“Very much.”
Her narrowed eyes looked over the strong lines of his lean face and were unconvinced. “I expect you found a better reason than that for not opposing them.”
He turned to her with frank curiosity. “I’d like real well to have you put a name to it.”
But he was instantly aware that her interest had been side tracked. Major Mackenzie had entered the car and was coming down the aisle. Plainer than words his eyes asked a question, and hers answered it.
The sheriff stopped him with a smiling query: “Hit hard, major?”
Mackenzie frowned. “The scoundrels took thirty thousand from the express car, I understand. Twenty thousand of it belonged to our company. I was expecting to pay off the men next Tuesday.”
“Hope we’ll be able to run them down for you,” returned Collins cheerfully. “I suppose you lay it to Wolf Leroy’s gang?”
“Of course. The work was too well done to leave any doubt of that.” The major resumed his seat behind Miss Wainwright.
To that young woman the sheriff repeated his unanswered question in the form of a statement. “I’m waiting to learn that better reason, ma’am.”
She was possessed of that spice of effrontery more to be desired than beauty. “Shall we say that you had no wish to injure your friends?”