"Oh yes, you were! You didn't know you left your footprints in some flour on the floor, did you?"
Her glance was directed involuntarily toward her feet, as if in guilty surprise. It was a slight but convincing evidence to the ranger, who went on:
"Who was with you—Busby or Henry?"
"Nobody was with me. I wasn't there. I haven't been in the valley before for weeks."
"You didn't go there alone. You wouldn't dare to go alone in the night, and the man who was with you killed Watson."
She sat up with a gasp, and young Kitsong stared. Their surprise was too genuine to be assumed. "What's that you say? Watson killed?"
"Yes. Watson was shot Monday night. Didn't you know that? Where have you been that you haven't heard of it?"
Young Kitsong was all readiness to answer now. "We've been up in the hills. We have a camp up there."
"Oh," said Hanscom, "kind of a robbers' den, eh? Has Busby been with you?"
"Sure thing. We've all been fishing and hunting—" Here he stopped suddenly, for to admit that he had been hunting out of season was to lay himself liable to arrest as a poacher on the forest. He went on: "We all came down here together."