“Ask him.  He says Rickard killed Bisbee in self-defense.”

“Oh,” said Patten.  And then, shifting in his chair:  “If Galloway says so, I guess you are right in letting the Kid go.”

And, a trifle hastily it struck Virginia, he switched talk into another channel, telling of the case on which he had been out to-day, enlarging upon its difficulties, with which, it appeared, he had been eminently fitted to cope.  There was an amused twinkle in John Engle’s eyes as he listened.

“By the way, Patten,” the banker observed when there came a pause, “you’ve got a rival in town.  Had you heard?”

“What do you mean?” asked the physician.

“When I introduced you just now to our Cousin Virginia, I should have told you; she is Dr. Page, M.D.”

Again Patten said “Oh,” but this time in a tone which through its plain implication put a sudden flash into Virginia’s eyes.  As he looked toward her there was a half sneer upon the lips which his scanty growth of beard and mustache failed to hide.  Had he gone on to say, “A lady doctor, eh?” and laughed, the case would not have been altered.

“It seems so funny for a girl to be a doctor,” said Florence, for the first time referring in any way to Virginia since she had flown to the door, expecting Norton alone.  Even now she did not look toward her kinswoman.

John Engle replied, speaking crisply.  But just what he said Virginia did not know.  For suddenly her whole attention was withdrawn from the conversation, fixed and held by something moving in the patio.  First she had noted a slight change in Rod Norton’s eyes, saw them grow keen and watchful, noted that they had turned toward the door opening into the little court where the fountain was, where the wall-lamp threw its rays wanly among the shrubs and through the grape-arbor.  He had seen something move out there; from where she sat she could look the way he looked and mark how a clump of rose-bushes had been disturbed and now stood motionless again in the quiet night.

Wondering, she looked again to Norton.  His eyes told nothing now save that they were keen and watchful.  Whether or not he knew what it was so guardedly stirring in the patio, whether he, like herself, had merely seen the gently agitated leaves of the bushes, she could not guess.  She started when Engle addressed some trifling remark to her; while she evaded the direct answer she was fully conscious of the sheriff’s eyes steady upon her.  He, no doubt, was wondering what she had seen.

It was only a moment later when Norton rose and went to Mrs. Engle, telling her briefly that he had had a day of it, in the saddle since dawn, wishing her good night.  He shook hands with Engle, nodded to Patten, and coming to Virginia said lightly, but, she thought, with an almost sternly serious look in his eyes: 

“We’re all hoping you like San Juan, Miss Page.  And you will, too, if the desert stillness doesn’t get on your nerves.  But then silence isn’t such a bad thing after all, is it?  Good night.”