“May I speak to you a moment, Miss Lee?” he said in a low voice.
“Of course.”
The voice of Norris rose to an irritated snarl. “Tell you I’ve got evidence, Lee. Mebbe it’s not enough to convict, but it satisfies me a-plenty that Jack Flatray’s the man.”
Melissy was frozen to a tense attention. Her whole mind was on what passed between the detective and her father. Otherwise she would have noticed the swift change that transformed the tenderfoot.
The rancher answered with impatient annoyance. “You’re ’way off, Norris. I don’t care anything about your evidence. The idea is plumb ridiculous. Twenty odd years I’ve known him. He’s the best they make, a pure through and through. Not a 55 crooked hair in his head. I’ve eat out of the same frying pan too often with that boy not to know what he is. You go bury those suspicions of yours immediate. There’s nothing to them.”
Norris grumbled objections as they moved toward the stable. Melissy drew a long breath and brought herself back to the tenderfoot.
He stood like a coiled spring, head thrust far forward from the shoulders. The look in his black eyes was something new to her experience. For hate, passion, caution were all mirrored there.
“You know Mr. Norris,” she said quickly.
He started. “What did you say his name was?” he asked with an assumption of carelessness.
“Norris—Philip Norris. He is a cattle detective.”