“You'll wish I could before I'm through with you.”
“Am I to thank you for that little courtesy from Bald Knob the other evening?”
“Not directly. At three hundred yards, I could have shot a heap straighter than that. The fool must have been drunk.”
“You'll have to excuse him. It was beginning to get dark. His intentions were good.”
There was a quick light step behind him, and Arlie came into the room. She glanced quickly from one to the other, and there was apprehension in her look.
“I've come to see Lieutenant Fraser on business,” Briscoe explained, with an air patently triumphant.
Arlie made no offer to leave the room. “He's hardly up to business yet, is he?” she asked, as carelessly as she could.
“Then we'll give it another name. I'm making a neighborly call to ask how he is, and to return some things he lost.”
Jed's hand went into his pocket and drew forth leisurely a photograph. This he handed to Arlie right side up, smiling the while, with a kind of masked deviltry.
“Found it in Alec Howard's cabin. Seems your coat was hanging over the back of a chair, lieutenant, and this and a paper fell out. One of the boys must have kicked it to one side, and it was overlooked. Later, I ran across it. So I'm bringing it back to you.”