“No, only a scratch, he calls it.”
“Did you happen on Dead Man’s Cache by accident?” asked MacQueen with well-assumed carelessness.
Bellamy had no intention of giving Rosario away to anybody. “You might call it that,” he said evenly. “You know, I had been near there once when I was out hunting.”
“Do you expect to catch MacQueen?” the outlaw asked, a faint hint of irony in his amused voice.
“I can’t tell. That’s what I’m hoping, lieutenant.”
“We hope for a heap of things we never get,” returned the outlaw, in a gentle voice, his eyes half shuttered behind drooping lids.
Melissy cut into the conversation hurriedly. “Lieutenant O’Connor is going on the seven-five this evening, Mr. Bellamy. He has business that will take him away for a while. It is time we were going. Won’t you walk down to the train with us?”
MacQueen swore softly under his breath, but there was nothing he could say in protest. He knew he could not take the girl with him. Now he had 345 been cheated out of his good-byes by her woman’s wit in dragging Bellamy to the depot with them. He could not but admire the adroitness with which she had utilized her friend to serve her end.
They walked to the station three abreast, the outlaw carrying as lightly as he could the heavy suitcase that held his plunder. Melissy made small talk while they waited for the train. She was very nervous, and she was trying not to show it.
“Next time you come, lieutenant, we’ll have a fine stone depot to show you. Mr. West has promised to make Mesa the junction point, and we’re sure to have a boom,” she said.