“If you’d care to tell it to us,” Betty suggested gently.
The vagrant looked at her. “Why not? I don’t fire wheatfields and I don’t shoot from ambush.”
“All right. Let’s have it,” the wounded man said impatiently.
“When I left the ranch yesterday, I went to Wild Horse and camped a mile or so out of town. I didn’t care to meet the fellows I’d been with. They blamed me for having them hauled back to the ranch here—thought I’d hurried back to squeal on them. But I was looking for work and I wasn’t going to run away from them. About noon I tramped it into town to see about getting a job. I saw this Cig in a store. He was buying a gun and ammunition for it. He didn’t see me, so I passed by. Later I went back to the store and made sure, by asking the clerk, that Cig had bought the gun.”
Betty broke in eagerly. “And you thought he meant to kill Father. So you followed him out here to-night,” she cried.
“Not quite,” the tramp answered with an edge of cold anger in his voice. “I wouldn’t have lifted a finger for your father. He brought it on himself. He could look out for himself. I don’t know what he did to Cig yesterday afternoon, but I know it was plenty. What would he expect from a fellow like Cig after he’d treated him that way? He’s dangerous as a trapped wolf and just about as responsible morally.”
“Very well. Say I brought this fellow and his gun on me by giving him what was coming to him. What next?” asked Reed brusquely.
“I couldn’t get him out of my head. If I could have been sure he’d limit his revenge to you and your foreman— But that was just it. I couldn’t. He might lie in wait for your daughter, or he might kidnap her little sister if he got a chance.”
“Kidnap Ruthie?” the girl broke in, all the mother in her instantly alert. “Oh, he wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Probably not.” He turned to her with the touch of deference in voice and manner so wholly lacking when he faced her father. “I thought of it because the other day we were talking of the Charley Ross case, and Cig had a good deal to say about just how a kidnapping ought to be done. The point is that I wouldn’t trust him, after what your people have done to him, any more than I would a rattlesnake. His mind works that way—fills up with horrible ideas of getting even. And he’s absolutely unmoral, far as I’ve been able to find out.”