"Even so, I can't have you within range when I—when I pick the lock."
"You mean—you mean there may be some shooting?" she demanded with suppressed excitement.
He did not like the gleam of hope that seemed to shine in her eyes. "You've done your part, Moira—more than any other woman would have dared to do. I wonder if I can trust you to wait for me in that graveyard down the creek?"
"To sit and idly wait when I might have a hand in the excitement!" she moaned. "Being a woman is an awful handicap, Sergeant Scarlet."
"That will be the helping part in this crime clean-up," he assured her, "to sit and wait. And if I do not come for you, you are to make your own way back to the mission and wait some more until other Mounties arrive to settle the score. You've done enough; leave the rest to me."
Moira protested that she had accomplished nothing but the ruin of their theories. Couldn't she do something constructive?
"We are done with theories and it's time I demonstrate some facts," said the sergeant in a convincing tone. "I feel certain I can promise you the arrest of Bart's slayer if you'll go at once to the hide-out I suggested."
"But the klootchmen said——"
"Squaw talk—forget it." He was growing impatient. "Likely they don't know one day from another. Any moment Bonnemort may return. Don't risk his seeing you. Please go while there is time!" He turned to the tent front and held back one of its flaps.
"Moira unwelcome—a new sensation!" she murmured disappointedly, then shuffled out of the tent with the flat-footed walk of an Argonaut squaw.