“Pshaw!” fumed Hammerton. “So those two crooks are back here, are they? That means more lawlessness! Just as I was congratulating myself that it was becoming a law-abiding and decent community at last! I wish——”
“You don’t understand!” broke in the girl. “You don’t see what I mean. You don’t get the significance of it. And yet I’ve been all over it with you so often! I——”
“Over what?” demanded Hammerton, nettled by her air of excited mystery. “Please explain what you’re driving at. I’m tremendously busy to-night and——”
“Michael Trent was the means of Hegan and Gates going to prison,” she hurried on. “They swore they would get him for it. We have proof of that. The very night after they were set free Michael disappeared. And now they are back here again, after four months! Don’t you see——”
“I see you are trying to lure me into that same endless old argument again,” returned Hammerton with a glance of regret at his piled-up work. “But really, I can’t see why these two jailbirds’ appearance in town to-night should have flustered you so. There was no foul play connected with Trent’s disappearance. I’ve explained that to you, over and over. Calvin Greer called him up on the telephone that evening. Trent told Calvin he was sick of Boone Lake and that he was starting off on a long motor tour up country. He said if he liked it up there he’d settle somewhere in the north counties and never come back. Next day he and his automobile were gone. Where is the mystery?”
“Where?” she repeated miserably. “Why, everywhere! The whole thing is a mystery. In the first place, I rode over to see Calvin Greer, at his stock farm. He had never met Michael till that day, and he wasn’t at all familiar with Michael’s voice. But he told me it sounded rougher and hoarser over the phone than when he talked to him face to face. And he——”
“That’s no proof. Many people’s voices sound altogether different over the phone. Or Trent may have had a cold. There’s no mystery about it, I tell you. Most assuredly there’s nothing to connect Hegan and Gates with the affair. As to——”
“You knew Michael,” she went on. “You knew him well and you liked him. Tell me, was he the sort of man to go away like that and not have the courtesy to say good-bye to us? Was he? He stopped here—he and Buff—you remember, on his way home from the market square that evening. He sat and chatted with us for half an hour or so. He didn’t say a word about going away. Instead, he arranged to go horseback riding with me the next day. Yet less than half an hour later, apparently, he tells Calvin Greer he’s leaving Boone Lake—perhaps forever. Is that——”
“Men do queer things,” said Hammerton, turning back to his papers. “I can’t agree with you that there’s any mystery about it, daughter. Certainly no mystery that would justify the law in suspecting——”
“You know what care he took of his livestock,” pursued Ruth. “Is it likely—is it possible—that he would have left his sheep and cattle to starve, his cows unmilked and his horses with empty mangers? Would he have gone away like that, of his own accord, and let all his livestock starve to death? For they would have starved to death out there on that solitary farm if you and I hadn’t gone to get them and bring them here.”