Now he spoke swiftly and she knew that he had made up his mind that she was hiding nothing, that she knew nothing, for there was a note of relief in his words.

"I had his cabin searched last night, while we all were at the dance. It was found there. There was no sign of the money!"

Again she tossed away the envelope as though it no longer had any interest for her.

"A man," she said contemptuously, "who would not destroy a piece of evidence like that, is a fool!"

The matter was dropped there; one would have said it was forgotten by both of them. For the rest of the day Winifred Waverly appeared to be much interested in her book, Pollard seemed busy in his office or upon the street. But the girl realized that the man was taking no chances and that there was going to be little chance of her riding the twenty miles to the Poison Hole without his knowing of it. She let the day go with no thought of making the trip, satisfying herself with the knowledge which she had gleaned from the conversation she had overheard at the schoolhouse, and with the comforting thought that she had ten days yet.

Upon the second day following the dance she saw Broderick and Pollard talking earnestly out under the pear trees. Broderick, at his boots whipping impatiently with his riding whip, did not come to the house as was his custom, but going back to the gate flung himself upon his horse and rode away. That same afternoon he came again, and this time Cole Dalton, the sheriff, was with him. They were met by Pollard at the front door, and for an hour the girl in her room could hear their low voices in the room below her.

The third day came and went and she saw no one but Pollard and Mrs.

Riddell. Pollard was unusually silent, and again and again she saw that his eyes were hard, his mouth cruel. She began to forget that he was kin to her; she began to see only that here was a man playing his game with high, very high, stakes, that he was watchful and determined, that he was not the sort to let anything, no matter what, stand between him and the thing he had made up his mind to do. She saw that he was growing nervous and sensed that he was in that frame of mind when men act swiftly and unscrupulously. She took no step about the house that Pollard did not know of it.

The fourth day came, and her own nerves were strained to snapping. If she could only do something! She must do something. But what? If Broderick were the guilty man, and from a score of little things, she knew that he was, then Henry Pollard was no less guilty. If Pollard were a part of the horrible scheme, how about Cole Dalton, the sheriff? She began to think that she saw why the months had gone by and Dalton had made no arrests! If he was one of them, if the man paid by the county to defend the county against outlawry were hand and glove with the outlaws, to whom then could she turn?

But at last, upon the evening of the fourth day, when her spirit was ready for some desperate measure unless fate came to help her, fate did help and young Bud King called. He had spent the day in Hill's Corners upon the quest of any information which might tell him who the man was who had run off his father's cattle. Having learned nothing, and being a wise young man after his fashion, he had determined not to go home entirely profitless, and so came to see Pollard's niece.

She saw him as he rode slowly down the street. In a flash she guessed that he came to see her, divined too that Pollard would give her little opportunity of talking to young King or any other man, alone. She was at her window where she sat so often. Before Bud King's horse had been tied at the gate she had written a hasty note, had thrust it into an envelope, and had scrawled on the outside:

"Please carry this right away to Buck Thornton. Don't let any one see.

It is very important."

Then she ran down stairs, slipping the note into the bosom of her dress, hastening to be at the door when the Bar X man knocked lest Henry Pollard turn him away, saying that she was not at home.

As she opened the door, and Bud entered, hat in hand and flushed of face, Pollard came to the door of his office. Winifred, shaking hands warmly, asked King in, and remarking that her uncle was only reading, invited him into the office. Pollard, she knew, had no reason to suspect what she had in mind, and she would give him no reason. Before Bud left she would find a way to give him the note.

The three sat down, and Bud, never letting his wide hat out of his hands, sat twirling it and shifting his boots and looking and talking for the most of the time at Pollard. He was a young man, was Bud; girls had been few in his life, and this calling upon a young woman in broad daylight was a daring if not quite a devilish thing.

Winifred found room here for smiling amus.e.m.e.nt. Pollard did not want to be bothered with King and showed it so plainly that had King not been so alive to the presence of the girl at whom he looked with the tail of his eye and so nearly oblivious of the presence of the man whom he sat facing, he must have noted it before he had been in the room five minutes. Bud did not care to talk with Pollard, whom he agreed perfectly with Buck Thornton in calling a rattlesnake, and yet he talked rather wildly to him of branding and fence building and stray horses and hold-up men and the weather and last year's politics. And Winifred, for a little, watched both men with mirthful understanding.

But as the minutes slipped by and Pollard gave no sign of leaving the room, as silences fell which were too awkward to go unnoticed and which the girl had to fill, she began to be afraid that Pollard's watchfulness was going to prove too much for her and that she would fail in the plan which had seemed so simple. But she must not fail! Four days of the ten had gone. She must find some way to keep Bud King here until something carried Pollard out of the room if only for a moment, and during that moment she must give the note to King.

