Ross flashed around and faced Sandy McKenzie.
Sandy’s hands were rammed into his pockets; but his sun-burned face was smiling an unruffled welcome, and his voice rang pleasantly.
"How," Sandy inquired, "did ye get over here from Medder Creek?"
Ross instantly "boiled over" as he had feared he should, and said the very thing he had not intended to say. "You know how I got here! You know where I came from!"
The stage-driver, joined by a second man, came nearer and paused. Sandy pushed his hands yet deeper into his pockets, and looked amazingly innocent.
"Me!" he drawled. "What d’ye mean?"
At the insolent tone Ross’s blood boiled. It hummed through his ears, deafening him to the sound of his own voice. What he said he never could recall beyond the general knowledge that he accused Sandy of the theft of the dynamite and of his own and Leslie’s abduction across the mountains.
And, when he paused to catch his breath and steady his voice, Sandy was looking him over with an amused grin which maddened him.
"Now, ain’t that a likely story?" he inquired. "Kept ye a prisoner fer six months not five miles from Camp on a trail that can be follered at any time in the year! Ha, ha!"
Bill Travers grinned faintly. The other man turned away with the corners of his mouth twitching, while Sandy went on: