"If I let you have your way, Rod Norton," she whispered, "you will go on from crime to tragedy. If I hand you over to the law, I will be betraying you for no end; for your type of man finds the way to break jail and so force his own hand to further violence. There is the one way out. . . . And God help me to succeed. God forgive me if I fail!"
She stole by him and stepped upon the outer ledge. She was leaving him helpless . . . the thought presented itself that she would have another thing to answer for if one of the many men with such cause to hate him should come upon him thus. Well, that was but one of the more remote chances she must take. There was scant enough likelihood that any one should come here before she could race into Las Estrellas and back.
Then it was that she saw Patten. She did not know at first that it was Patten, but just that within a few feet of her upon the ledge which she must travel to the steps a man was standing, his body jerking back, pressed against the rocks as he saw her. She drew back swiftly, her blood in riotous tumult.
But now, above aught else, the one thought in her mind was that there was no time for loitering, that the dawn would come all too soon, that there must be no delay. She stooped quickly and drew from its holster Norton's heavy revolver. Her saddle-blanket over her left arm, the gun gripped in her right hand, she was once more upon the ledge, moving cautiously toward the figure seen a moment ago, gone now.
That it was Patten she knew only when she had gone down the steps and had overtaken him there. Retreating thus far, reassured when he had made out that it was the girl alone, he waited for her. And as she demanded nervously, "Who is it?" it was Patten's disagreeable laugh which answered her.
"So," he jeered at her, "this is the sort of thing you do when you are supposed to be out on a case all night!"
Patten here! Had God sent him . . . or the devil? His insult she passed over. She was not thinking of herself right now, of convention, of wagging tongues. She was just seeking to understand how this latest incident might simplify or make more complex her problem.
"I've had my suspicions all along," he laughed evilly. "To-night I followed and made sure. And now, my fine little white dove, what have you to say for yourself?"
Might she use Patten? She was but now on her way to Las Estrellas for aid. She would operate herself, she would take that upon herself, with no more regard for ethics than for Patten's gossiping tongue. She believed that she could do it successfully; at the least she must make the attempt, though Norton died under her hand. The right? She had the right! The right because she loved him, because he loved her, because his whole future was at stake. But she must have assistance so that she submit him to no needless danger, so that she give him every chance under such circumstances as these. She would have brought a man from Las Estrellas, she would have let him think what pleased him, just saying that Norton had met with an accident, that an operation was necessary. And now Patten was here.
Could she use him?