"You have no right to pillory me so," she said rapidly. "You have been perfectly impossible right along—that is, ever since this crime happened. You've been spying here and there—"
"Spying!"
"Yes, downright spying! You've been putting suspicion where it doesn't belong. Why, everybody believes the Indians did it—everybody but you. Probably some Indians did it who never have been suspected and never will be—not the Indians who are under suspicion now."
"That's just about what another party was telling me not long ago—that I was coddling the Indians and trying to fasten suspicion where it didn't rightfully belong."
"Who else told you that?"
"No less a person than Bill Talpers."
"There you go again, bringing in that cave man. Why do you keep talking to me about Talpers? I'm not afraid of him."
Most girls would have been on the verge of hysteria, Lowell thought, but, while Helen was plainly under a nervous strain, her self-command returned. The agent was in possession of some information—how much she did not know. Perhaps she could goad him into betraying the source of his knowledge.
"I know you're not afraid of Talpers," remarked Lowell, after a pause, "but at least give me the privilege of being afraid for you. I know Bill Talpers better than you do."
"What right have you to be afraid for me? I'm of age, and besides, I have a protector—a guardian—at the ranch."