“I have not seen a thing I ought not to have seen.”
“Didn’t you see me blot a brand on that calf?”
He shook his head. “Can’t recall it at all, Miss Lee.”
Swiftly her keen glance raked him again. Judged by his clothes, he was one of the world’s ineffectives, flotsam tossed into the desert by the wash of fate; but there was that in the steadiness of his eye, in the set of his shoulders, in the carriage of his lean-loined, slim body that spoke of breeding. He was no booze-fighting grubliner. Disguised though he was in cheap slops, she judged him a man of parts. He would do to trust, especially since she could not help herself.
“We’ll be going. You take my horse,” she ordered.
“And let you walk?”
“How long since you have eaten?” she asked brusquely.
“About seven minutes,” he smiled.
“But before that?”
“Two days.”