“One of these days he’ll get what’s coming to him, Mother Liggs. He’ll pick on the wrong man at the right time,” said Lex slowly.
A little later, they had dismissed the subject and their talk drifted to the search being made on the Huntington ranch.
“Developments have brought about a rather unusual situation,” he told her, “and I have come to you, hoping you might be able to clear it up. In the first place, I want to ask you a question, because I know you are an intimate friend of the Huntingtons. I saw your picture occupying a prominent place out there. Has Miss Huntington a sweetheart? Have you ever known her to be interested in any man?”
Mrs. Liggs thought a moment, then shook her head decidedly. “No, and what’s more, she never speaks of men in that way, Lex. She’s different from any girl I’ve ever met, for her age—she’s eighteen. She’s studious and likes to read novels and—well, dream. She sits and spins yarns to me every time we visit one another. Yarns she’s made up, mind you, and they’re as clever as any you ever read. But I’m positive she never kept company with a man in her life. I’d know if she did, Lex.”
He looked across the room, puffing his cigarette in silence.
“The reason I ask, Mother Liggs, is that our investigations lead us to believe that she helped Billy Gee, provided him with food, a bed and——”
“She did!” burst out the little old lady, in sudden excitement.
“Yes, and from all appearances, hid him in her room. I want to be sure of their relations to each other, for it is quite probable that if he knew her he would tell her about the stolen money and either confide in her where he had hidden it or have her conceal it for him.” He followed by giving Mrs. Liggs a detailed account of the search and what it had revealed.
She listened intently, eagerly, drinking in every word, a strange, exultant light that he did not note gleaming far back in the depths of her faded blue eyes, her cheeks tinged with a faint rosiness that heightened the charm of her kindly countenance.
“And if you don’t find this money, Lex, I hope you don’t intend to arrest Dot!” she cried suddenly. “Why, that would be a terrible outrage—horrible. That girl is a dear, sweet, innocent child who wouldn’t do wrong for anything. Why, that’s just like her to help him—wounded and bleeding and all that!”