Astounded, each gazed into the face of the other for a moment. “You didn’t hear him?” ventured Letty. “Maybe he was hid in the brush.”
“The shanty was pretty good-sized—lookin’ at it from the outside,” returned the doctor. “Inside, the room was awful small. If that man comes after me again——”
“Don’t go out alone with him,” she pleaded. “Let somebody trail you.”
He shook his head. “He’d find it out and shoot. No, I’ve got to take the chance. Oh, Letty, if I could only bring that little woman her kid!”
Letty’s dark eyes were misty. “You couldn’t telephone her, could you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “So far, everything’s guesswork. I dassent raise her hopes on that. It’s awful when a person’s hopes’re raised—and then go smash. I’ve got to find out where I was. There’s a scheme I heard of once——”
“Is it scattering beans?”
“No.” He laughed and reached across the kitchen table to cover a slim hand with one of his. “No”—more soberly—“it’s something different—it’s about Bobby. You’d have to let me take care of him for a few days and treat him real bad. I won’t tell you what I’d do to him, then it won’t fret you.”
“Take Bobby,” she urged. “But oh, don’t have any trouble out there with that man!” And she grew white and clung to his hand as she had never done before.
He stayed only long enough to reassure her, and went when the sun shone against the kitchen window. He had been twenty-four hours without sleep.