"I hope I killed him," returned that same girl who had disliked being cruel to wolves,—and instantly saw what I was after. "That's nonsense, though! There couldn't have been any man there, Mr. Stretton. The wolves would have eaten him!"
"Only one wolf got by you," I suggested drily.
She shrugged her shoulders. "They'd have shot at us—men, I mean!"
I made no answer. It struck me forcibly that Collins certainly would have; unless he was not out for shooting, but merely waiting to remove the gold from my wagon as soon as the wolves had disposed of my horses and me. Even then I did not see why he had held his fire, unless he had no gun. But the whole thing was a snarl it was no good thinking about till the girl beside me owned how much she knew about it. I wondered sharply if it had been just that knowledge she was trying to give Dudley the night I stopped her. The lights at the Halfway were very close as I turned to her.
"If I've helped you at all, why can't you tell me all the trouble, instead of Dudley?" I asked, very low.
"I don't know anything," but I thought she checked a sob, "that I—can tell. I just thought there might be trouble to-night, but I imagined it would happen before you started. That was why I marked that gold. Don't take any, ever, out of the safe, if it hasn't my seal on it."
"You can't prevent Collins from changing the boxes—forever," I said deliberately; because, unless he were dead, as I hoped, she couldn't. But Paulette stared at me, open-lipped, as we drove into the Halfway yard, and Billy Jones ran out with a lantern.
"Collins?" she repeated, as if she had never heard his name, much less met him secretly in the dark. "I don't know anything about any Collins, nor any one I could—put a name to! I tell you I don't know who was in the swamp!"
She had not said she did not know who was responsible for the bottle in my wagon. But if I am Indian-dark I can be Indian-silent too. I said nothing about that. "Well, it doesn't matter who did anything," I exclaimed suddenly, "so long as there's trust between you and me!" Because I forgot Dudley and everything but my dream girl who had fought for me, and I suddenly wondered if she had not forgotten Dudley, too. For Bob and Danny stood still, played out and sweating, and Paulette Brown sat staring at me with great eyes, instead of moving.
But she had forgotten nothing. "You're very kind—to me, and Dudley," she said quietly, and slipped out of the wagon before I could lift her down. A sudden voice kept me from jumping after her.