He nodded. “I been thinking of that myself. It ain’t going to do him any good to make a gun-play. I have a notion mebbe this thing will unravel itself if we give it time. It will only make things worse for him to go off half-cocked.”
“How do you mean it may unravel itself?” she asked.
“Bellamy is a whole lot better man than folks 154 give him credit for being. I expect he won’t be hard on you when he knows why you did it.”
“And why did I do it?” she asked quietly.
“Sho! I know why you did it. Jim Budd told you what he had heard, and you figured you could save your father from doing it. You meant to give the money back, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I can’t prove that either in court or to Mr. Bellamy.”
“You don’t need to prove it to me. If you say so, that’s enough,” he said in his unenthusiastic voice.
“But you’re not judge and jury, and you’re certainly not Mr. Bellamy.”
“Scrape Arizona with a fine-tooth comb and you couldn’t get a jury to convict when it’s up against the facts in this case.”
At this she brightened. “Thank you, Mr. Flatray.” And naïvely she added with a little laugh: “Are you ready to put the handcuffs on me yet?”