"Jimmie was a friend to me once when I needed a friend. He got this far, he held out to ride to my cabin night before last and left a note. I took him out some grub last night. It's all I can do for him; I haven't any way to hide him out. And he's in too bad shape to ride."
"Well, where do I come in?"
Thornton shrugged his shoulders.
"That's your business, yours and Jimmie's. He said that you were a pal of his, and," he added bluntly, with a keen curious look into the Kid's steel-blue eyes, "that you never went back on a pal."
Behind him in the street Thornton heard the clatter of horses' hoofs coming on rapidly. He paid no attention until they were close to him, so close that from the corner of his eye he caught the flutter of a woman's skirt. Then he knew who it was before she passed on. One was Pollard looking white and sick; the other, rosy cheeked and bright eyed, was Winifred Waverly.
A quick smile drove the sternness from his eyes and he swept off his hat to her, ignoring the presence of Pollard. But into her expression as she returned his look for the moment in which she was flashing by, there came no vague hint of recognition. He turned back to Bedloe, a little flush of anger in his cheeks. The two men were very near only battle just then. For the Kid smiled.
"How do I know you're tellin' me the truth?" They had gone back to Jimmie Clayton, Bedloe speaking suspiciously again. "How do I know you ain't puttin' up a game on me? It's a nice lonely place, where that dugout is."
The flush died out of the cowboy's tanned skin as swiftly as it had run into it.
"I guess you can't tell," he retorted. "Unless you go and find out. And you know if I wanted to get you I could have got you in there, and I could have got you that time at Smith's. And," with an impudence to match Bedloe's, "I could get you now!"
The Kid passed over the remark, his brows knitted thoughtfully.