"No!" she cried hoarsely. "No. I won't believe it...."
He failed to catch just what she was thinking. She refused to believe that Bruce Standing, instead of coming to her had raced instead to Mexicali Joe's gold; that instead of scattering his men across fifty miles of country seeking her, he was massing them at a new gold-mine. Bruce Standing was not like that! She cried it passionately within her spirit. She had stood loyally by him; she had, at all costs, kept her word to him ... she had come to believe in his love for her and to long for his return....
"If you saw men before ... if you thought the thing that you think now ... why didn't you rush on after them? It's not true!"
"I didn't rush after them," he returned curtly, "because I'd be a fool for my pains and would only give that wolf-devil another chance to laugh in my face. For if he's got this lead on us ... why, then, the game is his."
"But I won't believe...."
"If you will watch you will see. I'll bet a thousand dollars he has a hundred men down there already and that they'll be riding by all day; they'll be staking claims which he will buy back from them at the price of a day's work; he'll work a clean shut-out for Gallup and Taggart. That's what he'd give his right hand to do. You watch a minute."
They watched. Once Taggart shouted up to them.
"Down in a minute, Taggart." Deveril called back.
Before long Lynette saw another cloud of dust; this time three or four men rode into sight and sped away after the others; before the dust had cleared another two or three men rode by. And at last Lynette felt despair in her heart, rising into her throat, choking her. For she understood that in her hour of direst need Bruce Standing had failed her.
"Taggart will be wanting you in a minute," said Deveril. He spoke casually; he appeared calm and untroubled; he took out tobacco and papers and began rolling a cigarette. But Lynette saw that the man was atremble with rage. "Before you go down to him, tell me: did you know what you were doing when you brought us to the wrong place?"