“By gum!” he exclaimed, looking up, “I do seem to remember. Sounded like a cock-and-bull story then. Westcott had left town, you know.
“But say, friends:” he straightened up and looked from one to the other of his auditors,—“the desert’s got a beauteous lot of poison citizens,” he said, “what with tarantulas, and sidewinders, and ground-rattlers, and Gila monsters, and hydrophobia skunks; but it don’t breed anything more poisonous than a man, when he is poison.”
He threw down his pen and handed the paper he had signed to Mrs. Hallard.
“That’s done,” he said, gleefully. “Unricht, can you fix it to go down to Tucson to-night, and do a little business for me to-morrow?”
The secretary consulted his calendar and decided that he could arrange for the expedition. It was agreed that Mrs. Hallard and he should meet at the station in time for the evening train. “About that matter of your own, Kate,” the governor said, as Mrs. Hallard was leaving, “I shouldn’t wonder if your Mr. Barker-Gard was equal to fixing Westcott; but if either of you need any help you call on David Marden. Now don’t you forget!”
Unricht and Mrs. Hallard went straight to the proper office, on their arrival in Tucson next morning, and the secretary saw to it that Gard’s claim was correctly refiled, and the matter put in unassailable shape. This done, they sought the St. Augustine, where Kate was to wait for the forenoon train to Bonesta.
“I’ll have to leave you a little while before it goes,” Unricht was saying, as they stood in what had been the vestibule of the old church. “My own train is earlier—”
“Sh—hush—”
Mrs. Hallard drew her companion back into the slender shelter of a great pillar. “Look over there,” she whispered, and Unricht glanced in the direction indicated.
Westcott had just come into the building and stepped up to the desk. He was making some inquiry about the next train south, and the watchers had a good look at him.