Cairness called to four of his scouts as he ran. They joined him, and he told them to help him search. In half an hour they found her, cowering in a cranny of rocks and manzanita. He dismissed the Indians, and then spoke to her. "Now you sit on that stone there and listen to me," he said, and taking her by the shoulder put her down and stood over her.
She kept her sullen glance on the ground, but she was shaking violently.
"Your husband is in jail," he said without preface. He had done with the mask of civility. It had served its purpose.
"No he ain't."
"Yes he is. And I put him there." He left her to what he saw was her belief that it was because of the Kirby affair. "You'll see when you get back. And I'll put you there, too, if I care to. The best chance you have is to do as I tell you."
She was silent, but the stubbornness was going fast. She broke off a bunch of little pink blossoms and rolled it in her hands.
"Your best chance for keeping out of jail, too," he insisted, "is to keep on the right side of me. Sabe? Now what I want to know is, what part Stone has in all this." He did not know what part any one had had in it, as a matter of fact, for he had failed in all attempts to make Lawton talk, in the two days he had had before leaving the post.
"Why don't you ask him?" said Mrs. Lawton, astutely.
"Because I prefer to ask you, that's why—and to make you answer, too."