“I knew it was either right around the place or else you had taken it on with you when you went to the head-gates and buried it up there somewhere. Next day I followed your tracks and couldn’t find any place where you might have left it. I knew how clever you were by the way you planned your getaway. Struck me as mighty likely that you had left it lying around in plain view somewhere. If you had dumped it out of the box into a sack, the box must be somewhere. You hadn’t had time to burn it before the stage got back. I drifted back to your kindling pile, where all the old boxes from the store are lying. I happened to notice a brass tack in one near the end; then the marks of the 152 tack heads where they had pressed against the wood. I figured you might have substituted one box for another, and inside of ten minutes I stumbled against your wash-stand and didn’t budge it. Then I didn’t have to look any further.”
“I’ve been trying to get a chance to move it and haven’t ever found one. You were always coming around the corner on me,” she explained.
“Sorry I incommoded you,” he laughed. “But it’s too heavy for a lady to lift alone, anyhow. I don’t see how you managed it this far.”
“I’m pretty strong,” she said quietly.
She had no hope of escape from the net of evidence in which he had entangled her. It was characteristic of her that she would not stoop to tricks to stir his pity. Deep in her heart she knew now that she had wronged him when she had suspected him of being a rustler. He could not be. It was not in the man’s character. But she would ask no mercy of him. All her pride rose to meet his. She would show him how game she could be. What she had sown she would reap. Nor would it have been any use to beseech him to spare her. He was a hard man, she told herself. Not even a fool could have read any weakness in the quiet gray eyes that looked so steadily into hers. In his voice and movements there was a certain deliberation, but this had nothing to do with indecision of character. He would do his duty as he saw it, regardless of whom it might affect. 153
Melissy stood before him in the unconscious attitude of distinction she often fell into when she was moved, head thrown back so as to bare the rounded throat column, brown little hands folded in front of her, erectly graceful in all her slender lines.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.
His stone-cold eyes met hers steadily. “It ain’t my say-so. I’m going to put it up to Bellamy. I don’t know what he’ll do.”
But, cold as his manner was, the heart of the man leaped to her courage. He saw her worn out, pathetically fearful, but she could face him with that still little smile of hers. He longed to take her in his arms, to tell her it would be all right—all right.
“There’s one thing that troubles me. I don’t know how father will take this. You know how quick-tempered he is. I’m afraid he’ll shoot somebody or do something rash when he finds out. You must let me be alone with him when I tell him.”