Several times when he spoke to her about Neal Taggart she left him without answering, and so he knew that she resented the implication that he had expressed on the morning following the night on which he had discovered her talking in the office.
It was nearly three weeks after the killing of Denver and his confederate that the details of the story reached Betty's ears, and Calumet was as indifferent to her expressions of horror--though it was a horror not unmixed with a queer note of satisfaction, over which he wondered--as he was to Dade's words of congratulation: "You're sure livin' up to your reputation of bein' a slick man with the six!" Nor did Calumet inquire who had brought the news.

But when one day a roaming puncher brought word from the Arrow that "young Taggart is around ag'in after monkeyin' with the wrong end of a gun," he showed interest.

He was anxious to settle the question which had been in his mind since the morning of the shooting.

It was this: had Betty meant to hit Taggart when she had shot at him?
He thought not; she had pretended hostility in order to mislead him.

But if that had been her plan she had failed to fool him, for he watched unceasingly, and many nights when Betty thought him asleep he was secreted in the wood near the ranchhouse.