Melissy hid the dread that was flooding her heart. "I'm sure I don't
know. You know everything else. I suppose you do that, too, if they really
did."
"They had their reasons, but we won't go into that now. First off when
they reach the house they take a bunch of sheep down to the ditch to water
them. Now, why?"
"Why, unless because they needed water?"
"We'll let that go into the discard too just now. Let's suppose your
father and Boone dumped the gold box down into the creek somewhere after
they had robbed the stage. Suppose they had a partner up at the
head-gates. When the signal is given down comes the water, and the box is
covered by it. Mebbe that night they take it away and bury it somewhere
else."
The girl began to breathe again. He knew a good deal, but he was still off
the track in the main points.
"And who is this partner up at the canal? Have you got him located too?"
"I might guess."
"Well?"--impatiently.
"A young lady hailing from this hacienda was out gathering flowers all
mo'ning. She was in her runabout. The tracks led straight from here to the
head-gates. I followed them through the sands. There's a little break in
one of the rubber tires. You'll find that break mark every eight feet or
so in the sand wash."
"I opened the head-gates, then, did I?"
"It looks that way, doesn't it?"
"At a signal from father?"
"I reckon."
"And that's all the evidence you've got against him and me?" she demanded,
still outwardly scornful, but very much afraid at heart.
"Oh, no, that ain't all, Miss Lee. Somebody locked the Chink in during
this play. He's still wondering why."
"He dreamed it. Very likely he had been rolling a pill."
"Did I dream this too?" From his coat pocket he drew the piece of black
shirting she had used as a mask. "I found it in the room where your father
put me up that first night I stayed here. It was your brother Dick's room,
and this came from the pocket of a shirt hanging in the closet. Now, who
do you reckon put it there?"
For the first time in her life she knew what it was to feel faint. She
tried to speak, but the words would not come from her parched throat. How
could he be so hard and cruel, this man who had once been her best friend?
How could he stand there so like a machine in his relentlessness?