“Forgot it, ma’am. An’ I reckon you’ll be seein’ him before I do.”
Then he strode out through the gate, leaving her to speculate upon the mystery of his words and his odd action in leaving the chain with her when he could have personally returned it to Haydon.
Harlan, however, was grinning as he returned to the bunkhouse. For he wanted Barbara to see Haydon’s face when the section of chain was returned to him, to gain whatever illumination she could from the incident. He did not care to tell her—yet—that Haydon had killed her father; but he did desire to create in her mind a doubt of Haydon, so that she would hesitate to confide to him everything that happened at the Rancho Seco.
For himself, he wanted to intimate delicately to Haydon his knowledge of what had really occurred at Sentinel Rock; it was a message to the man conveying a significance that Haydon could not mistake. It meant that for some reason, known only to himself, Harlan did not intend to tell what he knew.
CHAPTER XVII
FORGING A LETTER
The impulse which had moved Harlan to send Red Linton to the T Down ranch to enlist the services of some of his old friends had resulted from a conviction that he could not depend upon those men of the Rancho Seco outfit who had seemed to him, to be unfriendly to Stroud, the straw-boss. He knew nothing about them, and their loyalty to Barbara Morgan might be of a quality that would not endure through the sort of trouble that seemed to be imminent.
The T Down men—those who would come—would stand with him no matter what happened—they would do his will without question.