“Pink, what time was it when we went to bed last night?” Andy asked him in the tone of one who wished to eliminate all doubt of his virtue.
“Why—it was pretty early. We didn't light the lamp at all, you remember. You went to bed before I did—we couldn't see the cards—” He stopped confusedly, and again he gave the two women the impression that he blushed. “We weren't playing for money,” he hurriedly explained. “Just for pastime. It's—pretty lonesome—sometimes.”
“Somebody did something to somebody last night,” Andy informed Pink with a resentful impatience. “Miss Hallman thinks we're the guilty parties—me in particular, because she don't like me. It's something about some shacks—damaging property, she called it. Just what was it you said was done, Miss Hallman?” He turned his honest, gray eyes toward her and met her suspicious look steadily.
Miss Hallman bit her lip. She had been perfectly sure of the guilt of Andy Green, and of the others who were his friends. Now, in spite of all reason she was not so sure. And there had been nothing more tangible than two pairs of innocent-looking eyes and the irreproachable manners of two men to change her conviction.
“Well, I naturally took it for granted that you did it,” she weakened. “The shacks were moved off eighties that you have filed upon, Mr. Green. Mr. Owens told me this morning that you men came by his place and threatened him yesterday, and ordered him to move. No one else would have any object in molesting him or the others.” Her voice hardened again as her mind dwelt upon the circumstances. “It must have been you!” she finished sharply.
Whereupon Pink gave her a distressed look that made Miss Hallman flush unmistakably. “I'm just about distracted, this morning,” she apologized. “I took it upon myself to see these settlers through—and everybody makes it just as hard as possible for me. Why should all you fellows treat us the way you do? We—”
“Why, we aren't doing a thing!” Pink protested diffidently. “We thought we'd take up some claims and go to ranching for ourselves, when we got discharged from the Flying U. We didn't mean any harm—everybody's taking up claims. We've bought some cattle and we're going to try and get ahead, like other folks. We—I wanted to cut out all this wildness—”
“Are those your cattle up on the hill? Some men shipped in four carloads of young stock, yesterday, to Dry Lake. They drove them out here intending to turn them on the range, and a couple of men—”
“Four men,” Miss Allen corrected with a furtive twinkle in her eyes.
“Some men refused to let them cross that big coulee back there. They drove the cattle back toward Dry Lake, and told Mr. Simmons and Mr. Chase and some others that they shouldn't come on this bench back here at all. That was another thing I wanted to see you men about.”