“Heaven forbid!” he disclaimed, piously.
“You are!” she accused. “And you’re doing it to lead me to think you aren’t in any danger; so that I won’t worry. But there is danger! And I know it. I’m positive of it, now that you’ve told me who those men really are. Oh, can’t you——”
“Listen!” he begged. “You’re getting all wrought up over nothing, Ruth. It’s wonderful to have you bother your head over my safety. But I’m not going to let you do it. Here’s the idea: Hegan and Gates belonged to the ‘Riverside Gang,’ over in South Boone. The gang was cleared out some years ago. Some of its members went to jail. The police had nothing definite on those two; so they let them alone. They picked up a living by their wits, as semi-stationary tramps and they kept their petty thefts from being found out. Then, when they’d sent me to prison—they’d had it in for me ever since the time I caught them near my hen-roost and ordered them off my land, to the accompaniment of a stray kick or so—they went into the business on a larger scale, using my house as a place to store their plunder and to hide out in, when the neighbours might be suspecting them of a share in the robberies. When Buff and I collared them they went all to pieces and confessed everything. Just as I told you, before. Now, I leave it to you if two such pitifully cowardly sneak thieves are likely to risk another jail sentence by trying to harm me. It’s ridiculous. Just the same, I’m as much your debtor for warning me, as if the danger were real.”
Ruth had dismounted, during the talk. Now, turning to the horse, she prepared to get into the saddle once more. But first she bent down and laid her soft cheek against the delighted Buff’s head. Under cover of the collie’s glad whimper of friendliness she whispered very low:
“Take care of him, Buff! Oh, take care of him—for me.”
Then, with assumed lightness, she said, as Trent lifted her to the saddle:
“Probably you’re right. But it didn’t do any harm to warn you. I’m sorry if I’ve seemed foolish. Good-bye!”
The little black horse cantered away. Michael Trent and Buff stood in the middle of the road watching the girl out of sight. Then Trent turned slowly to his chum.
“Buff, old man,” said he, “we made a good bluff of it just now, you and I. All the same, it’s up to us both to keep our eyes open for a while. Hegan and Gates were soaked with cheap whisky and sodden and jumpy after a week’s carouse, when the chief of police ‘sweated’ them. And he sure did ‘sweat’ them good and hard. It smashed their nerve. Because they were in prime shape to have it smashed. And that’s how he got them to go all to pieces and confess. That and the goods he found on them. And, besides, he told each of them separately that the other one had squealed; and made them sore on each other that way.