The woman watched him closely. "She took only her violin. She went sometime after lunch--down the canyon, I think. Do you wish particularly to see her, Mr. Oakley?"
It was evident to the woman that the officer was relieved. "Oh, no; she wouldn't be going far with her violin. If she went down the canyon, it's all right anyway. But I stopped in to tell the girl that she must be careful, for a while. There's an escaped convict ranging somewhere in my district. I received the word this morning, and have been up around Lone Cabin and Burnt Pine and the head of Clear Creek to see if I could start anything. I didn't find any signs, but the information is reliable. Tell Sibyl that I say she must not go out without her gun--that if I catch her wandering around unarmed, I'll pack her off back to civilization, pronto."
"I'll tell her," said Myra Willard, "and I'll help her to remember. It would be better, I suppose, if she stayed at home; but that seems so impossible."
"She'll be all right if she has her gun," asserted the Ranger, confidently. "I'd back the girl against anything I ever met up with--when she has her artillery. By the way, Myra, have your neighbors below called yet?"
"No--at least, not while I have been at home. I have been berrying, two or three times. They might have come while I was out."
"Has Sibyl met them yet?" came the next question.
"She has not mentioned it, if she has."
"H-m-m," mused Brian Oakley.
The woman's love for the girl prompted her to quick suspicion of the Ranger's manner.
"What is it, Mr. Oakley?" she asked. "Has the child been indiscreet? Has she done anything wrong? Has she been with those men?"