"I'll go with you another ten steps ... count them! And I have a revolver in my hand, aimed at the middle of your body!"
"You're a game kid! Dead game and I don't mind saying so!"
They had stopped; the whisper was dropped for a low-toned voice. It was not Babe Deveril! Not Mexicali Joe. Then Taggart?
"I want to talk to you. I take it he is in there. Asleep? So much the better. I'm Taggart."
"Well? What can I do for you, Mr. Taggart?"
"That gun of yours," he said. "I don't know how used you are to guns. Knowing who I am you can point it down!"
"Knowing who you are," she returned coolly, "I keep it just as it is! I have asked what I could do for you?"
"I've seen Babe Deveril. He's told me all about everything."
Jim Taggart, had time and opportunity afforded, would have laughed at her quickened exclamation, being an evil-thoughted individual with restricted mental horizons. She appeared interested. He had his own mind of her sex and it was not high, since those of her sex with whom such as Jim Taggart consorted were not such as to give a man a high idea of femininity. In the words which, had he spoken his thought aloud, would have been his, Taggart estimated that "he had this dame's number, street, and telephone."
"I'll tell you about Babe Deveril later; and what's more, kid, I'll give you your show to throw in with him again. Now I'm cutting things short; you know why. I was after him for hammering me over the head with a gun; I was on your trail for killing a man. Now, since the man you killed ain't dead at all and since I've had a good talk with Deveril, I'm ready to let you both go. And just to take in a man named Standing."
Through one of those odd tricks by which chance asserts itself at times, Lynette made a discovery while Taggart was talking. She had felt something underfoot--and that something turned out to be Bruce Standing's rifle.
... What had this lost rifle to do with matters as they stood? Why all Jim Taggart's caution, if he were armed? But then Standing had brought Taggart's revolver back to the cabin with him.... What part in to-night's game was this fallen rifle to play? Her thoughts had been withdrawn; so, standing so that for the present Taggart could not possibly touch with his own foot that which she had stumbled on in the dark, she made him repeat what he had said.