Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson—surely not this impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would.
"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he said gently.
"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know."
"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife."
Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back."
"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler."
"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered.
Chapter V
An Aider and Abettor
Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time or temper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors West which plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were in hostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiable conversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these they avoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say about rustling.
Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning after breakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might have traveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any more competent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode with straight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasional drawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when they have something to say.
The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinion was seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony, expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation.
Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'm giving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little piece to the boys."
"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed into the store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused upon him.
Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see his curly head in the stamp window.
"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdened himself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson."
Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed it sternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two for him.
"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail.
"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly to her newspapers.
"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire."
"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety."
"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife you lost."
She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed through the window. "I didn't know it was lost."
"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last, ma'am?"
"I lent it to a friend two days ago."
"Oh, to a friend—two days ago."
His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of some significance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her.
"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?"
He asked it casually, but his question irritated her.
"I didn't say, sir."
"That's so. You didn't."
"Where did you get it?" she demanded.
He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to."
Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convicted criminal. "It's of no importance, sir."
"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson."
She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into the private boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiosity demanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteered information.
"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix a stirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me."
"Your brother?"
"Yes."
He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I found it near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on his way there."
"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily.
She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell back from the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more than he wanted to know.
Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, but with an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day, Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You've arrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'"
Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. He relaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to rest themselves without dismounting.
"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably.
"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when Keller touched him on the shoulder.
"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me the time," he said.
Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wants you, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us."
"I won't, Brill."
The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that seemed to ally him further with the enemy.
"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?"
"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her and trouble?" the other demanded abruptly.
"I expect."
"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sister lent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, if so, who."
"What for?"
It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards.
"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cow in the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlers must have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived. In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the man who had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you who one of the Malpais rustlers is."
Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away