"All right, I'll let you loose." Saunders released him, and they stood facing each other, both out of breath. "I'm your friend, Tom Drake—and you know it," Saunders gasped. "I'm your daughter's friend, too. I'm sufficiently interested in her not to let you soil her good name as you are trying to do to-night. She is innocent, I tell you, and you are a coward to—"
"You say—you say—"
Several by-standers at the ticket-office and hotel, attracted by the combat, were approaching.
"Go back!" Saunders held up his hand warningly. "This is no affair of yours. I want to speak to him in private. Leave us alone."
The men halted, stared dubiously, and finally, seeing that the quarrel was over, they went back whence they had come. "Let's step over here," Saunders proposed; and he led the way to the railway blacksmith's shop, now closed and unlighted. In the shadow of its smoky wall they faced each other again.
"You said—" Drake began, "you said—"
"I said she was innocent of the foul charge you are making against her," Saunders said, sharply. "You are a crazy man, Drake. You tried to kill me back there, although I am bent on befriending you and your daughter. She is as sweet and pure as the angels in heaven."
"I—I know more than you do. Ann said—"
"Yes, I know what the child said," Saunders retorted. "And if you had been the right sort of a father you would not have acted on such slight evidence. Dolly is in this plight simply because she saved you—"
"Saved me? What the hell—"