All through this talk, Gowdy watched my face as if to catch me telling something crooked; and I made up my mind to give him just enough of the truth to cover what he was sure to find out whether I told him or not.

“Did you pick up any passengers as you came along?” he asked, with a sharp look.

“Yes,” I said.  “I had a lawyer with me for a day or two—­Mr. Creede.”

“Heard of him,” said Gowdy.  “Locating over at our new town of Lithopolis, isn’t he?  See anybody you knew on the way?”

“Yes,” I said.  “I saw your sister-in-law in Waterloo, She was with a minister and his wife—­a Mr. and Mrs. Thorndyke—­or something like that.”

“Yes,” said Gowdy, trying to be calm.  “Friends of ours—­of hers.”

“They’re here in the city,” said Henderson L.  “He’s going to be the new preacher.”

“I know,” said Gowdy.  “I know.  Able man, too.  How did it happen that I didn’t see your outfit, Mr. Vandemark?  I went back over the road after I passed you there at the mud-hole, and returned, and wondered why I didn’t see you.  Thought you had turned off and given Monterey County up.  Odd I didn’t see you.”  And all the time he was looking at me like a lawyer cross-examining a witness.

“Oh,” said I, “I went off the road a few miles to break in some cattle I had traded for, and to let them get over their sore-footedness, and to leave some that I couldn’t bring along.  I had so many that I couldn’t make time.  I’m going back for them as soon as I can get around to it.  You must have missed me that way.”

“Trust Mr. Vandemark,” said he, “to follow off any cattle track that shows itself.  He is destined to be the cattle king of the prairies, Mr. Burns.  I’m needing all the men I can get, Mr. Vandemark, putting up my house and barns and breaking prairie.  I wonder if you wouldn’t like to turn an honest penny by coming over and working for me for a while?”

He had been astonished and startled at the word that Virginia, after escaping from him, had found friends, and tried to pass the matter off as something of which he knew; but now he was quite his smiling, confidential self again, talking as if his offering me work was a favor he was begging in a warm and friendly sort of manner.  I explained that I myself was getting my farm in condition to live upon, but might be glad to come to him later; and we drove on—­I all the time sweating like a butcher under the strain of this getting so close to my great secret—­and Virginia’s.

Would it not all have to come out finally?  What would Gowdy do to get Virginia back?  Would he try at all?  Did he have any legal right to her control and custody?  I trusted completely in Grandma Thorndyke’s protection of her—­an army with banners would not have given me more confidence; for I could not imagine any one making her do anything she thought wrong, and ten armies with all the banners in the world could not have forced her to allow anything improper—­and she had said that she and the elder were going to take care of the poor friendless girl—­yet, I looked back at the Gowdy buggy flying on toward the village, in two minds as to whether or not I ought to go back and do—­something.  If I could have seen what that something might have been, I should probably have gone back; but I could not think just where I came into the play here.