Winifred Waverly tried to tell herself that it was fear for her, at seeing her in Thornton’s arms.  But she knew that it was not.  Nor was it fear for himself, not mere physical fear of Thornton.  Already she knew of her uncle that the man was no coward.  It was not that kind of fear; it was a fear that was apprehension, dread lest something might happen.  What? “Dread that something he did not want her to know might become known to her in her talk with Buck Thornton!”

It was as though a voice had shouted it in her ear.  Where so many things were muddled in inexplicability this one matter seemed suddenly perfectly clear to her.  He had not wanted her to talk with Buck Thornton!  Why?

Thornton, with no further word to her, had bowed to her, his eyes hard and stern, and taking a paper-wrapped packet from his vest pocket had given it to her, and had walked swiftly to the door near which Broderick stood.  In spite of her her eyes had gone down the room after the tall figure.  And then something happened which could have meant nothing to any one else in the house, but which brought leaping up into the girl’s heart both fear and gladness.  And, at last, understanding.

Broderick, smiling, had said some light word to Thornton, laying his hand upon the cowboy’s shoulder.  For a moment, just the fraction of a second the two men stood side by side in the open doorway.  Until they stood so, close together, a man would have said that they were of the same height.  Now Winifred marked that there was a full two-inch difference and that Thornton was the taller.

Together they stepped out through the doorway.  The door was low, Buck stooped his head a little, Broderick passed out without stooping!  It seemed only last night that she had made her supper in the Harte camp with Buck Thornton.  She remembered so distinctly each little event.  She could see him now as he had sat making his cigarette, could see him going to the door to look at the upclimbing moon.  She had marked then the tall, wiry body that must stoop a little to stand in the low doorway.  She had jested about his height; the six-feet-four of him, as he called it....

She could see again the man who had come in, masked, the man whose clothes were like the clothes of Buck Thornton even to the grey neck handkerchief.  She could remember that this man had stood in the same doorway, that his eyes had gleamed at her through the slits in the handkerchief,... that he had held his head thrown back, that he had not stooped!

“It wasn’t Buck Thornton!” she whispered to herself, her hands going white in their tense grip upon the parcel they held.  “A man did lame his horse, a man who wanted me to think all the time that it was Buck Thornton.  And that man,” with swift certainty, “is Ben Broderick!  Uncle Henry’s friend.  And Uncle ... knows!”

CHAPTER XX

POLLARD TALKS “BUSINESS”