But as she leaned upon the sill a sound floated to her through the open window—a man’s voice, so close to her that it made her start and stiffen. It was Deveny’s voice, and it seemed to come from a point in the street directly beneath the window.
“Did you find Gage?” it said.
Barbara leaned forward a little and looked downward. Below her, on the narrow board-walk that ran in front of the Eating-House, were four men. She recognized three of them—Deveny, Strom Rogers, and Meeder Lawson, the Rancho Seco foreman.
The other man was a stranger. Evidently it was the stranger to whom Deveny had spoken, for it was the stranger who answered.
“He’s in his office now.”
Deveny turned to Lawson and Rogers. “You two wait here, Laskar and myself will do the talking to Gage.” He started away with the man who had answered him; then called back over his shoulder: “Hang around; if there’s trouble, you’ll want to get in on it.”
Deveny and Laskar walked down the street; the girl saw them enter the building occupied by the sheriff.
Wondering, intensely curious—for that word “trouble” meant shooting in the vocabulary of men of the Deveny type—Barbara drew back until she was certain the men in the street could not see her.
When Deveny and Laskar disappeared, Strom Rogers laughed sneeringly:
“Deveny’s scared of ‘Drag’ Harlan, I reckon. It’s a cheap frame-up.”