“You didn’t hear who?”
“Daniels doesn’t know.”
Betty returned to her work very much disturbed in mind. There was no reason for assuming that the man who had been killed was her redeemed vagrant, but she could not get this possibility out of her mind. He would be in the forefront of danger if there was any. She knew him well enough for that.
She tried to get Merrick on the telephone, but the word that came down to her from the dam was that he had ridden to Elk Creek. Did the assistant superintendent know when he would be back? No, he did not.
Tremulously Betty asked another question. “Have you heard, Mr. Atchison, who the man is that was killed?”
“His name’s Coyle—a man sent out to us by an employment agency in Denver.”
Betty leaned against the wall a moment after she had hung up the receiver. She was greatly relieved, and in the reaction from the strain under which she had been holding herself tautly felt oddly weak.
“Don’t be a goose!” she told herself with stinging candor. “What does it matter to you who it was?”
But she knew it mattered a great deal. Nobody had ever stimulated her imagination as this tramp had. Her liking for Justin was of quite another sort. It had not in it the quality that set pulses pounding. She would have denied to herself indignantly that she did not love him. If not, why was she engaged to him? But her affection was a well-ordered and not a disturbing force. This was as it should be, according to her young philosophy. She gave herself with energy and enthusiasm to the many activities of life. The time had not yet come when love was for her a racing current sweeping to its goal so powerfully that there could be no dalliance by the way.
Betty moved the dishes from the last shelf. As she started to gather the soiled newspaper folded across the plank, her glance fell upon the picture of a soldier in uniform. The eyes that looked into hers were those of the man who had called himself Tug Jones.