"What? What will they do? Bates is just going out to arrest that man for questioning and I think he's got a right to do it."
Jane Parker looked at her husband in new surprise. There was something in her face that had never been there before. A look he would have done well to heed. She said, "Dan—I just don't understand you any more. This isn't you. There's an—an evil coming into you."
"That's nonsense. Just because I won't stick my nose into the sheriff's business—"
"At least do this for me, Dan. Go out and tell Sam Taber what's happening. If Sam refuses to act, then I'll be satisfied. But go and tell him."
Dan Parker's mouth twisted in anger and helpless frustration. "So you think Sam Taber's a better man than your husband? So you have more respect for him than you have for me?"
"I'm afraid I do—at the moment." Jane spoke quietly and there was a distant regard in her eyes. "Will you go, Dan? Or will I?"
"I forbid you to go kiting off across the desert—"
"You go, or I will."
"All right—I'll go."
Jane stood in the yard watching the tail light of the jeep fade off toward the Circle-7. There was a stark misery in her heart—a bleak unhappiness she had never before known. "It's not Dan—not Dan at all!" she whispered fiercely. Then she ran back to the porch and sat down on the steps and began to cry.