the fact were ascertained what a devil of a mess it would make!
For a moment he was tempted to test his suspicion by some pointed allusion, but thought better of it. And shortly after the two men withdrew, leaving him with Sheila.
"This is a nasty business," said Farwell, after a long pause, reverting to the former topic. "I wouldn't like it—no matter what turns up—to make any difference between us."
"There isn't much difference to make," she reminded him.
"No, I suppose not," he admitted, slightly disconcerted. "We're merely acquaintances. Only"—he hesitated—"only I thought—perhaps—we might be friends."