“It was one of his crazy neche brothers-in-law. Jim set out right away,” he added.
“Did he go by the Gateway?”
Larry shook his head.
“Passed out south, over the cattle-trail. It’s out of the way, but he reckoned it best so.”
Blanche looked out down the valley in the direction indicated. She was thinking rapidly.
Larry, watching her, realised the seriousness of her preoccupation. He interpreted the slight pucker of her brows unerringly. He knew she was more, much more than saddle-weary, and wondered what news he had yet to obtain from her. He felt that events were crowding rather rapidly and something unpleasantly. He felt that something of that which he had always foreseen was disturbing the peace which he had never failed to regard as artificial. He had things of his own still to tell, and he wondered if he were justified in imparting them. Finally he decided he was. Blanche was no silly girl. She was keen, unusually quick, and full of an immense courage.
“There’s a flutter in the dovecotes down there,” he laughed, with a jerk of the head in the direction of the ranch buildings. “The boys are worried to death. You know, Blanche, I’m not really bright, and I’ve no sort of gift looking through stone walls and things. Still, I guess I can see most all the way if there’s nothing in between. The thing that beats me is the sort of wireless these crooks seem to know about, and use. Will you tell me how it is the boys have got wise there’s someone chasing up their hiding-hole?” He shook his head. “It beats me. That ‘express’ came straight up to this house. He only spoke to Jim and me. And Jim rode straight back with him. He didn’t have a chance to spread the gospel to a soul. But the boys know there’s trouble around, and they’re restless, and worried to death, and talking ugly—some of them. One guy figgered to me they were a bunch of rats in an elegant proposition of a trap. One or two are guessing half the Police are knocking at our doors. I had a bunch come to me at dinner-time. They wanted to know the thing we were doing, and what we knew. They talked getting out, and I surely told them they could beat it just as fast as hell would let ’em if they fancied it. We weren’t holding them, and only handed them shelter. We sent two of them off south, across the border. And when the others saw them go they weakened right away, and remained. I showed them, in passing those boys out, we were holding dead to our contract. But I’ll surely be glad to have Jim along back, and get his story.”
As the man talked, the knitting of Blanche’s brow smoothed out, and the old familiar smile returned to her eyes. It deepened and culminated in a low laugh. But the laugh passed at once, and Larry saw the shadow of trouble lying behind it.
“Then Jim won’t get back till to-morrow,” she said. “He can’t make the double journey in the day. What is it by the cattle-trail? Sixty miles?”
Larry shook his head, and replied without removing the cigar from his mouth.