"Good evening, Hanscom," he pleasantly called. "Come up and have a seat and a smoke with the gardener."
"I have but a moment," the ranger replied, and plunged again into the story, which served in this instance as a preface to his plea for intervention. "You must help me, Judge. Miss McLaren must not go to jail. To arrest her in this way a second time is a crime. She's a lady, Judge, and as innocent of that shooting as a child."
"You surprise me," said Brinkley. "According to all reports she is very, very far from being a lady."
Hanscom threw out his hands in protest. "They're all wrong, Judge. I tell you she is a lady, and young and handsome."
"Handsome and young!" The judge's eyes took on a musing expression. "Well, well! that accounts for much. But what was she doing up there in the company of that old Dutchman?"
"I don't know why she came West, but I'm glad she did. I'm glad to have known her. That old Dutchman, as you call him, is her stepfather and a fine chap."
"But Carmody has arrested her. What caused him to do that?"
"I don't know. I can't understand it. It may be that Kitsong has put the screws on him some way."
The judge reflected. "As the only strange woman in the valley, the girl naturally falls under suspicion of having made those footprints."
"I know it, Judge, but you have only to see her—to hear her voice—to realize how impossible it is for her to kill even a coyote. All I ask, now, is that you save her from going to jail."