“What shall we do?”
“Just be still,” Hilda breathed, close to his ear. “You’re safe here. I’ll go and deceive—the—pursuers.”
She went toward the door; stopped a moment, looking over her shoulder, trying to see him in the dark, then went out; dragged shut the sagging door after her; blundered along the passage; slammed the outer one with a noise that scared her; pantingly shoved the empty boxes and barrels in place to conceal it, and ran up the cellar stairs. In the warm, sweet-smelling kitchen Sam Kee was making dried-apple pies. As she fled past, she thought he said to her, “You all light. No be scare.” Then she was in the office door, and some strange men were coming in at its other door with Uncle Hank.
“You’re free of the whole ranch, Sheriff Daniels,” the old man was saying. “You and your posse are welcome to search.” The crispness of his tone made something way down deep in Hilda giggle and clap its hands. Goodness—wasn’t she glad she hadn’t told Uncle Hank! He—even he—couldn’t have spoken up that way if he’d known what was hid in the cyclone cellar. Now he went on:
“Miss Van Brunt has got the little boy with her in Fort Worth. Just at this speaking there’s only Pettie and me and the cook about the place. It’s broad daylight. Couldn’t nobody have got into the house without being seen—but you’re free to search. And you’re welcome to go around to the bunk house and see if you can find any one there. I always give the law any assistance in my power.”
“Well, we trailed him so far, and I’ve been pretty well over your ranch, Pearsall,” the Sheriff said in the irritable tone of a man who is losing. “If he ain’t in the house, I don’t know where he’s at. With your permission, we’ll look here, and when your boys come in at noon we’ll see if he’s lifted a horse off of you and made a getaway.”
Pearsall’s eye fell on Hilda, and the look on her face instantly struck him. He stepped across at once and put an arm around her shoulders. He did not notice that she had not come to him.
“Ain’t a thing to be afraid of, Pettie,” he reassured her. “These gentlemen think they’re on the trail of a feller that’s—” he hesitated appreciably—“er that’s got into trouble down in Wild Hoss County. They believe he’s rode right into the Sorrers and et his pony and camped in one of our bedrooms.”
There was a somewhat sheepish acknowledgment of this sally as the men trooped after Pearsall, making a search of the rooms, upstairs and down. After that Hilda crouched above them on the steps, daylight behind her, her face in shadow, watching in fascinated terror while they explored the cellar, carrying lamps and candles. But they gave only a negligent glance to the tiers of empty cracker boxes which screened the door to the passage, as everybody else except Hilda had done for years. They abandoned the cellar finally and tramped noisily back into the kitchen.
“You see ’um white man?” the sheriff demanded of Sam Kee. “Heap tired—been ridin’ long ways—all dusty and dirty—you see ’um?”