"Where hev you put Cressy?"
McKinstry said slowly.
"I don't understand you," stammered Ford.
"Where are you hidin' her from me?" repeated McKinstry with painful
distinctness. "Whar hev you run her to, that you're reckonin' to jine
her arter--arter--THIS?"
"I am not hiding her! I am not going to her! I do not know where she is.
I have not seen her since we parted early this morning without a word
of meeting again," said the master rapidly, yet with a bewildered
astonishment that was obvious even to the dulled faculties of his
hearer.
"That war true?" asked McKinstry, laying his hand upon the master's
shoulder and bringing his dull eyes to the level of the young man's.
"It is the whole truth," said Ford fervently, "and true also that I
never raised my hand against you."
McKinstry beckoned to Harrison and the two others who had joined him,
and then sank partly back with his hand upon his side, where the slow
empurpling of his red shirt showed the slight ooze of a deeply-seated
wound.
"You fellers kin take me over to the ranch," he said calmly, "and let
him," pointing to Ford, "ride your best hoss fer the doctor.
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