Miss Campbell looked at Daniel Moore, but he refused to advise even by a glance.
Billie kneeled down beside Minnie and put her arm around the poor girl's neck, while she looked appealingly at her cousin.
"My poor child," said Miss Campbell, after a very perceptible pause, "we won't tell on your husband. He is certainly a very lawless character, but maybe he'll reform if he has a chance."
"Thank you! Thank you!" cried Minnie, kissing Miss Campbell's small hand with all the fervor of her warm nature.
"Now, Minnie, go about your work as if nothing had happened. The girls will help you, and leave the rest to me. Well," she observed in a low voice to Daniel Moore, who was standing by the window, looking anxiously out, "if any one had told me this morning that this evening I should be protecting a train robber from the law, I should never have believed them in the world. But things seem to happen out in the West that never could happen in the East."
At that moment fully half a dozen horsemen dashed up to the door.
"Go and sit down," whispered Daniel Moore. "I think we might protect this poor girl if we can, wrong as it would seem to the law."
The door was flung open and several pistols were pointed into the room.
"Don't move! Keep still, everybody, or you know where you're at!"
"Nobody has any intention of moving. Come in," said Daniel Moore.
A big man in a black slouch hat strode in.
"Come out, Jim Bowles. Don't try to escape. The house is surrounded. You'll git shot for your pains if you do."
"Jim Bowles is not in this house," said Daniel Moore.
"And who might these be?" demanded the sheriff, pointing to Miss Helen and the girls.
"Let the women answer for themselves. Who are you?" demanded the sheriff roughly.
"Would you mind taking off your hat?" she said. "It is easier for me to reply to a man when he is not wearing a hat."
"Excuse me, ma'am," he said. "We don't often see ladies in this wild country."
"We are a party of motorists." said Miss Campbell. "We took the wrong road, and this very kind woman gave us shelter. To-morrow we hope to resume our journey."
"Do you know you are probably in the cabin of one of the worst outlaws in the State?"
"Are you sure, sir? It is very difficult to believe, and where one is treated with so much hospitality one does not look for such things."