“But I was suspicious of you all the time.”

“So you had a right to be.  That ain’t the point, which is that a girl did all that for a man she thought might be an enemy and a low-down spy.  Men are expected to take chances like I did, but girls ain’t.  You took ’em.  If I lived a thousand years, I couldn’t tell you all the thanks I feel.”

“Ah!  It makes it worse that you’re that kind of a man.  But I’m going to show you whether I trust you.”  Her eyes were filled with the glad light of her resolve.  She spoke with a sort of proud humility.  “Do you know, there was a time when I thought you might have—­ I didn’t really believe it, but I thought it just possible—­ that you might have come here to get evidence against the Squaw Creek raiders?  You’ll despise me, but it’s the truth.”

His face lost color.  “And now?” he asked quietly.

“Now?  I would as soon suspect my father—­ or myself!  I’ll show you what I think.  The men in it were Jed Briscoe and Yorky and Dick France “Stop,” he cried hoarsely.

“Is it your wound?” she said quickly.

“No.  That’s all right.  But you musn’t tell——­”

“I’m telling, to show whether I trust you.  Jed and Yorky and Dick and Slim——­”

She stopped to listen.  Her father’s voice was calling her.  She rose from her seat.

“Wait a moment.  There’s something I’ve got to tell you,” the Texan groaned.

“I’ll be back in a moment.  Dad wants to see me about some letters.”

And with that she was gone.  Whatever the business was, it detained her longer than she expected.  The minutes slipped away, and still she did not return.  A step sounded in the hall, a door opened, and Jed Briscoe stood before him.

“You’re here, are you?” he said.

The Texan measured looks with him.  “Yes, I’m here.”

“Grand-standing still, I reckon.”

“If you could only learn to mind your own affairs,” the Texan suggested evenly.

“You’ll wish I could before I’m through with you.”

“Am I to thank you for that little courtesy from Bald Knob the other evening?”

“Not directly.  At three hundred yards, I could have shot a heap straighter than that.  The fool must have been drunk.”

“You’ll have to excuse him.  It was beginning to get dark.  His intentions were good.”

There was a quick light step behind him, and Arlie came into the room.  She glanced quickly from one to the other, and there was apprehension in her look.

“I’ve come to see Lieutenant Fraser on business,” Briscoe explained, with an air patently triumphant.

Arlie made no offer to leave the room.  “He’s hardly up to business yet, is he?” she asked, as carelessly as she could.

“Then we’ll give it another name.  I’m making a neighborly call to ask how he is, and to return some things he lost.”

Jed’s hand went into his pocket and drew forth leisurely a photograph.  This he handed to Arlie right side up, smiling the while, with a kind of masked deviltry.