“You can trust me,” Gard said, simply, meeting her eyes.
“And this Westcott,” she exclaimed, sharply, “If he’s done me so! If he has—”
She gripped the counter, her teeth showing, savagely.
“Easy!” said Gard quietly, “Better keep cool. The man ain’t worth riling yourself up over. Besides, I believe we can do something, with this.”
He touched the deed, and she picked it up again.
“I want to try to get hold of Oliphant,” he began, outlining his plan, “and this notary, Arthur Sawyer.”
Kate Hallard regarded him with an unwonted expression of mingled helplessness and perplexity.
“Oliphant’s gone back east as I said,” she answered, “An’ this here Sawyer ’s new to me. I never knew nothing about him.”
Gard stood considering, a long sequence of unexpected difficulties developing itself before his mind. He had found the Hallard deed among the deputy’s papers, and had kept it carefully, against such time as he could restore it to the owner. His first act after leaving Broome, when the pair reached the railroad track, had been to go to Yuma. Here he acquired the habiliments of civilization, and found a temporary home for Jinny. He had stopped in Tucson long enough to file his claim there, and then set about finding the Edward Hallard to whom the deed referred. It was a matter of a fortnight before his inquiries revealed the fact of Ed Hallard’s death, and the whereabouts of his widow. Now he had no way of judging how long it might be before he could strike the trail of this unknown Arthur Sawyer who had taken the acknowledgment of the deed.
In any event, he realized that the delay meant postponement of certain cherished plans of his own; perhaps danger to them. He had met a man at Yuma, and another in Tucson, who had known him as Barker, and though they had not recognized him, so greatly was he changed, still he could not ignore the possibility that any day someone might remember him. Until his plans were perfected, the territory was perilous ground for him.