"You didn't tell me." And this time he spoke reproachfully.
"It was after you had left that I saw it. And I did go down to the ranch to tell you. But I--you were so--occupied--in other directions--" She let go his wrists, and began fumbling at her hair, and she bowed her head again so that her face was hidden from him.
"You could have told me, anyway," Good Indian said constrainedly.
"You didn't want her to know. I couldn't, before her. And I didn't want to--hurt her by--" Miss Georgie fumbled more with her words than with her hair.
"Well, there's no use arguing about that." Good Indian also found that subject a difficult one. "You say he was shot. Did he say--"
"He wasn't able to talk when I saw him. Pete said Saunders claimed he was shot at the stable, but I know that to be a lie." Miss Georgie spoke with unfeeling exactness. "That was to save himself in case he got well, I suppose. I believe the man is going to die, if he hasn't already; he had the look--I've seen them in wrecks, and I know. He won't talk; he can't. But there'll be an investigation--and Baumberger, I suspect, will be just as willing to get you in this way as in any other. More so, maybe. Because a murder is always awkward to handle."
"I can't see why he should want to murder me." Good Indian took her hands away from her hair, and set himself again to the work of freeing her. "You've been fudging around till you've got about ten million more hairs wound up," he grumbled.
"Wow! ARE you deliberately torturing me?" she complained, winking with the pain of his good intentions. "I don't believe he does want to murder you. I think that was just Saunders trying to make a dandy good job of it. He doesn't like you, anyway--witness the way you bawled him out that day you roped--ow-w!--roped the dog. Baumberger may have wanted him to keep an eye on you--My Heavens, man! Do you think you're plucking a goose?"
"I wouldn't be surprised," he retorted, grinning a little. "Honest! I'm trying to go easy, but this infernal bush has sure got a strangle hold on you--and your hair is so fluffy it's a deuce of a job. You keep wriggling and getting it caught in new places. If you could only manage to stand still--but I suppose you can't.
"By the way," he remarked casually, after a short silence, save for an occasional squeal from Miss Georgie, "speaking of Saunders--I didn't shoot him."
Miss Georgie looked up at him, to the further entanglement of her hair. "You DIDN'T? Then who did?"