"Yes, it will be due, but let it wait."
"What's the use? I'm all right now. I brought the cash with me on purpose. I wanted to square it with you on sight."
Dick pressed the money into Jack's hand, closing his fingers over the roll of bills. With a sigh of relief, as if a disagreeable task was completed, he questioned: "How's Bud?"
Jack replied shortly: "All right; he's inside."
"I didn't write to him," cheerfully resumed Dick. "I didn't want the kid to know. He is so excitable, he would have blabbed it right out. I'll sure be glad to see the boy again. He's impulsive, but his heart's all right. I know you've kept a lookout over him."
This trust in him was getting too much for Jack to bear, so the voice of Polly crying to him to hurry up was music to his ears. "I'm coming," he shouted. "I'll see you in a few minutes," he told Dick. "I've something to tell you. I can't tell you now."
"Go in, then," answered Dick. "I'll wait yonder in the garden. Don't keep me waiting any longer than you can help."
Dick turned and walked slowly toward the gate which lead to the kitchen-garden, a part of every ranch home in Arizona. It was cut off from the house by a straggling hedge, on which Echo had spent many hours trying to keep it in shape.
Jack hesitated about going into the house. Even if Echo married him, he knew that she would never forgive him when she learned of his dastardly conduct from Dick Lane's own mouth. It was better to sacrifice the life of one to save three lives from being ruined.
Jack followed Lane up, partly drawing his gun. It would be so easy to shoot him. No one would recognize Dick Lane in that crippled figure. Jack's friends would believe him if he told them the stranger had drawn on him, and he had to shoot him in self-defense.