She was sure that Pollard did not, could not suspect that she meant to say anything to King, or that she counted on having him carry a message for her. But she knew, too, that Henry Pollard was taking no chances he did not have to take. He was a man to play close to the table.

She had time to determine that she _would_ succeed in this one vital point, time to hope, to fear, to lose hope a dozen times, before her chance came. She heard a step on the walk under the pear trees, Broderick's step, she thought swiftly, despairingly. Usually Pollard kept the front door locked; she had not locked it after she had let Bud King in. Pollard would know it was Broderick and would merely call, "Come in," not even leaving the room for the one necessary moment.

Broderick would come in, Bud King would go soon and she would have no chance of doing the thing she had sworn to herself that she would do.

Her one hope was that she had mistaken the step and that it was not Broderick. When the man outside came up the steps, she heard his spurs jingle on the porch and saw that Pollard too was listening intently.

"Come in," called Pollard. "The door's open, Ben."

Why, why hadn't she locked the door? Now there would be two men to watch her, now it would be impossible...

But fresh hope leaped up into her heart, though she could scarce believe her ears when Broderick's voice in answer was like the snarl of a beast, harsh with anger, snapping out his words fiercely:

"Come out here. I want to talk with you outside. And, for G.o.d's sake, man, hurry!"

Pollard, too, started. Bud King looked up with wondering eyes from his swinging hat. Pollard, with the briefest sign of hesitation, went out of the room and to the front door.

No sooner had he gone than the girl, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant with the excitement in them, s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from the bosom of her dress and, tiptoeing to King, forced it into his big hand. Not a word did she speak, not so much as a whisper. But she laid her finger upon her lips, glanced from him toward the door, and tiptoed back to her seat. And Bud King understood in part while he could not understand in full, and thrust the note into his pocket.

When a moment later King rose to go she went with him to the door. She caught a glimpse of Ben Broderick's face, though he hid it from her instantly, whirling about upon his heel; she felt sick and dizzy with a sudden dread of she knew not what. For his face was dead white and horribly drawn with the rage that blazed in his eyes and distorted his mouth, and she saw, standing up in his soul, that thing which one may not look upon and misread: that rage that drives a man to kill. And she saw, too, that a white bandage was tied about his head, under his hat brim, and that the bandage was red with blood.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE GENTLEMAN FROM NEW MEXICO

Thornton returned rather early that night to the ranch cabin. That he came in at all, instead of remaining far out upon the range border as his men were doing, was because tomorrow he planned on riding to Dry Town where he would raise the four thousand five hundred dollars for Henry Pollard, and he wanted to make an early start.

He left his horse at the barn, pa.s.sed the bunk house and was crossing the little footbridge which spanned Big Little River, going straight to his cabin upon the knoll, when he saw that while the bunk house was dark there shone a light from his cabin window. Wondering who his guest might prove to be he strode up the knoll. The cabin door was open, he could see his lamp burning upon the table, and sitting upon his chair, hands clasped behind head and cigar smoking lazily, was a man he had never seen before.

He came on, still wondering, until his tall form pa.s.sed through the doorway and stood over the smoker. The man turned a little, watching him as he drew near.

"Howdy, Stranger," Thornton said quietly.

"Mr. Thornton?" smiled the other. "You see I've been making myself at home."

He rose and put out a hand, a small, hard, brown hand which the cowboy accepted carelessly and released marvelling. Its grip was as strong as his own, the muscles like rock.

The man was of medium stature, looking small beside the towering form of his host. He was dressed quietly and well, trousers still preserving the lines left by the tailor's iron, his coat fitting closely about the compact muscular shoulders, his soft shirt white and clean. He was a sandy haired man of forty, perhaps, clean shaven, square jawed, with very bright, very clear brown eyes.

All this Thornton saw at one swift glance. He tossed his hat to the table, pulled another chair toward him, and sat down.

"Glad you made yourself at home," he said then, "Find anything to eat?"

The stranger nodded.

"I've been here three hours, and I was hungry. So I raided the bunk house."

"That's right." He brought out his paper and tobacco, making his cigarette slowly, his eyes alone asking the other his business.

"I want a little talk with you, Mr. Thornton. But maybe I'd better wait until you've eaten?"

"Had my supper an hour ago," Thornton replied. "Made camp with the boys before I came in. Fire away, Stranger."

"All right. First thing, my name's Comstock."

The keen eyes which had measured the cowboy as he came through the door were very bright upon him now. Thornton nodded. The name meant nothing to him.

"Don't get me?" laughed Comstock. "Well, well, it's a shock to vanity, but after all one's fame is a poor crippled bird that doesn't fly far."

He paused a moment, then added quietly, as though this other information might help his bird "to fly." "My stamping ground's New Mexico."

Thornton's look showed nothing beyond a faint curiosity; one would have said that he was as little interested in this man's stamping ground as in his name.