“That seems to be a prevailing sentiment round here. You say it right hearty too; couldn’t be more certain of your feelings if it had been your own father.”
He said it carelessly, yet with his keen blue eyes fixed on her. Nevertheless, he was totally unprepared for the effect of his words. The color washed from her bronzed cheeks, and she stood staring at him with big, fear-filled eyes. 107
“What—what do you mean?” she gasped. “How dare you say that?”
“I ain’t said anything so terrible. You don’t need to take it to heart like that.” He gave her a faint smile for an instant. “I’m not really expecting to arrest Mr. Lee for holding up that stage.”
The color beat back slowly into her face. She knew she had made a false move in taking so seriously his remark.
“I don’t think you ought to joke about a thing like that,” she said stiffly.
“All right. I’ll not say it next time till I’m in earnest,” he promised as he walked away.
“I wonder if he really meant anything,” the girl was thinking in terror, and he, “she knows something; now, I would like to know what.”
Melissy attended to her duties in the postoffice after the arrival of the stage, and looked after the dining-room as usual, but she was all the time uneasily aware that Jack Flatray had quietly disappeared. Where had he gone? And why? She found no answer to that question, but the ranger dropped in on his bronco in time for supper, imperturbable and self-contained as ever.
“Think I’ll stay all night if you have a room for me,” he told her after he had eaten.