“Mr. Harlan found it.” Barbara noted Haydon’s quick start, the searching glance he gave Harlan—who was now leaning on a rail of the corral fence, seemingly uninterested.
Haydon laughed, a little hoarsely, it seemed to Barbara, and more loudly than the occasion seemed to demand. She thought, though, that the laugh might have been a jeer for Harlan’s action in turning the chain over to her instead of returning it directly to the owner.
She did not catch the searching inquiry of Haydon’s glance at Harlan, nor did she see Harlan’s odd smile at Haydon, and the slow wink that accompanied it.
But the wink and the smile conveyed to Haydon the intelligence that Harlan knew the story connected with the loss of the chain, and that he had not communicated it to the girl. They also expressed to Haydon the message that Harlan and Haydon were kindred souls—the smile and the wink told Haydon that this man who knew his secret was secretly applauding him, even while inwardly laughing at him for his fear that the secret would be betrayed.
Harlan’s voice broke a short silence.
“Found it right about here—the other day. It must have laid there a long time, for it took a heap of polishin’ to brighten it up.” Again he closed an eye at Haydon, and the latter grinned broadly.
Barbara silently endured a pang of disappointment. She had caught Harlan’s wink. The man had betrayed jealousy only a few minutes ago, and he had refused personally to return the chain to Haydon. And yet he stood there now, smiling and winking at the other, evidently with the desire to ingratiate himself. Sycophant, weakling, or fool—which was he? She shuddered with disgust, deliberately turned her back to Harlan, and began to walk toward the ranchhouse, Haydon following.
And Harlan, standing at the fence, leaned an elbow on one of the rails and watched the two, an enigmatic smile on his face.
For he had succeeded in opening a gate which disclosed a trail that would lead him straight to the mystery, a breath of which had been borne to him that morning upon the slight breeze that had swept down to him from the mighty valley out of which Haydon had ridden.
Between him and Haydon a bond had been established, fashioned from the links of the section of chain.