“Then you had better take your bills over and get them paid before the money’s gone,” Sadie answered in a meaning tone.

“If you had the store, would you risk his being able to pay all right and afterwards dropping you?”

“I certainly would,” said Sadie.  “I’d harness my team and start for the range right now.”

The woman looked at her husband.  “That’s my notion, Tom; you’d better go,” she said, and turned to Sadie.  “It would hit us hard if Wilkinson’s bill got much longer and he let us down.”

Sadie left them and went to a new store farther up the street, after which she called on an implement dealer who occasionally speculated in real estate and mortgages, and one or two others.  She knew them all, and they knew that on business matters her judgment was sound.  It was plain that they were suspicious about Wilkinson, but, so far, undecided what to do.  They had doubts, but hesitated to admit that they had been rash, and shrank from using means that might cost them a customer.  Sadie gave one information she had gathered from another, and added hints of what she herself knew.  The tact she used prevented their guessing that she had an object, and she did little more than bring their own suspicions to a head; but she was satisfied when she returned to the hotel.

When the horse had rested she drove out of the settlement.  For some distance a wire fence ran along the dusty, graded road, but it ended at a hollow, seamed by deep ruts that united on the other side, where a trail emerged.  Then for a mile or two, she passed new scattered homesteads with their windmills and wooden barns, until these dropped behind and she drove across the empty wilderness.  No rain had fallen, the sky was getting clear and green, and a vivid crimson sunset burned on the edge of the grass.  The air was now cool, and although she was anxious about the weather, Sadie felt more cheerful than when she had come.

She had no scruples about what she had done.  For one thing, she had kept to the truth when she might have made her hints more damaging by a little exaggeration.  Her antagonist had struck her a treacherous blow; he was dangerous, and must be downed.  Then she smiled with grim humor as she admitted that she had perhaps done enough for a time.  Wilkinson’s creditors were on his track; it would be amusing to watch them play her game.

It was dark when she reached the farm and found Charnock waiting on the veranda.  He looked dull but not embarrassed, and there was nothing to indicate that he had been disturbed by her absence.  Sadie did not tell him where she had been and did not talk much.  She had found out that it was better not to make things too easy for Bob.

“I suppose you have a headache; you deserve it,” she said.  “I’m tired and don’t want to hear your excuses now.”

“I really haven’t begun to make excuses,” Charnock answered.

“Then don’t begin.  It’s late, and you have got to start for the bluff at sun-up and haul those fence-posts home.  The job has been hanging on too long and must be finished to-morrow.”