"It wasn't Bill," she insisted doggedly. "It was Dan Slike, and he's been gone maybe half an hour."
"Say, whatsa use of lyin' to me? You're an odd number, by all accounts, but you ain't so odd you could sit here and eat and drink and carry on with your uncle's murderer. You can't tell me that."
She was regarding him with curious eyes. "I thought you always said Dan Slike didn't kill my uncle?"
"Well—uh—you see, everybody else seems to think he did. And—ah—maybe I was wrong. Anyway, say I was. For all I know to the contrary, he did kill your uncle. What's fairer than that, I'd like to know? You think he killed Tom Walton, don't you?"
She continued to stare at Rafe. "I know he did."
"Then how do you expect me to believe you ate supper with him? You're foolish. You had Bill Wingo here, and we'll settle this Wingo business right now. You see, don't you, how you can never marry the feller? This Tip O'Gorman murder has queered him round here for keeps. Sooner or later he'll hang for it. You'd look fine wouldn't you, the widow of a——"
"Don't say it," she cut him short. "Billy Wingo is no murderer. He fights fair, which is more than I can say for you. However, you can set your mind at rest. I'm not likely to marry Billy Wingo, or anybody else."
"Then what do you care whether I call him a murderer or not, if you don't love him?" he probed. "I thought a while back you had taken my advice and busted it off with Bill, but now after hearin' what you tried to do to Nate Samson, and all that ammunition and grub you bought to-day, the day after Tip was killed, why I began to think maybe you was startin' in to play the Jack again. I told you last fall I was gonna have you myself. You ain't forgot it, have you?"
His eyes, savage and mean, held hers steadily. "I come over here, to-night to get you. I'm taking you back with me to-night to my ranch. To-morrow you can marry me or not. It'll be just as you say."
"You're taking me to your ranch!" she gasped. "Me?"