"Vera Stark's not a girl, but a woman about thirty-five," stated the boy. "Thin—dark complexion—jet black hair and eyes."
"Oh, I see." Dexter picked up his knife and fork, and started to eat once more with a healthy man's appetite. For the moment his attention was fixed upon his plate, but he was somehow aware that furtive eyes were watching him from the shadow of the bunk.
"You seem to have got her mixed up with some one else," his companion presently ventured to remark.
"Yes, it would seem so." The corporal looked up with a retrospective smile. "The one I was thinking of, I happened to meet yesterday in the lower valley. Her shoe tracks would indicate that she came from this cabin. Know her?"
"There was a girl such as you describe—here—yesterday," said Smith. He turned on his pillow and yawned, with every sign of indifference.
"Who was she?" asked the policeman crisply.
"She didn't say. Didn't tell me a thing about herself. And I was too sick to be very curious." The boy stretched himself and buried his head deeper in the pillow. "Gee—I feel better," he murmured. "This is the first comfortable minute I've had—"
"Where'd she come from?" interrupted the officer.
"I didn't ask her," replied the other in a drowsy voice.
"Just dropped in from nowhere?"