"The chances are that I don't know him. I don't know half a dozen folks in the town. What's his name?"
"His name," she told him demurely, "is Henry Pollard. I think you know him."
He flushed a little as she had hoped that he would. He remembered. He knew that he had spoken this morning at the bank of Henry Pollard from whom he was buying his outfit, knew that he must have called him, as he always did when he spoke of him, "Rattlesnake" Pollard. And Henry Pollard was her uncle!
"I didn't know," he said slowly and a little lamely, "that he was your uncle. But," he added cheerfully, his assurance coming back to him, "you can't help that, you know. I don't blame you for it. Yes, I'll ride over from the ranch. It's good of you to let me."
They finished the meal in a rather thoughtful silence. Thornton made a cigarette and went to the door to look for the upclimbing moon; the girl carried her chair to the fireplace and sat down, her hands in her lap, her eyes staring into the coals.
The man was asking himself stubbornly why this girl, this type of girl, dainty, frank-eyed, clean-hearted as he felt instinctively that she was, was making this trip to that dirty town which straddled the state border line like an evil, venomous toad and sneered in its ugly defiant fashion at the peace officers of two states. He was trying to see what the reason could be that carried her through this little-travelled country to the house of such a man as not only Buck Thornton but every one in this end of the cattle country knew Henry Pollard to be; trying above all to seek the reason for her making the trip on horse back, alone, over a wild trail, when the stage for Hill's Corners had left Dry Town so little after her and must reach its journey's end well ahead of her.
And she, over and over, was asking herself why this man whom she was so certain she had seen twice that day upon the trail behind her, denied that he had been the man who got down to look at his horse's foot, who later had ridden a limping mount aside into the cañon. For she felt very sure that she had not been mistaken and, therefore, that he was lying to her. She frowned and glanced over her shoulder. She was a little afraid of a man who could look at her out of clear eyes as he had looked, and lie to her as she was so confident he had lied. She knew nothing of him save that this morning he had come to her assistance at a moment of great peril and that he was suspected by some of a certain robbery and assault….
"Are you very tired?"
She started. He had turned at last and came back to where she sat.
"No, I am not tired. Why do you ask?"