Part 55 (1/2)

”I can arrest her, I tell you,” insisted the district attorney.

”No,” said Craft firmly. ”Miss Walton,” he went on, turning to the girl, ”we were a li'l excited when we came in here. Seeing that horse outside and all, we got the idea that maybe Bill was here. Will you give us your word he isn't?”

”Why, certainly,” she said. ”Bill isn't here, I give you my word.”

”Fair enough,” said Craft. ”We'll be going. Come along, Arthur, move.”

He and Sam hustled the district attorney out between them. Craft called in the cordon of hors.e.m.e.n that had surrounded the ranch-house.

”Crawl your horse, Arthur,” ordered Craft. ”What you waiting for?”

Arthur, swearing heartily, did as directed. ”I don't see why you don't want me to have her arrested,” he said in part as they rode townward.

”A few days in the cooler----”

”No sense in it,” declared Craft. ”A lot of folks in the county wouldn't like it either, she being a woman and a good-lookin' one besides. You leave her alone.”

”Yeah,” slipped in Sam, ”wait till you get some real evidence against her. Suspicion ain't anything.”

”It would be enough for me to arrest her all right,” persisted the district attorney.

”Blah! You couldn't hold her a week,” averred Craft, ”and you know it.

And lemme tell you, I don't believe she knows any more about Bill Wingo than I do. You know they busted up this winter some time.”

”Changed your tune mighty sudden,” sneered the district attorney. ”On the way out you were as sure as the rest of us we'd get some kind of a clue at Walton's. Those cartridges----”

”Dry up about those cartridges!” exclaimed Felix. ”You got cartridges on the brain.”

Then the wrangle became general.

Hazel, standing in the doorway, watched the cavalcade disappear around the bend in the draw.

”I guess,” she said, taking a box of cartridges from the top shelf and snicking open the sealing with a finger nail, ”I guess I'd better load this rifle.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE BARE-HEADED MAN

”But I rode over here especially to bring you back with me to stay a while, a long while, as long as you like and longer.” Thus Sally Jane, looking injured.

Hazel shook her head. ”Can't, dear. Honestly, I'd like nothing better than to go a-visiting, but I've just got to look after the ranch.”

Sally Jane gazed at her friend a moment in silence, then: ”You don't really have to stay here, Hazel. You only think you do. You'd much better come over and stay with us. You know I'd love to have you, and this is no place for you all alone by yourself this way. Suppose----”

”Who'd hurt me?” interrupted Hazel. ”Anyway, I'm not going to be driven off my own ranch by anybody. I'm going to stay here until I find a buyer for the place.”

”But that may be a year,” objected Sally Jane.

”It may be several years. Money's awfully tight just now, the Hillsville cas.h.i.+er said, the last time I was over.”

”I don't care, somebody--some man ought to be here. Can't you get Ray back earlier than usual?”