"Miss Lee has just left me. She has gone to her room," answered Flatray quietly.

"Well, I want to see her," said the other hoa.r.s.ely.

"I reckon you better postpone it to to-morrow. She's some played out and needs sleep."

"Well, I'm going to see her now."

Jack turned, still all gentleness, and called to Jim Budd, who was in the store.

"Oh, Jim! Run upstairs and knock on Miss Melissy's door and tell her Mr.

Norris is down here. Ask if she will see him to-night."

"You're making a heap of formality out of this, Mr. b.u.t.tinsky," sneered the cowpuncher.

Jack made no answer, unless it were one to whistle gently and look out into the night as if he were alone.

"No, seh. She doan' wan' tuh see him to-night," announced Jim upon his return.

"That seems to settle it, Mr. Norris," said Jack pleasantly.

"Not by a h.e.l.l of a sight. I've got something to say to her, and I'm going to say it."

"To-morrow," amended the officer.

"I said to-night."

"But your say doesn't go here against hers. I reckon you'll wait."

"Not so's you could notice it." The cowpuncher took a step forward toward the stairway, but Flatray was there before him.

"Get out of the way, you. I don't stand for any b.u.t.ting-in," the cowboy bl.u.s.tered.

"Don't be a goat, Norris. She's tired, and she says she don't want to see you. That's enough, ain't it?"

Norris leaped back with an oath to draw his gun, but Jack had the quickest draw in Arizona. The puncher found himself looking into the business end of a revolver.

"Better change your mind, seh," suggested the officer amiably. "I take it you've been drinking and you're some excited. If you were in condition to _savez_ the situation, you'd understand that the young lady doesn't care to see you now. Do you need a church to fall on you before you can take a hint?"

"I reckon if you knew all about her, you wouldn't be so anxious to stand up for her," Norris said darkly.

"I expect we cayn't any of us stand the great white light on all our acts; but if any one can, it's that little girl upstairs."

"What would you say if I told you that she's liable to go to Yuma if I lift my hand?"

"I'd say I was from Missouri and needed showing."

"Put up that gun, come outside with me, and if I take a notion I'll show you all right."

Jack laughed as his gun disappeared. "I'd be willing to bet high that there are a good many citizens around here haided straighter for Yuma than Miss Melissy."

Without answering, Norris led the way out and stopped only when his arm rested on the fence of the corral.

"n.o.body can hear us now," he said brusquely, and the ranger got a whiff of his hot whisky breath. "You've put it up to me to make good. All right, I'll do it. That little girl in there, as you call her, is the bad man who held up the Fort Allison stage."

The officer laughed tolerantly as he lit a cigarette.

"I hear you say it, Norris."

"I didn't expect you to believe it right away, but it's a fact just the same."

Flatray climbed to the fence and rested his feet on a rail. "Fire ahead.

I'm listenin'."

"The first men on the ground after that hold-up were me and Lee. We covered the situation thorough and got hold of some points right away."

"That's right funny too. When I asked you if you'd been down there you both denied it," commented the officer.

"We were protecting the girl. Mind you, we didn't know who had done it then, but we had reasons to think the person had just come from this ranch."

"What reasons?" briefly demanded Flatray.

"We don't need to go into them. We had them, anyhow. Then I lit on a foot-print right on the edge of the ditch that no man ever made. We didn't know what to make of it, but we wiped it out and followed the ditch, one on each side. We'd figured that was the way he had gone. You see, though water was running in the ditch now, it hadn't been half an hour before."

"You don't say!"

"There wasn't a sign of anybody leaving the ditch till we got to the ranch; then we saw tracks going straight to the house."

"So you got a bunch of sheep and drove them down there to muss things up some."

Norris looked sharply at him. "You got there while we were driving them back. Well, that's right. We had to help her out."

"You're helping her out now, ain't you?" Jack asked dryly.

"That's my business. I've got my own reasons, Mr. Deputy. All you got to do is arrest her."

"Just as soon as you give me the evidence, seh."

"Haven't I given it to you? She was seen to drive away from the house in her rig. She left footprints down there. She came back up the ditch and then rode right up to the head-gates and turned on the water. Jim Little saw her cutting across country from the head-gates h.e.l.l-to-split."

"Far as I can make out, all the evidence you've given me ain't against her, but against you. She was out drivin' when it happened, you say, and you expect me to arrest her for it. It ain't against the law to go driving, seh. And as for that ditch fairy tale, on your own say-so you wiped out all chance to prove the story."

"Then you won't arrest her?"

"If you'll furnish the evidence, seh."

"I tell you we know she did it. Her father knows it."

"Is it worryin' his conscience? Did he ask you to lay an information against her?" asked the officer sarcastically.