“Close by the pine tree?” Kate repeated the words after him, and her repetition of them suddenly endowed them with a strange significance for Bill.
With an air of having suddenly abandoned all prudence, all caution, Bill flung out his arms.
“Say, Miss Seton,” he said, in a sort of desperation, “I’m troubled—troubled to death. I can’t tell the top-side from the bottom-side of anything, it seems to me. There’s things I can’t understand hereabouts, a sort of mystery that gets me by the neck and nearly chokes me. Maybe you can help me. It seems different, too, talking to you. I don’t seem to be opening my mouth too wide—as I’ve been warned not to.”
“Who warned you?”
The question came sharp and direct.
“Why, O’Brien. You see, I went down to the saloon after I’d searched the ranch for Charlie, and asked if he had been there. O’Brien was shutting up. He said he had been there, but had gone. Then he told me where I’d be likely to find him, but warned me not to open my mouth wide—till I’d found him. Said I’d likely find him somewhere around that pine. Said he’d likely be collecting some money around there.
“Well, I set out to make the pine, and I didn’t wonder at things for awhile. It wasn’t till I got near it, and I saw the moon get up, and, in its light, saw Charlie in the distance near the pine, that this mystery thing got hold of me. It came on me when I hollered to him, and, as a result of it, saw him vanish like a ghost. But——”
“You called to him?”
The girl’s question again came sharply, but this time with an air of deep contemplation.
“Yes. But I didn’t get time to think about it. Just as I’d shouted two horsemen scrambled out of the bush beside me. One of ’em was Fyles. The other I didn’t know. He’d got three stripes on his arm.”