“I don’t know. That’s it. I’m responsible for her. I brought her here. He means to—to make her live with him.”
“Keep her by force—that what you’re drivin’ at?”
“No-o. Not exactly. He’s got a hold over her father somehow. She’s worn out fightin’ him. When she ran away with me she played her last card. She’ll have to give up now. He’s so big an’ strong, such a bulldog for gettin’ his way, that she can’t hold him off. June ain’t seventeen yet. She’s gettin’ a mighty rotten deal, looks like. First off, livin’ alone the way she an’ Tolliver do, then Houck, then me, an’ finally Houck again.”
“I’ll notify Tolliver how things are,” Blister said. “Get word to him right away. We’ll have to take a lead from him about June.”
“I was thinkin’—”
“Onload it.”
“Mrs. Gillespie was so kind to her. Maybe she could talk to June an’ take her at the hotel—if June an’ Houck haven’t gone yet.”
“You said something then, boy. I’ll see Mollie right away. She’ll sure fix it.”
They were too late. The wrangler at Kilburn’s corral had already seen Houck hitch up and drive away with June, they presently learned.