He made a seat for her on the windward side of the big fire. When she had seated herself she looked up in great contentment to ask if he was not going to sit down beside her. The brown coat, the high black hat, and the big eyes of Whispering Smith had already become a part of her mental store. She saw that he seemed preoccupied, 233 and sought to draw him out of his abstraction.
“I am so glad you and Mr. McCloud are getting acquainted with Cousin Lance,” she said. “And do you mind my giving you a confidence, Mr. Smith? Lance has been so unreasonable about this matter of the railroad’s coming up the valley and powwowing so much with lawyers and ranchers that he has been forgetting about everything at home. He is so much older than I am that he ought to be the sensible one of the family, don’t you think so? It frightens me to have him losing at cards and drinking. I am afraid he will get into some shooting affair. I don’t understand what has come over him, and I worry about it. I believe you could influence him if you knew him.”
“What makes you think that?” asked Whispering Smith, but his eyes were on the fire.
“Because these men he spends his time with in town––the men who fight and shoot so much––are afraid of you. Don’t laugh at me. I know it is quite true in spite of their talk. I was afraid of you myself until–––”
“Until we made verse together.”
“Until you made verse and I spoiled it. But I think it is because I don’t understand things that I am so afraid. I am not naturally a coward. 234 I’m sure I could not be afraid of you if I understood things better. And there is Marion. She puzzles me. She will never speak of her husband––I don’t know why. And I don’t know why Mr. McCloud is so hard on Mr. Sinclair––Mr. Sinclair seems so kind and good-natured.”
Whispering Smith looked from the fire into Dicksie’s eyes. “What should you say if I gave you a confidence?”
She opened her heart to his searching gaze. “Would you trust me with a confidence?”
He answered without hesitation. “You shall see. Now, I have many things I can’t talk about, you understand. But if I had to give you a secret this instant that carried my life, I shouldn’t fear to do it––so much for trusting you. Only this, too, as to what I say: don’t ever quote me or let it appear that you any more than know me. Can you manage that? Really? Very good; you will understand why in a minute. The man that is stirring up all this trouble with your Cousin Lance and in this whole country is your kind and good-natured neighbor, Mr. Sinclair. I am prejudiced against him; let us admit that on the start, and remember it in estimating what I say. But Sinclair is the man who has turned your cousin’s head, as well as made things in other ways unpleasant for several of us. Sinclair––I tell you so you will 235 understand everything, more than your cousin, Mr. McCloud, or Marion Sinclair understand––Sinclair is a train-wrecker and a murderer. That makes you breathe hard, doesn’t it? but it is so. Sinclair is fairly educated and highly intelligent, capable in every way, daring to the limit, and, in a way, fascinating; it is no wonder he has a following. But his following is divided into two classes: the men that know all the secrets, and the men that don’t––men like Rebstock and Du Sang, and men like your cousin and a hundred or so sports in Medicine Bend, who see only the glamour of Sinclair’s pace. Your cousin sympathizes with Sinclair when he doesn’t actually side with him. All this has helped to turn Sinclair’s head, and this is exactly the situation you and McCloud and I and a lot of others are up against. They don’t know all this, but I know it, and now you know it. Let me tell you something that comes close to home. You have a cowboy on the ranch named Karg––he is called Flat Nose. Karg was a railroad man. He is a cattle-thief, a train-robber, a murderer, and a spy. I should not tell you this if you were not game to the last drop of your blood. But I think I know you better than you know yourself, though you never saw me until last night. Karg is Sinclair’s spy at your ranch, and you must never feel it or know it; but he is 236 there to keep your cousin’s sympathy with Sinclair, and to lure your cousin his way. And Karg will try to kill George McCloud every time he sets foot on this ranch, remember that.”
“Then Mr. McCloud ought not to be here. I don’t want him to stay if he is in danger!” exclaimed Dicksie.