"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his neck says don't go far before a court."
"I expected you to say about that."
"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with cold hostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you could spring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yours took twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tell you, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throw the blame on a boy I've known all my life."
"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himself suggest.
Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point."
"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help."
"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself."
"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongue and help me clear young Sanderson?"
"I sure will—if you prove it to my satisfaction."
Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Read these."
When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "That clears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. My mind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't look like a waddy. It's lucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet."
"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained.
"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh."
"Then find out the truth about the knife."
Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to help you bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it, either."
The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear the boy."
"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back.
Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliage of the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like a ball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itself up in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face with beady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftly it scampered across the paddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at the front door.
"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't I tell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering for you. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle."
'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George Washington Abraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stable like a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchen presided over by his rotund mother, Becky.
His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From the rocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him.
"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?"
"I wanter see Miss Phyl."
"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable, where you belong."
'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky stared after him in amazement.
"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.
Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her "Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes.
She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham Lincoln Randolph?"
"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live oak at the corral."
"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash——"
"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler, and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler."
"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing indignation.
"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil."
"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she could best use for her instrument.
Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young woman of many moods.
"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus."
The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused.
"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door had closed on him.
The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but——"
"We have," she broke in.
"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager——"
"Jim lied. I asked him to."
"You—what?"
"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jim was not to blame."
"But—why?"
She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don't know. Because he was wounded, I suppose."
"Wounded! Then I did hit him?"
"Yes. In the arm—a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite. After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?"
"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up.
"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer.
"Yes. I'm a fool."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well."
"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down, Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she cried vindictively.
"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was not pleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why."
"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him and kept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed.
"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan of his with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn't pay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log."
Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minutes had organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours later at Seven Mile.
At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed with rifles and revolvers, ready for grim business.
From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the hours passed she was beset by