Part 25 (1/2)
”Says he didn't bring her, does he? Tell him from me that he lies. Your wife let out to me by accident that he threatened to bring her. Met.e.e.t.se and he came up on the boat together. He was with her at your house when she told her story. He's trying to save his hide. No chance.”
”Elliot isn't a liar. When he says he didn't bring the woman, that satisfies me. I know he didn't do it,” insisted Paget stiffly.
”Different here. Who else had any interest in bringing her except him?
n.o.body. Use your brains, Peter. He takes the first boat down the river.
He comes back on the next one. She comes back, too. They couldn't figure I'd be at your house when they showed up there to tell the story. That's where Mr. Elliot slipped up.”
Peter was of different stuff from Selfridge. He had something to say. So he said it.
”Times have changed, Mac. You can't shoot down this young fellow without making all kinds of trouble. First thing we'd lose the claims. The Administration would drop you like a hot potato if you did a thing like that. Sheba would never speak to you again. Your friends would know in their hearts it was murder. You can't do it.”
Macdonald's jaw clamped. ”Then let him get out. That's my last word to him.”
CHAPTER XVI
AMBUSHED
Colby Macdonald, in miner's boots and corduroy working suit, stood beside his horse with one arm thrown carelessly across its rump. He was about to start for Seven-Mile Creek Camp with twenty-seven hundred dollars in the saddlebags to pay the men there.
Diane was talking with him. ”She's young and fine and spirited. Of course it was a great shock to her. She had been idealizing you. But I think she is beginning to understand things better. At any rate, she does not hate you any more. Give the girl time.”
”You think she will--be reasonable?”
Mrs. Paget finished the pattern she was punching in the soft ground beside the board walk with the ferrule of her umbrella. Her eyes met his frankly.
”I don't know. But I'm sure of one thing. She'll not be reasonable, as you call it, unless you are reasonable.”
”You mean--Elliot?”
”Yes. She likes him very much. Do you know that when the Indian woman came he urged Sheba not to listen to her story?”
”Sounds likely--after he had spent his good money bringing her here,”
sneered the mine-owner.
”He didn't. Gordon is a splendid fellow. He wouldn't lie,” answered Diane hotly. ”And one thing is sure--if you lay a finger on him for this, it will be fatal with Sheba. She will be through with you.”
Macdonald had thought of this before. It had been coming to him from several different angles that he could not afford to gratify his desire to wipe this meddlesome young official from his path. He made a slow, sulky promise.
”All right. I'll let him alone. Peter can tell him.”
Swinging to the saddle, he spurred his horse and cantered away. With a little smile Diane watched his flat, muscular back and the arrogant set of his strong shoulders. There was not his match in the territory, she thought, but sometimes a clever woman could manage him.
His mind was full of the problem that had come into his life. He rode abstractedly, so that he was at the lower ford of the creek almost before he knew it. A bilberry thicket straggled down to the opposite bank of the stream on both sides of the road.
The horse splashed through the ford and took the little rise beyond with a rush. Just before reaching the brow of the hill, the animal stumbled and fell. As its rider went headlong, he caught a glimpse of a cord drawn taut across the path.
Macdonald, shaken by the fall, began slowly to rise. From the shadows of the bilberry bushes two stooping figures rushed at him. He threw up an arm to ward off the club aimed at his head, but succeeded only in breaking the force of the blow. As he staggered back, stunned, a bullet glanced along his forehead and ridged a furrow through the thick hair.