Dillon scratched his head. “By gum, gyurl, I didn't think of that. We cayn't let him go.”
“Yes, we can.”
“Why, honey, he didn't kill Faulkner, looks like. We cayn't let him go back there and take our medicine for us. Mebbe he would be lynched. It's a sure thing he'd be convicted.”
“Never mind. Let him go. I've got a plan, dad.” Her vivid face was alive with the emotion which spoke in it. “When did he say he was going?” she asked buoyantly.
“Day after to-morrow. Seems he's got business that keeps him hyer to-morrow. What's yore idee, honey?”
She got up, and whispered it in his ear. His jaw dropped, and he stared at her in amazement.
CHAPTER XVI — THE WOLF BITES
Steve came drowsily to consciousness from confused dreams of a cattle stampede and the click of rifles in the hands of enemies who had the drop on him. The rare, untempered sunshine of the Rockies poured into his window from a world outside, wonderful as the early morning of creation. The hillside opposite was bathed miraculously in a flood of light, in which grasshoppers fiddled triumphantly their joy in life. The sources of his dreams discovered themselves in the bawl of thirsty cattle and the regular clicking of a windmill.
A glance at his watch told him that it was six o'clock.