“He wasn't able to talk when I saw him. Pete said Saunders claimed he was shot at the stable, but I know that to be a lie.” Miss Georgie spoke with unfeeling exactness. “That was to save himself in case he got well, I suppose. I believe the man is going to die, if he hasn't already; he had the look--I've seen them in wrecks, and I know. He won't talk; he can't. But there'll be an investigation--and Baumberger, I suspect, will be just as willing to get you in this way as in any other. More so, maybe. Because a murder is always awkward to handle.” “I can't see why he should want to murder me.” Good Indian took her hands away from her hair, and set himself again to the work of freeing her. “You've been fudging around till you've got about ten million more hairs wound up,” he grumbled. “Wow! ARE you deliberately torturing me?” she complained, winking with the pain of his good intentions. “I don't believe he does want to murder you. I think that was just Saunders trying to make a dandy good job of it. He doesn't like you, anyway--witness the way you bawled him out that day you roped--ow-w!--roped the dog. Baumberger may have wanted him to keep an eye on you--My Heavens, man! Do you think you're plucking a goose?” “I wouldn't be surprised,” he retorted, grinning a little. “Honest! I'm trying to go easy, but this infernal bush has sure got a strangle hold on you--and your hair is so fluffy it's a deuce of a job. You keep wriggling and getting it caught in new places. If you could only manage to stand still--but I suppose you can't. “By the way,” he remarked casually, after a short silence, save for an occasional squeal from Miss Georgie, “speaking of Saunders--I didn't shoot him.” Miss Georgie looked up at him, to the further entanglement of her hair. “You DIDN'T? Then who did?” “Search ME,” he offered figuratively and briefly. “Well, I will.” Miss Georgie spoke with a certain decisiveness, and reaching out a sage-soiled hand, took his gun from the holster at his hip. He shrank away with a man's instinctive dislike of having anyone make free with his weapons, but it was a single movement, which he controlled instantly. “Stand still, can't you?” he admonished, and kept at work while she examined the gun with a dexterity and ease of every motion which betrayed her perfect familiarity with firearms. She snapped the cylinder into place, sniffed daintily at the end of the barrel, and slipped the gun back into its scabbard. “Don't think I doubted your word,” she said, casting a slanting glance up at him without moving her head. “But I wanted to be able to swear positively, if I should happen to be dragged into the witness-box--I hope it won't be by the hair of the head!--that your gun has not been fired this morning. Unless you carry a cleaning rod with you,” she added, “which would hardly be likely.”