"Why do you wait then?" she asked sharply. "If you know all this, why don't you arrest the man and his accomplices now? Before it is too late?"
"And have the whole country laugh at me? Where's my evidence? Just the word of a dead Indian, repeated by another Indian, and a few rifles hid in the mountains? Even if we proved the rifles were Galloway's, and I don't believe we could, how would we set about proving his intention? No; I've talked it all over with the district attorney and we can't move yet. We've got our chance at last; the chance to watch and get Jim Galloway with the goods on. But we've got to wait until he is just ready to strike. And then we are going to put a stop to lawlessness in San Juan once and for all."
"But," she objected breathlessly, "if he should strike before you are ready?"
"It is our one business in life that he doesn't do it. We know what he is up to; we have found this hiding-place; we shall keep an eye on it night and day. He doesn't know that we have been here; no one knows but ourselves. You see now, Miss Page, why I couldn't bring Patten here? Patten talks too much and Galloway knows every thought in Patten's mind. And you understand how important it is for you to forget that you have been here?"
She sat silent, staring into the embers of the dying fire.
"The thing which I can't understand," she said presently, "is that if Jim Galloway is the 'big man' that you say he is he should do as much talking as he must have done; that he should have told his plans to such a man as the Indian who told them to Ignacio Chavez."
"But he didn't tell all of this," Norton informed her. "The Indian died without guessing what I have told you. He merely knew that the rifles were here because Galloway had employed him to bring them and because he was the man who told Galloway of this hiding-place. He believed that Galloway's whole scheme was to smuggle a lot of arms and ammunition south and across the border, selling to the Mexicans. But from what little he could tell Chavez and from what we found out for ourselves, the whole play became pretty obvious. No, Galloway hasn't been talking and he has been playing as safe as a man can upon such business as this. His luck was against him, that's all, when the Indian died and insisted on being rung out by the San Juan bells. There's always that little element of chance in any business, legitimate or otherwise. . . . And now, if you'll finish your breakfast I'll show you a view you'll never forget and then we'll hit the trail."
"But, Mr. Lane," she asked, "you don't intend to leave him here all alone? He will get well with the proper attention; but be must have that."
"Within another hour or so," Norton told her, "Tom Cutter will be back with one of Brocky's cowboys. They'll move Lane into a cañon on the other side of the mountain. Oh, I know he oughtn't to be moved, but what else can we do? Besides, Brocky insists on it. Then they'll arrange to take care of him; if necessary you'll come out again to-morrow night?"
"Of course," she said. She went to Brocky and held out her hand to him. "I understand now, I think, why you would refuse to die, no matter how badly you were hurt, until you had helped Mr. Norton finish the work you have set your hands to. It's an honor, Mr. Lane, to have a patient like you."