“I wish I had known. If you had only told me earlier,” she said, so low as to be almost a whisper.
“I'm sorry. If you like, I'll go away again,” he offered.
“No, no. I'm only thinking that it gives Jed a hold, gives him something to stir up his friends with, you know. That is, it would if he knew. He mustn't find out.”
“Be frank. Don't make any secret of it. That's the best way,” he advised.
She shook her head. “You don't know Jed's crowd. They'd be suspicious of any officer, no matter where he came from.”
“Far as I can make out, that young man is going to be loaded with suspicions of me anyhow,” he laughed.
“It isn't anything to laugh at. You don't know him,” she told him gravely.
“And can't say I'm suffering to,” he drawled.
She looked at him a little impatiently, as if he were a child playing with gunpowder and unaware of its potentialities.
“Can't you understand? You're not in Texas with your friends all around you. This is Lost Valley—and Lost Valley isn't on the map. Men make their own law here. That is, some of them do. I wouldn't give a snap of my fingers for your life if the impression spread that you are a spy. It doesn't matter that I know you're not. Others must feel it, too.”