Lemuel was gazing narrowly at her, missing nothing; and he noticed the warm flush come and go in her cheeks. He had never seen such a brilliant light in her eyes before. He marveled vaguely.
“Well, I ain’t glad, that’s sure,” he said at last, with a hollow chuckle, but the significance of his words was lost on her.
“Tell me all about it, daddy. And you got all that money for—for capturing him? And he’s free? I’ll forgive you, then.”
Whereupon, he began an apologetic confession, relating how he had suspected that she knew the hiding place of the bandit, how he had spied on her, followed her from the house and seen her mount the steps into the hayloft, on that memorable night; how he had surprised Billy Gee and delivered him over to Warburton; how he had returned home by way of the field and climbed into bed.
Dot listened in silence, her eyes averted, an odd sympathy in her face; but she fairly gloated over the paper which Lemuel had carefully preserved, giving the stirring particulars of the outlaw’s subsequent escape.
“You’ll notice it says that the twenty thousand dollars he stole from the paymaster is missin’,” said Lemuel pointedly. Her obvious interest in Billy Gee disturbed him. “Ain’t it funny how it’s got lost? What d’ye reckon could ’a’ happened to it, eh, Dot?”
She glanced up from her reading and found him studying her strangely. She thought there was deep suspicion in his look. Or was it craftiness, greed?
The recollection of that wild outburst of his in the kitchen, back home, flashed into her mind. Much as she despised herself for the feeling of distrust that kindled in her breast, she decided she couldn’t be sure of him, that he was not to be relied on. Regardless of the fact that he now had money, might he still not be tempted—particularly since no one had the remotest inkling of the whereabouts of the bandit’s loot—to keep it, if she confided in him that Billy Gee had left it for her and that she was only waiting an opportunity to return it to its rightful owners? It was a frightful thought, she knew—a base, horrible thought for a daughter to entertain toward a father so self-sacrificing and loving as he was—but try as she would she could not rid herself of it.
“It is funny, isn’t it? Don’t you suppose, though, that they’ll make a search for it?” she asked, her innocence well assumed. There was a curious interest back of the last question, but he failed to notice it, watching as he was for some sign of nervousness or apprehension in her face.
“They already started. A young feller named Sangerly—his old man’s manager of the road—he’s bin on the job sence the day we left. He’s got a coupla high-class deetectives along. ’Cordin’ to what he was tellin’ me he aims to make it poorty hot for somebody.” He said this significantly.