Her grasp pulled him imperatively back.
“You shall not go yet.”
“Then I can only continue to decline making answers. I frankly say that I regret having uttered a word of explanation.”
“I don’t regret it. And I intend to keep questioning you, however rude you may think me. I must know,” 72 she cried impetuously, “and I shall know! Mr. Sorenson is one of the men you referred to, or he would never seek to direct suspicion at you. I saw the look on your face, sir, as he spoke. But why should you two be enemies! You come here a stranger to San Mateo, or have you been here before sometime? Did you know him before?”
Again he could feel her eyes straining at him.
“It seems mad to think of him and Mr. Burkhardt, and perhaps others, hiring some one to shoot you down from a dark doorway. It is utterly mad––crazy. But why should they want to convict you, in the crowd’s opinion at least, of murdering the man. It would not be just trouble about the dam––oh, no. But I can’t see through it at all. Why won’t you tell me? You can trust me––and I want to help you as well as help myself. You certainly don’t hold against me my silly nonsense and unkind words of the day you brought me home from the ford.”
“I didn’t think them silly; they delighted me,” he responded. “I hadn’t had anything happen to me so refreshing in years.”
“We must be friends. Something tells me they’re going to make you trouble over this shooting, and you’ll need friends.”
“Something tells me you’re right in both respects,” he laughed.
“And friends must stick together.”