“What do you mean, what happened?”
“Henry left some things out of his story.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard him tell it.”
Jeffries, acting without delay on the suspicion that de Spain was getting ready to resign, raised his salary. To his surprise, de Spain told him that the company was already paying him more than he was worth and declined the raise; yet he took nobody whomsoever into his confidence.
However, the scent of something concealed in de Spain’s story had long before touched Lefever’s 225 own nostrils, and he was stimulated by mere pride to run the secret down. Accordingly, he set himself to find, in a decent way, something in the nature of an explanation.
De Spain, in the interval, made no progress in his endeavor to see Nan. The one man in the country who could have surmised the situation between the two––the barn boss, McAlpin––if he entertained suspicions, was far too pawky to share them with any one.
When two weeks had passed without de Spain’s having seen Nan or having heard of her being seen, the conclusion urged itself on him that she was either ill or in trouble––perhaps in trouble for helping him; a moment later he was laying plans to get into the Gap to find out.
Nothing in the way of a venture could be more foolhardy––this he admitted to himself––nothing, he consoled himself by reflecting, but something stronger than danger could justify it. Of all the motley Morgan following within the mountain fastness he could count on but one man to help him in the slightest degree––this was the derelict, Bull Page. There was no choice but to use him, and he was easily enlisted, for the Calabasas affair had made a heroic figure of de Spain in the barrooms. De Spain, accordingly, lay in wait for the old man and intercepted him one day on 226 the road to Sleepy Cat, walking the twenty miles patiently for his whiskey.
“You must be the only man in the Gap, Bull, that can’t borrow or steal a horse to ride,” remarked de Spain, stopping him near the river bridge.