But a man--mistreated her--and Steve, he just interfered----"
Indeed, Joe had found the way to comfort her and still tell the truth,
even though he found it foolishly difficult to swallow food and watch
at the same time the warmth which his words kindled. So for an hour he
lingered at table and told her many things concerning the man she loved
which she would never have learned from his own lips. And it was Joe's
jocularity which in the end subdued her rebel spirit. She yielded at
last and promised to go home and rest, but only after he had promised
first in a fashion which could leave no doubt in her heart, that he
would come for her if things grew worse.
Before she left him that morning she told Joe of Big Louie, whom she
had had to leave in the road; but he interrupted her before she could
finish. They had already found Big Louie. Then she gave him the note
which she had discovered crushed beneath Steve's body. This Joe
scanned ferociously; he flashed a strange glance at her from bleached
blue eyes.
"Some one traced your name," he put into words the first thought that
had been hers. "Some one who had your signature to copy."
She nodded, whitely, in horror. Joe folded the paper and tucked it
into a pocket.
"We can touch nobody," he averred regretfully, "unless we catch
Harrigan!"
Caleb himself took Barbara home, and on the way across the lawn she
giggled suddenly at the funny way in which the distance seemed to
increase and then lessen between her eyes and her feet.
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