“Fifty, I guess. Maybe if he reckons there’s need, and he rode in the night, he could make back about breakfast to-morrow. Beelzebub would do it without a worry. But I don’t figger he’ll be along till to-morrow evening.”
“Which way will he come? The cattle-trail again?”
“No. He expressly told me he’d come by the Gateway. He reckons no one could locate us that way. He guesses there isn’t a police boy, or anyone else, who could read the riddle of Three-Way Creek, or a soul but those who know it who would attempt the tunnel of the gorge. And I guess he’s right.”
Blanche sighed.
“I’m glad. The cattle-trail’s our weakness,” she said. Then she started up in her chair, and her eyes warned her lover that he was about to hear her worst news.
She gazed at him for some moments. His calm amused the girl. But it irritated her as well.
“You’re the most outrageous creature, Larry,” she cried at last. “Do you know the way I feel? Why, you set me crazy to get you by your two big, foolish shoulders and shake you up into a hurry. I’m going to tell you the reason I want Jim. And it’s a reason that ought to set you worried to death. But it won’t. I’m going to tell you that that boy Andrew McFardell Jim encountered awhile back is Molly Marton’s beau. Does that fix you? No. I’m going to tell you that ever since he located Jim, and recognised him, he’s lit right out from his homestead—sold it up—and taken to the trail. Well? Does that set you in a hurry? No. It doesn’t. Do you know what the sense of that is? It’s easy to me, anyway. Andy McFardell hasn’t shown up in three months, and now Dan’s worried someone’s trailing the hills around his place. Someone’s hit on the connection between Dan’s place and Jim. And I only need one guess who that is.”
Outwardly Larry’s display was of frank admiration. Of anxiety there was never a sign.
“I’d never have thought that way, Blanche,” he said, with an appreciative smile. “Sure. That’s Dan’s trouble right enough. And, come to think of it, I guess Jim must have thought that way, too. I remember when that boy told us Dan’s worry, and said there were ‘folks’ getting around, Jim shook his head. He said, ‘No, only one.’ But I don’t see you need Jim in such a hurry.”
Blanche stood up. She smiled into his face, and laid her hands upon his shoulders.