At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made an end of him.
Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate might have in store.
When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to leave.
She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there, rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after the breakfast.
"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away."
"I promise," he told her.
She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it.
"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read, without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see."
"Oh, I hope not--I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You will be careful, won't you?"
"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me."
Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins.
"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens----"
"But it won't. Why should it?"
"Anna knows. She blundered upon him."
"Will she keep it quiet?"
"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the boys."
"All right," he nodded.
"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so.
He shook his head. "No--you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going to be on the job all day."
"You're so good!"
"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the dust robe, without looking at her.
But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver--and never to his disadvantage.