Brand Blotters - Page 58/180

"But you have other enemies, too."

"Miss Lee," he smiled.

"I mean others that are dangerous."

"Your father?" he asked.

"Father would never do that except in a fair fight. I wasn't thinking of

him."

"I don't know whom you mean, but a few extras don't make much difference

when one is so liberally supplied already," he said cynically.

"I shouldn't make light of them if I were you," she cautioned.

"Who do you mean?"

"I've said all I'm going to, and more than I ought," she told him

decisively. "Except this, that it's your own fault. You shouldn't be so

stiff. Why don't you compromise? With the cattlemen, for instance. They

have a good deal of right on their side. They did have the range

first."

"You should tell that to your father, too."

"Dad runs sheep on the range to protect himself. He doesn't drive out

other people's cattle and take away their living."

"Well, I might compromise, but not at the end of a gun."

"No, of course not. Here comes dad now," she added hurriedly, aware for

the first time that she had been holding an extended conversation with her

father's foe.

"We started enemies and we quit enemies. Will you shake hands on that,

Miss Lee?" he asked.

She held out her hand, then drew it swiftly back. "No, I can't. I forgot.

There's another reason."

"Another reason! You mean the Arkansas charge against me?" he asked

quietly.

"No. I can't tell you what it is." She felt herself suffused in a crimson

glow. How could she explain that she could not touch hands with him

because she had robbed him of twenty thousand dollars?

Lee stopped at the steps, astonished to see his daughter and this man in

talk together. Yesterday he would have resented it bitterly, but now the

situation was changed. Something of so much greater magnitude had occurred

that he was too perturbed to cherish his feud for the present. All night

he had carried with him the dreadful secret he suspected. He could not

look Melissy in the face, nor could he discuss the robbery with anybody.

The one fact that overshadowed all others was that his little girl had

gone out and held up a stage, that if she were discovered she would be

liable to a term in the penitentiary. Laboriously his slow brain had

worked it all out. A talk with Jim Budd had confirmed his conclusions. He

knew that she had taken this risk in order to save him. He was bowed down

with his unworthiness, with shame that he had dragged her into this

horrible tangle. He was convinced that Jack Flatray would get at the

truth, and already he was resolved to come forward and claim the whole

affair as his work.