“About Galloway?” she asked quickly.  “Explaining what you meant by Galloway’s hang-out?”

“Yes.  And more than that.”

For a little she stood, looking at him very gravely.  Then she spoke in utter frankness.

“Mr. Norton, I think that I can see your position; you were so circumstanced through Mr. Lane’s being hurt that you had to bring either Dr. Patten or me here.  You decided it would be wiser to bring me.  There is something of a compliment in that, isn’t there?”

“You don’t know Caleb Patten yet!” growled Brocky a bit savagely.

“Already it seems to me,” she went on, “that you have a pretty hard row to hoe.  It is evident that you have discovered a sort of thieves’ headquarters here; that, for your own reasons, you don’t want it known that you have found it.  To say that I am not curious about it all would be talking nonsense, of course.  And yet I can assure you that I hold you under no obligation whatever to do any explaining.  You are the sheriff and your job is to get results, not to be polite to the ladies.”

But Norton shook his head.

“You know what you know,” he said seriously.  “I think that if you know a little more you will more readily understand why we must insist on keeping our mouths shut . . . all of us.”

“In that case,” returned the girl, “and before you boil that coffee into any more hopelessly black a concoction than it already is, I am ready to drink mine and listen.  Coffee, Mr. Lane?”

“Had mine, thanks,” answered Brocky.  “Spin the yarn, Rod.”

Norton put down his frying-pan, the bacon brown and crisp, and rose to his feet.

“Will you come this way a moment, Miss Page?” he asked.  “To begin with, seeing is believing.”

She followed him as she had, last night, back into the cave in which she had slept.  But Norton did not stop here.  He went on, Virginia still following him, came to that other hole in the rock wall which she had noted by the lantern light.

“In here,” he said.  “Just look.”

He swept a match across his thigh, holding it up for her.  She came to his side and looked in.  First she saw a number of small boxes, innocent appearing affairs which suggested soda-crackers.  Beyond them was something covered with a blanket; Norton stepped by her and jerked the covering aside.  Startled, puzzled by what she saw, she looked to him wonderingly.  Placed neatly, lying side by side, their metal surfaces winking back at the light of Norton’s match, were a number of rifles.  A score of them, fifty, perhaps.

“It looks like a young revolution!” she cried, her gaze held, her eyes fascinated by the unexpected.

“You’ve seen about everything now,” he told her, the red ember of a burnt-out match dropping to the floor.  “Those boxes contain cartridges.  Now let’s go back to Brocky.”

“But they’ll see that you have been here. . . .”