Hugh told her all he thought it was good for her to know. He trusted implicitly her discretion, but it was possible there might be blood shed in the attempt to win back the claims, and he did not want to make her a party to it.
“I wish I could help,” she sighed. “It’s horrid sometimes to be a girl. If it wasn’t for my school I could go to Austin, though, and look up the contract.”
“Yes, you could do that fine. But the fact is I want to get Scot away from here. Robert Dodson hates him. I don’t think he’s safe on the streets. You know how it is with gunmen. Their trigger fingers itch to kill men with reputations for gameness. Ever since that affair at the Ormsby House, Scot has been a shining mark. If Dodson should egg them on——”
The girl looked at him with an odd smile. “I suppose you’re safe enough here.”
“Oh, yes. They won’t bother me.”
“No, I suppose not,” she answered with a touch of sarcasm. “You’re only the man that killed Sam Dutch, the one that dragged him away from his friends to jail. Nobody would want to interfere with anybody as inoffensive as you.”
“I didn’t drag him away, Vicky. You did that when you stopped the rescue at the mine and planned a way to get him out of town.”
“Both you and Scot are too foolhardy,” she scolded. “You go along with your heads up and a scornful ‘Well-here-I-am, shoot-me-down-from-behind-if-you-want-to’ air that there’s no sense in. A man owes something to his friends and his relatives, doesn’t he? No need of always wearing a chip on your shoulder, is there?”
“Does Scot carry a chip on his shoulder?” Hugh asked, smiling.
“Oh, well, you know what I mean. He could try to dodge trouble a little—and so could you. But you’re both so stiff-necked.”