But the girl?  What had really become of the girl?  There was no way of proving she had not gone East, for there was no agent at the station at that hour, and the night train could be halted by any one waving a signal light.  Westcott drew the brief note from his pocket, smoothed out its creases and read the few words over again.  The writing was unquestionably feminine, and he could recall seeing nothing Miss Donovan had ever indited, with which it could be compared.  But would she have departed, however hurriedly, without leaving him some message?  To be sure there had been little enough between them of intimacy or understanding; nothing he could really construe into a promise—­yet he had given her complete trust, and had felt a friendly response.  He could not compel himself to believe she would prove unfaithful.  Unconsciously he still held the letter in his hand when the waitress came in with his breakfast.  She glanced about to make certain they were alone and leaned over, her lips close to his ear.

“Is that the note they say that New York young lady left?”

“Yes, Sadie,” in surprise.  “Why?”

“Well, she never wrote it, Mr. Westcott,” hurriedly placing the dishes before him, “that’s all.  Now don’t yer say a word to anybody that I told yer; but she didn’t go East at all; she wus took in a wagon down the desert road.  I saw ’em take her.”

“You saw them?  Who?”

“Well, I don’t just know that, ‘cept it was Matt Moore’s team, an’ he wus drivin’ it.  I didn’t see the others so es to be sure.  Yer see us help sleep over the kitchen, an’ ’bout one o’clock I woke up—­here comes Timmons; he mustn’t see me talkin’ ter yer.”

She flicked her napkin over the table, picked up an emptied dish and vanished through the swinging-doors.  Timmons, however, merely came in searching for the Chinaman, and not finding the latter immediately, retired again to the office, without even addressing his guest, who was busily eating.  Sadie peered in once more and, seeing all was clear, crossed over beside Westcott.

“Well, as I was sayin’,” she resumed, “I thought I heard a noise outside, an’ got up an’ went to the winder.  I couldn’t see much, not ‘nough so I could swear to nuthin’; but there was three or four men out there just across that little gully, you know, an’ they had a woman with ’em.  She didn’t scream none, but she was tryin’ ter git away; wunst she run, but they caught her.  I didn’t see no wagon then, it was behind the ridge, I reckon.  After a while it drove off down the south trail, an’ a little later three men come up them outside stairs back into the hotel.  They was mighty still ’bout it, too.”

“You couldn’t tell who they were?”

“They wa’n’t like nuthin’ but shadders; it was a purty dark night.”

“So it was, Sadie.  Do you imagine Timmons had anything to do with the affair?”

“Timmons?  Not him.  There wa’n’t no figure like his in that bunch; I’d know him in the dark.”