"Yes, ma'am. I see Jake hitchin' up tuh go after him when we started out."
There was little said after that until they came abreast of the cat's-claw near the road. Cassidy pulled up.
"Say, Tommy! Oh, yuh Tommy!" he called persuasively at the silent bushes. "Come, git in here. This lady wants yuh."
"I guess Jake's a-comin'," replied Tommy, poking his head into view from his thorny retreat.
"I guess he is," said Cassidy, and looked over his shoulder at a rapidly approaching pillar of dust. "It's a good thing the county pays for his horse-flesh." There was a pause. "I reckon you'd better hurry some, Tommy," drawled Cassidy.
"Don't stand there imperiling your life, tryin' tuh guess who I am," said the widow abruptly. "Get right in here and cover up with alfalfa and them horse-blankets, and lie quiet. I want yuh."
"What for?" queried Tommy, as he clambered in, being a young man of devious thought.
"For a witness!" said Sarah Gentry unfathomably—for Tommy.
Cassidy looked puzzled for a moment. Then a slow wave of red crept over his face and crimsoned his ears. He started his horses again to cover his confusion.
The woman let him think for a moment; then her eyes drew his own startled orbs around and enveloped them in a soft light.