“If you’re innocent, then prove it by forcing the men that carried her off, or the man, if there was only one, to bring her back home. Then I’ll believe you. Maybe others will, too. What are you riding the road so early for, all armed and suspicious, if you’re such honest men?”
“We’re goin’ to the agency after ammunition to defend our homes, and our wives and children—such of us as Saul Chadron and his hired hounds has left 174 children to, colonel’s daughter,” Tom Lassiter answered, reproof in his kind old eyes.
Frances had unrolled the bit of evidence that she had picked up from the bushes, and was holding it on the horn of her saddle now, quite unconscious of what her hands were doing, for she had forgotten the importance of her find in the heat of that meeting. Macdonald spurred forward, pointing to the thing in her hand.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, a sharp note of concern in his voice that made her start.
She told him. He took it from her and turned to his comrades.
“It’s Mark Thorn’s cap!” he said, holding it up, his fingers in the crown.
Tom Lassiter nodded his slow head as the others leaned to look.
“Saul Chadron’s chickens has come home to roost,” he said.
Frances understood nothing of the excitement that sprung out of the mention of the outlaw’s name, for Mark Thorn and his bloody history were alike unknown to her. Her resentment mounted at being an outsider to their important or pretended secret.
“Well, if you know whose cap it is, it ought to be easy for you to find the owner,” she said, unable to smother the sneer in her words.