"He said he had nothing," she stammered, as he helped her to rise. "He said he had nothing.... How true it is!" Edgerton gently lifted her to his skiff, then stepped in beside her. He, too, was watching the water for the possible emergence of a ghastly face.
Annabel began trembling as with the ague. "Edgerton!... He said it was all a lie—about his property—and so it was. Everything is a lie except—this..."
She clung to him.
CHAPTER XXVI
JUST A HABIT
When Bill Atkins with an air of impenetrable mystery invited Wilfred Compton to a ride that might keep him from his bride several days, the young man guessed that Willock had been found. Lahoma, divining as much, urged Wilfred to hasten, assured him that she enjoyed the publicity and stirring life of the Mangum hotel and expressed confidence that should she need a friend, Mizzoo would help her through any difficulty. So Wilfred rode away with Bill, and Willock was not mentioned.
Bill was evidently in deep trouble, and when Wilfred and he had let themselves down into the stone corridor whose only entrance was a crevice in the mountain-top, he understood the old trapper's deep despondency—Brick Willock was there; and Brick declared his intention of giving himself up. He announced his purpose before greetings had subsided. Bill called him an old fool, used unpruned language, scolded, rather than argued. Wilfred, on the other hand, delayed events by requesting full particulars of the last few weeks.
"He's told me all he's been up to," Bill objected; "there's no call to travel over that ground again. What I brought you here for, Wilfred, is to show him how foolish he'd be to let himself be taken when he's free as the wind."
"I tells my tale," declared Brick, "and them as has heard it once can take it or leave it." He was discursive, circumstantial, and it was a long time before he led them in fancy to the door of the boat-house and showed them Red Feather and Gledware disappearing forever beneath the surface of the lake.