“Yes,” she said.
The veil of irrision lifted from his eyes. He looked straight at her. “I didn’t do it.”
Instantly Betty knew he was telling the truth. A warm resurgent wave flooded her veins. His life was bound up with tragedy. It had failed of all it had set out to be. But she knew, beyond doubt or evidence, that he had not fired the stacks or shot her father. The amazing thing now, to her mind, was that even for a moment she could have believed he would kill at advantage in cold blood.
“I knew it! I knew it all the time!” she cried.
“How did you know all that?” her father asked.
“Because.”
It was no answer, yet it was as good as any she could give. How could she phrase a feeling that rested only on faith in such a way as to give it weight to others?
“I’m one o’ these Missouri guys,” the foreman snorted. “He’ll have to show me. What’s he doin’ here? What was he hidin’ out in the bushes for? How could he tell soon as I jumped him that a man had been shot?”
“He can explain that,” she urged; and to the vagrant, “Can’t you?”
“I can,” he answered her.