She turned her face toward him, and those wonderful dark eyes looked sadly into his. There were tears trembling on the long lashes.
"You know I'm not foolish, Berlin Carson," she said, in a strangely hardened tone. "In the old days on the ranch I was no soft-hearted, light-headed girl."
"You were the most bewitching and fascinating creature the Colorado sun ever shone upon. There was always a mystery about you, and it bound me with a magic spell. The years since I saw you last have made that spell more potent and powerful."
"Still, I'm the daughter of a man who rustled cattle. He did not rustle them in the good old-fashioned way. Instead of that, he stole them after the manner that a sneak thief picks a pocket. He did his work by altering the brands. He posed as another man. He sought to lay all the blame on the shoulders of Laramie Dave, a known rustler."
"Why talk of that, Bessie?"
"I lived on the Flying Dollars Ranch. Dressed as a boy, I rode the range with my father's cattlemen, who helped him rustle. Do you think I knew nothing of what was taking place? Do you think I was silly enough and soft enough to be deceived? You must understand that I knew my father was a criminal."
Carson shivered a little, but it was not because of the cool night air. In all the weeks and months since her vanishing, in all his thoughts of her, this thing had never occurred to him. He had regarded her as the innocent, unfortunate daughter of a bad man.
Now, however, he sought an excuse for her.
"He was your father, and you had to protect him. You could not betray your own father. You must have suffered."
"You're too kind, too generous," she hoarsely explained. "It was no effort on my part to keep his secret. I knew what business he followed long years before I ever saw you. I knew it long before he purchased the Flying Dollars. Down in Texas he was a rustler, but, unlike other rustlers, he did not squander his money. He saved it and sent me to school. In a boarding school I was regarded as the daughter of a wealthy ranchman. I was popular with my girl schoolmates. No one of them ever suspected that my father was a cattle thief and that I knew it."