“So, you are here?” said Swan, standing in the door, looking about him as if he had entered an unfamiliar place.
“Didn’t you look for me?” Reid returned. He stood between Carlson and the closed inner door, foot on a rung of the chair in which he lately had sat, his attitude careless, easy.
“A man never knows,” Carlson replied, coming into the room.
Hertha Carlson lingered just outside the door, as if repelled by the recollection of old sufferings there. Swan reached out, grasped her wrist, drew her roughly inside, pointed to a chair. The woman sat down, her eyes distended in fright, her feet drawn close to the chair as if to hide them from the galling chain that she had dragged so many weary months across the floor of her lonely prison.
Swan pulled a chair to the table and sat down, elbows on the board, facing Reid, a question in his attitude, his face, to which he at once gave words:
“Where’s your woman?”
“Where’s the money?” Reid countered, putting out his hand. “You threw me down after I delivered you three hundred sheep––you didn’t come across with a cent––on the plea that one thief couldn’t collect from another. All right, Swan; we’ll forget the sheep deal, 297 but this is another matter. Put your money in my hand; then we’ll talk.”
“Is she in there?” Swan pointed to the door behind Reid, half rising from his chair.
Reid put his hand to his empty holster, his body turned from Carlson to conceal his want of a weapon. Carlson jerked his head in high disdain, resumed his chair, his great hand spread on the table.
Mackenzie stepped back from the window, leveling his pistol at Reid’s head. Joan was the subject of this infamous barter.