"I was hateful to him yesterday," she said penitently, as they rode into the city. Vos Engo had been thinking of something else: the remark disturbed him.
"He was very presumptuous-yesterday," he said crossly.
She transfixed him with a look meant to be reproachful.
"That's why I managed the ticket for Bobby's circus," she said, looking ahead with a genuinely mournful droop of her lip. "I was sorry for him. Oh, dear, oh, dear What will his poor mother say—and his sister?"
"We've done all we can, Loraine. Except to cable," he added sourly.
"Yes, I suppose so. Poor fellow!"
Colonel Quinnox and his men had been scouring the hills for bandits. They arrived at the Witch's cabin a few minutes after Vos Engo and his company. Disregarding the curses of the old woman, a thorough search of the place was made. The forest, the ravine, the mountainside for a mile or more in all directions were gone over by the searchers. There was absolutely no sign of the missing man, nor was there the least indication that there had been foul play.
The old woman's story, reflected by the grandson, was convincing so far as it went. She said that the young man remained behind in the kitchen to puzzle himself over the smoke mystery, while she went out to her doorstep. The man with the horses became frightened when she went down to explain the situation to him. He fled. A few minutes later the gentleman emerged, to find his horse gone, himself deserted. Cursing, he struck off down the glen in pursuit of his friend, and that was the last she saw of him. Not long afterward she heard shooting in the Gap and sent her grandson to see if anything could have happened to her late visitor, who, it seems, owed her one hundred gavvos as a forfeit of some sort.
