“I acted like a vixen,” she said. “But I wanted to put him on the defence. The easiest way to meet an attack is to attack first, Scot once told me. So I tried to ride roughshod over him so that he wouldn’t dare take us back to Piodie with him.”
“He couldn’t fight Miss Victoria Lowell,” Hugh told her, smiling. “If it hadn’t been for you he ce’tainly would have taken us to Piodie. But you had him right. He couldn’t do a thing but let us go. We’re much obliged to you.”
Presently, out of the darkness, while Budd was riding a few yards ahead of them, Vicky’s voice came with unwonted humility:
“You were right, Hugh, and I was wrong. I heard something about him the other day. Mrs. Budd told me, and it came direct. No matter what it was, but—I don’t want to be friends with him any more.”
Hugh’s heart lifted, but all he said was, “I’m glad, Vicky.”
CHAPTER XXXI
HUGH TAKES THE STUMP
They found Scot still defying the predictions of the doctors by hanging on to the thread of life that tied him to this world. He was asleep when the travellers arrived. Within a few minutes Hugh was in the saddle again and on the way to meet Byers and his prisoner. Before morning they had Dutch behind bars in the Carson jail.
When Hugh tiptoed in to see Scot a second time, the wounded man smiled at him reproachfully. The Colonel’s hand slid weakly along the bedspread to meet his brother’s brown palm.
“Glad you’re back safe,” he said in a low voice.