WARNING
She felt her heart beating wildly ... if at that second he had spoken to
her she could not have found immediate voice in answer were it to save
her life. But further, she knew that if he gave her one second longer
she could control herself. For the first time it came upon her in a
flash that she had a personal interest in what these men did. They
sought to play her for their dupe, their fool; they counted upon making
her a sort of innocent accomplice, they dared to count upon her to help
them. To make their own positions safe they were dragging her into the
dirty mess that they had made.
Her anger steadied her. Her brain had gone hot with it; now it went
cool, cold. She was holding the envelope in her hands when Pollard came
to the door; now she tossed it back to the basket carelessly and still
kept her back to the door. She was humming a little song softly when she
picked up the book she had come for and turned with it in her hand as
though to leave the room.
But in spite of her second of preparation she started when she saw Henry
Pollard's face. She had known that it could look hard and cruel, that it
could grow dark and threatening. But she saw now a look in the hard
eyes, about the sinister mouth, which sent a spurt of terror up into her
heart. Here was a man who could kill, would kill if he were driven to
it. She read it in his eyes in that flash of a glance as she might have
read it in big printed letters. If he came to believe that there was
actual danger to him from her knowledge he would find a way to keep her
silent.
"Well?" Pollard said steadily.
He came into the room and closed the door softly behind him. Now there
was no tell-tale expression in his tone and all expression had gone out
of his eyes.
Even then, though her heart beat quickly and the colour wavered in her
cheeks, she managed to look at him steadily and to answer collectedly:
"It looks like I'd been playing Paul Pry, and that you'd caught me,
doesn't it?"
She even laughed softly, and went on:
"I came down for a book. Then I noticed this." She picked up the
envelope again, holding it out toward him. "You see I recognized it!"
"There are lots of yellow envelopes," he answered colourlessly, his eyes
sharp points of light upon hers. "What about it?"
"I am not a lady detective," she smiled back, taking a sudden keen
delight in the knowledge that she had taken the right tack, and that she
was puzzling Pollard. "But it is quite obvious that you've got your
money back! Why didn't you tell me?"
"There are lots of yellow envelopes," he repeated, speaking slowly, and
she knew that his brain was as busy as her own. If the moment held
danger for her, then it held danger no less for him. "They are common
enough. What makes you think that this one..."
"Oh, but I know," she broke in lightly. "You see I remembered Mr.
Templeton getting this smudge of ink on it. He called my attention to
it, the dear, precise old banker that he is, and wanted to give me a
clean one. Did Mr. Thornton get frightened and bring your money back?"
For a moment he did not answer. She knew that he was measuring her with
those shrewd eyes of his, looking for a false sign, just the twitch of a
muscle to tell him that she was playing a part. And she gave no sign.
"No," he said at last. "Thornton did not bring it back. And even if you
were a lady detective you might make a mistake now. I haven't seen a
cent of the money."
She lifted her eyebrows in well simulated surprise.
"But the envelope?"
Now he spoke swiftly and she knew that he had made up his mind that she
was hiding nothing, that she knew nothing, for there was a note of
relief in his words.
"I had his cabin searched last night, while we all were at the dance. It
was found there. There was no sign of the money!"
Again she tossed away the envelope as though it no longer had any
interest for her.
"A man," she said contemptuously, "who would not destroy a piece of
evidence like that, is a fool!"
The matter was dropped there; one would have said it was forgotten by
both of them. For the rest of the day Winifred Waverly appeared to be
much interested in her book, Pollard seemed busy in his office or upon
the street. But the girl realized that the man was taking no chances and
that there was going to be little chance of her riding the twenty miles
to the Poison Hole without his knowing of it. She let the day go with no
thought of making the trip, satisfying herself with the knowledge which
she had gleaned from the conversation she had overheard at the
schoolhouse, and with the comforting thought that she had ten days yet.
Upon the second day following the dance she saw Broderick and Pollard
talking earnestly out under the pear trees. Broderick, at his boots
whipping impatiently with his riding whip, did not come to the house as
was his custom, but going back to the gate flung himself upon his horse
and rode away. That same afternoon he came again, and this time Cole
Dalton, the sheriff, was with him. They were met by Pollard at the front
door, and for an hour the girl in her room could hear their low voices
in the room below her.
The third day came and went and she saw no one but Pollard and Mrs.
Riddell. Pollard was unusually silent, and again and again she saw that
his eyes were hard, his mouth cruel. She began to forget that he was
kin to her; she began to see only that here was a man playing his game
with high, very high, stakes, that he was watchful and determined, that
he was not the sort to let anything, no matter what, stand between him
and the thing he had made up his mind to do. She saw that he was growing
nervous and sensed that he was in that frame of mind when men act
swiftly and unscrupulously. She took no step about the house that
Pollard did not know of it.
The fourth day came, and her own nerves were strained to snapping. If
she could only do something! She must do something. But what? If
Broderick were the guilty man, and from a score of little things, she
knew that he was, then Henry Pollard was no less guilty. If Pollard were
a part of the horrible scheme, how about Cole Dalton, the sheriff? She
began to think that she saw why the months had gone by and Dalton had
made no arrests! If he was one of them, if the man paid by the county to
defend the county against outlawry were hand and glove with the outlaws,
to whom then could she turn?
