“Yes,” said Grant, “but I’m not going to give you that letter. Are you coming in to supper? It really wouldn’t commit you to anything.”
“I am,” said Chilton simply. “I have known you quite a long while, and your assurance is good enough for me; but you would have found it difficult to make other folks believe you.”
They sat down at table, and Larry smiled as he said, “It’s the first time I have seen your scruples spoil your appetite, Chilton, but I had a notion that you were not quite sure about taking any supper from me.”
“Well,” laughed Chilton, “that just shows how foolish a man can be, because the supper’s already right here inside me. When I came in Breckenridge got it for me. Still, I have driven a long way, and I can worry through another.”
He made a very creditable attempt, and when he had been shown to his room Grant glanced at Breckenridge.
“You know how I got the letter?”
“Yes,” said Breckenridge. “Miss Torrance must have inadvertently slipped it into the wallet. You couldn’t have done anything else, Larry; but the affair is delicate and will want some handling. How are you going to get the packet back?”
“Take it myself,” Grant said quietly.
It was ten o’clock the next night, and Hetty Torrance and Miss Schuyler sat talking in their little sitting-room. Torrance was away, but his married foreman, who had seen service in New Mexico, and his wife, slept in the house, and Cedar Range was strongly guarded. Now and then, the bitter wind set the door rattling, and there was a snapping in the stove; but when the gusts passed the ranch seemed very still, and Miss Schuyler could hear the light tread of the armed cow-boy who, perhaps to keep himself warm, paced up and down the hall below. There was another at a window in the corridor, and one or two more on guard in the stores and stables.
“Wasn’t Chris Allonby to have come over to-day?” asked Miss Schuyler.