Thornton's nod indicated that he understood. And then, suddenly, he said,
"If you're going that way you can see Miss Waverly through, can't you?
She's going to the Corners."
Smith whistled softly.
"Now what the devil is the like of her goin' to that town for?" he demanded.
"I don't know the answer. But she's going there." And as partial explanation, he added, "She's Henry Pollard's niece."
For a moment Smith pondered the information in silence. Then his only reference to it was a short spoken, "Well, she don't look it! Anyway, that's her look-out, an' I'll see her within half a dozen miles of the border. You'll turn off this side the Poison Hole, huh?"
"I'll turn off right here, and right now. I've got a curiosity, John," and his voice was harder than Winifred Waverly had ever heard it, "to know a thing or two about the way my horse went lame. I'm going to sling my saddle on your roan and take a little ride back to Harte's. Maybe I can pick up that other jasper's trail in the cañon back there."
The two men went down to the stable, and while the rancher watered and fed the pony Thornton roped the big roan in the fenced-in pasture. Ten minutes after he had come to the Smith place he had saddled and ridden back along the trail toward Harte's.
The two women in the cabin looked up as Smith came in.
"Where's Mr. Thornton?" his wife asked.