“That she will be forced to go upon the stand as a witness.”
“Well?”
“And that, as I read it, means a further effort on Ames’s part to utterly discredit her in the eyes of the world, and us through her association with the Express.”
“But––where is she, Hitt? No word from her since we got the news of the massacre at Avon this afternoon! Nothing happened to her, do you think?”
Hitt’s face was serious, and he did not answer. Then Carmen herself came through the open door. Both men rose with exclamations of gladness to welcome her. The girl’s eyes were wet, and her wonted smile had gone.
“Mr. Hitt,” she said, “I want a thousand dollars to-night.”
“Well!” Hitt and Haynerd both sat down hard.
“I must go back to Avon to-morrow,” she announced. “And the money is for the––the people down there.” Her voice caught, and her words stumbled.
The two men looked at each other blankly. Then Hitt reached out and took her hand. “Tell us,” he said, “about the trouble there to-day.”