“You say Miss—Howard—this young lady—traveled by your coach some time ago. Was she accompanied by a gentleman?”
Johnson didn’t like being pumped by this stranger with the stern and handsome face.
“Can’t say,” he said, nonchalantly. “She might ha’ been, or she might not. I don’t take partickler notice of my passengers so long as they’ve got their tickets all right; an’ if I did,” he added, “I shouldn’t mouth about ’em to the first stranger as asked me questions.”
A faint flush rose to Trafford’s brow.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “You are quite right.”
Johnson was a little mollified.
“To tell you the truth, I can’t say,” he said. “She might ha’ been, or she might ha’ been met at the crossing where the scrimmage took place. There was such a flare-up, what with the shoutin’ and the shootin’, that I got ’em mixed in my mind.”
Trafford asked no more questions. Why should he? He felt certain that he should find Esmeralda and Norman together.
When they reached the coaching station where the road to Three Star branched off, Johnson pointed to it.
“That’s your road,” he said.