Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/140

 'R.B.' stamped in it. I gave him a chance to explain and he only stammered and got white. He had n't time to think up a lie that would fit."

"Dad burn it, Jess Tighe is right, then. The man is a spy." The ranchman lit a cigar and narrowed his eyes in thought.

"What is he spying here for?"

"I reckon he's a detective of the express company nosing around about that robbery. Some folks think it was pulled off by a bunch up in the hills somewhere."

"By the Rutherford gang?" she quoted.

He looked at her uneasily. The bitterness in her voice put him on the defensive. "Sho, Boots! That's just a way folks have of talking. We 've got our enemies. Lots of people hate us because we won't let any one run over us."

She stood straight and slender before him, her eyes fixed in his. "Do they say we robbed the express company?"

"They don't say it out loud if they do—not where I can hear them," he answered grimly.

"Did we?" she flung at him.

His smile was forced. The question disturbed him. That had always been her way, even when she was a small child, to fling herself headlong