“Once I get clear of this thing,” he was saying to himself, “I’ll come back here and buy me a ranch. Why should anybody who can live here want to live anywhere else?”
To him in this pastoral mood appeared the woman. There was that in her face which made him spring to his feet in vague alarm before she opened her lips.
“They’re after you,” she said. “You must be moving. Do you know what you want to do? What was your idea in stopping here? Have you any plans?”
He shook his head helplessly. “I thought perhaps—Mexico?”
“Mexico! But what you want just now is a place to hide in till they have given you up and gone along. After that you can think about Mexico. Come! I’ve heard the whistle. The train is in. You’re all right if they don’t start to look for you before supper-time, and I hardly think they will, for they’ll expect you to come in. But if anybody should stroll out to look over the country, this place is in sight from the knoll beside the station. Come!”
Stumbling, he ran along beside her.
“I swear to you,” he said between his labored breaths, “I did not do it. I am not unworthy of your help. But the evidence was damning and my friends told me to clear out. I may have been a fool to come—but it is done.”
Her calm face did not change.
“You must not waste your breath,” she warned. “We have two miles to go, and then I must walk to Connor’s and get back by six o’clock, or there’ll be trouble.”
They were working their way back toward the station, but going farther to the east. She explained briefly that their objective point was the nearest canyon. She knew a place there where any one would be invisible both from above and below. It was fairly accessible—“if you are sure-footed,” she warned. Here he might hide himself in safety for a day or two. She had brought him food. It would not be comfortable, but it was hardly a question of his comfort.