"I really don't know much, although I am persuaded accident is the proper word. Jimmy thought the unlucky shot was his and when he resolved to go off I agreed."
"But you knew what the police would think about his running away!"
"That is so," said Stannard coolly. "All the same, Jimmy was with me when I killed the big-horn, and when Douglas found us at the old ranch we were using pit-lights. One of our party shot him, and since we were again poaching, it hardly looked as if the shot were accidental. Jimmy is young and when he saw the risk he ran he was afraid. I thought he did run some risk, but, if he could cheat the police for a time, we might find a clue to the puzzle."
Margaret remarked his frankness. Although she thought he did not know Jimmy had stopped at the ranch, his arguments were the arguments Jimmy stated he had used. Moreover, she admitted the arguments carried some weight.
"We have not yet found a clue," she said drearily. "Still, if the warden gets better—— Do you know where he is?"
For a moment or two Stannard was quiet. Then he said, "We can get no news about Douglas, and perhaps we ought not to expect much from his narrative. When you use a pit-lamp your hat-brim shades your face, and I imagine all Douglas saw was the light. Yet the police's reserve is strange."
"Perhaps they know something we do not," said Margaret. "Well, my father is waiting and I must not stop."
She went off and Stannard went up the steps to the hotel. In a corner of the veranda Dillon talked to Laura, and Stannard remarked the smile she gave the young man. Stannard knitted his brows and did not stop. In some respects, the marriage would be good, but it was not the marriage he had wanted Laura to make. All the same, Jimmy was obviously satisfied with the bush girl and Stannard thought she loved him. Well, he had done with Jimmy.
When Margaret got down at the ranch she went to the kitchen and sat by the fire. For a time she said nothing and Jardine quietly smoked his pipe. Then she looked up with a frown.
"I found Bob," she said. "He was talking to Mr. Stannard outside the hotel."