But at last, upon the evening of the fourth day, when her spirit was
ready for some desperate measure unless fate came to help her, fate did
help and young Bud King called. He had spent the day in Hill's Corners
upon the quest of any information which might tell him who the man was
who had run off his father's cattle. Having learned nothing, and being a
wise young man after his fashion, he had determined not to go home
entirely profitless, and so came to see Pollard's niece.
She saw him as he rode slowly down the street. In a flash she guessed
that he came to see her, divined too that Pollard would give her little
opportunity of talking to young King or any other man, alone. She was at
her window where she sat so often. Before Bud King's horse had been tied
at the gate she had written a hasty note, had thrust it into an
envelope, and had scrawled on the outside:
"Please carry this right away to Buck Thornton. Don't let any one see.
It is very important."
Then she ran down stairs, slipping the note into the bosom of her dress,
hastening to be at the door when the Bar X man knocked lest Henry
Pollard turn him away, saying that she was not at home.
As she opened the door, and Bud entered, hat in hand and flushed of
face, Pollard came to the door of his office. Winifred, shaking hands
warmly, asked King in, and remarking that her uncle was only reading,
invited him into the office. Pollard, she knew, had no reason to suspect
what she had in mind, and she would give him no reason. Before Bud left
she would find a way to give him the note.
The three sat down, and Bud, never letting his wide hat out of his
hands, sat twirling it and shifting his boots and looking and talking
for the most of the time at Pollard. He was a young man, was Bud; girls
had been few in his life, and this calling upon a young woman in broad
daylight was a daring if not quite a devilish thing.
Winifred found room here for smiling amusement. Pollard did not want to
be bothered with King and showed it so plainly that had King not been so
alive to the presence of the girl at whom he looked with the tail of his
eye and so nearly oblivious of the presence of the man whom he sat
facing, he must have noted it before he had been in the room five
minutes. Bud did not care to talk with Pollard, whom he agreed perfectly
with Buck Thornton in calling a rattlesnake, and yet he talked rather
wildly to him of branding and fence building and stray horses and
hold-up men and the weather and last year's politics. And Winifred, for
a little, watched both men with mirthful understanding.
But as the minutes slipped by and Pollard gave no sign of leaving the
room, as silences fell which were too awkward to go unnoticed and which
the girl had to fill, she began to be afraid that Pollard's watchfulness
was going to prove too much for her and that she would fail in the plan
which had seemed so simple. But she must not fail! Four days of the ten
had gone. She must find some way to keep Bud King here until something
carried Pollard out of the room if only for a moment, and during that
moment she must give the note to King.
She was sure that Pollard did not, could not suspect that she meant to
say anything to King, or that she counted on having him carry a message
for her. But she knew, too, that Henry Pollard was taking no chances he
did not have to take. He was a man to play close to the table.
She had time to determine that she _would_ succeed in this one vital
point, time to hope, to fear, to lose hope a dozen times, before her
chance came. She heard a step on the walk under the pear trees,
Broderick's step, she thought swiftly, despairingly. Usually Pollard
kept the front door locked; she had not locked it after she had let Bud
King in. Pollard would know it was Broderick and would merely call,
"Come in," not even leaving the room for the one necessary moment.
Broderick would come in, Bud King would go soon and she would have no
chance of doing the thing she had sworn to herself that she would do.
Her one hope was that she had mistaken the step and that it was not
Broderick. When the man outside came up the steps, she heard his spurs
jingle on the porch and saw that Pollard too was listening intently.
"Come in," called Pollard. "The door's open, Ben."
Why, why hadn't she locked the door? Now there would be two men to watch
her, now it would be impossible...
But fresh hope leaped up into her heart, though she could scarce believe
her ears when Broderick's voice in answer was like the snarl of a beast,
harsh with anger, snapping out his words fiercely:
"Come out here. I want to talk with you outside. And, for God's sake,
man, hurry!"
Pollard, too, started. Bud King looked up with wondering eyes from his
swinging hat. Pollard, with the briefest sign of hesitation, went out of
the room and to the front door.
No sooner had he gone than the girl, her face flushed, her eyes
brilliant with the excitement in them, snatched the paper from the bosom
of her dress and, tiptoeing to King, forced it into his big hand. Not a
word did she speak, not so much as a whisper. But she laid her finger
upon her lips, glanced from him toward the door, and tiptoed back to her
seat. And Bud King understood in part while he could not understand in
full, and thrust the note into his pocket.
When a moment later King rose to go she went with him to the door. She
caught a glimpse of Ben Broderick's face, though he hid it from her
instantly, whirling about upon his heel; she felt sick and dizzy with a
sudden dread of she knew not what. For his face was dead white and
horribly drawn with the rage that blazed in his eyes and distorted his
mouth, and she saw, standing up in his soul, that thing which one may
not look upon and misread: that rage that drives a man to kill. And she
saw, too, that a white bandage was tied about his head, under his hat
brim, and that the bandage was red with blood.