Things were happening too swiftly for them to be put into crisp sentences by a man whose thoughts were muddled by the fact that beside him waited a girl in a whipcord riding suit--the same girl who had leaped from an automobile on the Denver highway and-- It crystallized things for him momentarily.
"I 'm going to ask you something after a while--something that I 've wondered and wondered about.

I know it was n't anything--but--" She laughed up at him.
"It did look terrible, didn't it ?" "Well, it would n't have been so mysterious if you had n't hurried away so quick.

And then--" "You really did n't think I was the Smelter bandit, did you ?" the laugh still was on her lips.

Fairchild scratched his head.
"Darned if I know what I thought.

And I don't know what I think yet." "But you 've managed to live through it." "Yes--but--" She touched his arm and put on a scowl.
"It's very, very awful!" came in a low, mock-awed voice.