“I really don’t know the facts, Miss Lowell. But if you’re correctly informed certainly——”
“Oh, if—if—if,” exploded the girl. “Just words. The attack on Scot was the most dastardly, cowardly cruel thing I ever heard of. The men who did it and those who had it done are as bad as red Indians.” Her eyes stabbed into him. They were filled with the passionate intolerance of youth.
“Well, I can’t talk about that because I don’t know anything about it,” Dodson said, his surface smile working. “We’re here under orders from the sheriff at Piodie. He sent us word that someone was attempting illegally to abduct Sam Dutch. There seems to be some mistake.”
“So that it remains for you to apologize for having drawn guns on us,” Vicky said tartly. “Then we’ll move on.”
Dodson flushed. “I’m certainly sorry if we alarmed you, Miss Lowell. Under the circumstances it couldn’t be helped. If we had known you were out riding with friends——” He stopped, leaving his sarcastic sentence suspended in air.
“Much obliged, Mr. Dodson,” she answered angrily. “I suppose you felt you had to say that pleasant farewell remark. I wouldn’t be out riding with friends at this time of night, as you would have put it if you had the courage, if your friends hadn’t laid in wait to kill my brother Thursday evening.”
Hugh spoke quietly and evenly. “We’ll say good-night, Mr. Dodson, that is, if you’re quite satisfied we’re not concealing Mr. Dutch about our persons.”
Dodson fell back with a wave of his hand. The rifles were lowered. In a moment the travellers were on their way. The mine owner looked after them with a frown on his brow. He was not satisfied. He believed he had been tricked, but for the life of him he could not tell how.
Budd was the first of the three to speak. “You got us out of that fine, Miss Lowell. Had him busy explainin’ why-for the whole time.”
But Vicky was not willing to leave the case as it stood. She was annoyed at herself. Yet her judgment defended her course.