But there was so much which she did not grasp yet.  She heard Henry Pollard return from the stable where he had left the horses and enter the house, passing down the hallway to his room.  Still she sat, never stirring save for the little involuntary shiver which ran over her from head to foot, as her uncle came into the house.  And still she worked at the patchwork of her puzzle, putting it together piece by piece.

“Buck Thornton didn’t do it,” she whispered to herself, looking up at the stars flung across the sky above the ugly little town.  “Ben Broderick did do it.  He robbed me of Uncle’s money.  And Uncle knows!  I don’t understand!”

But at last she thought that she did understand.  Thornton was buying the Poison Hole ranch from Pollard.  Already he had paid fifteen thousand dollars into the deal.  Now, what would happen if it were proven that Thornton had stolen back from Pollard’s emissary five thousand of that money?  Thornton would go to jail and for a long time, and then....

But why was Pollard waiting?  Why was Broderick waiting, urging the sheriff to wait?  She saw it all in a flash then!  They would prove ... they thought that they were sure of proof through her! ... that Buck Thornton had robbed her of the five thousand dollars.  They would prove that Buck Thornton had killed Bill Varney; that he had robbed Hap Smith at Poke Drury’s road house; they would prove that Buck Thornton was the man the whole country wanted, the man who had committed crime upon crime!  She knew that he was a new man here, that he had lived on the Poison Hole ranch for only a year and that the evidence of which her own word was to have been a part, would be sufficient to prove to the countryside that Buck Thornton was the daredevil marauder they sought.  And how undeniably strong would that evidence be if all crime ceased abruptly upon the arrest of this one man!

“It would not be the penitentiary for Buck Thornton,” she thought suddenly, her face whiter than it had been when she had overheard Pollard and Broderick.  “The ranch would come back into Henry Pollard’s hands, the men who have committed these crimes would be able to keep the thousands and thousands of dollars they have taken from stages and stolen cattle, and Buck Thornton would go to the gallows!”

It was unbelievable, it was unthinkable, it was impossible!  And yet....

“And yet,” she whispered through her white lips, “it is the truth!”

She sprang to her feet, her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes blazing.  Buck Thornton had been good to her and in return she had done much to give him over into their hands, she had insulted and reviled him, she had sworn to the sheriff that he had robbed her.  Now suddenly she felt that she could never sleep again if she did not atone to him.

She was already at the door, her hat and gloves in her hand, ready to run down stairs, to saddle her horse, to ride to Thornton with word of warning, when a new thought came to her.