"I hope you do, I'm sure," says the Pinkerton, moved by the liberal figure of the check. "And if there's anything more the Agency can do—"
In the afternoon of the same day, when the self-dismissed detective was speeding northward toward Chicago and the car-burners, Tom saddled the bay and rode long and hard over a bad mountain cart track to the hamlet of Pine Knob. It was a measure of his abandonment that he was breaking his promise to Ardea; and another of his reckless singleness of purpose that he rode brazenly through the little settlement to Nan's door, dismounted and entered as if he had right.
The cabin was untenanted, but he found Nan sitting on the slab step of a rude porch at the back, nursing her child. She greeted him without rising, and her eyes were downcast.
"I've come for justice, Nan," he said, without preface, seating himself on the end of the step and flicking the dust from his leggings with his riding-crop. "You know what they're saying about us—about you and me. I want to know who to thank for it: what is the man's name?"
She did not reply at once, and when she lifted the dark eyes to his they were full of suffering, like those of an animal under the lash.
"I nev' said hit was you," she averred, after a time.
"No; but you might as well. Everybody believes it, and you haven't denied it. Who is the man?"
"I cayn't tell," she said simply.
"You mean you won't tell."
"No, I cayn't; I'm livin' on his money, Tom-Jeff."