Around five o’clock she made out her father galloping home along the road from camp. Giving the outlaw a few specific instructions she ran out beyond the gate to meet Lemuel as was her custom. But Huntington had no smile for his daughter to-day. She marked the ill humor in his face, the hard, accusing look he gave her, and half suspected the reason.
A tall, angular, wiry man was Lemuel Huntington, a sprinkle of gray in his hair and mustache, a countenance more pathetic than aggressive. Association with Geerusalem’s uppish fraternity had inspired him to assume its dashy swagger garb—stiff-brim gray Stetson, corduroy suit, his trousers stuffed into yellow, laced, three-quarter boots resplendent with steel buckles, his coat, box-pleated and belted à la Norfolk. Just now, as he rode up, scowling on Dot, he looked more the prosperous mining man of sectional influence than the humble, unimportant rancher he really was.
“What’s this talk of you side-kickin’ it with a bandit, Dot?” he began sharply as he dismounted.
“I suppose you’ve met Sheriff Warburton, and he’s told you——”
“Yes, I did. He says you helped Billy Gee git away, patched him up, give him a hoss, an’——”
“Billy Gee!” she gasped aloud. Her patient was the notorious desperado who, for years, had terrorized the border settlements far to the south!
“Yes—Billy Gee. He stuck up the paymaster’s car of the Mohave & Southwestern last night at a gradin’ camp east of Mirage an’ skinned out with twenty thousand dollars. Bob Warburton was on his trail when he done it. Posses are out thicker’n fleas—three from Geerusalem alone. The country’s all riled up. What d’you mean by actin’ that fool way, Dot? Ain’t you got no sense?”
“How did I know he was Billy Gee, daddy? Please be a little reasonable.” She spoke, a tinge of impatience in her voice, her eyes on the ground.
“He must ’a’ acted suspicious, didn’t he? An’ he was winged, to boot.”
“He was about dead. Father, would you have me run a dying man off the place, brutally—like a dog? Is that the kind of daughter you want to be proud of?” She was looking steadily at him now.