"You are quite sure you have never seen them before?" her velvet
voice asked.
He laughed. "Well, no--I can't say I am."
"Aren't you quite sure you have seen them?'
Her eyes rested on him very steadily.
"You're smart as a whip, Miss Wainwright. I take off my hat to a
young lady so clever. I guess you're right. About the identity of
one of those masked gentlemen I'm pretty well satisfied."
She drew a long breath. "I thought so."
"Yes," he went on evenly, "I once earmarked him so that I'd know
him again in case we met."
"I beg pardon. You--what?"
"Earmarked him. Figure of speech, ma'am. You may not have
observed that the curly-headed person behind the guns was shy the
forefinger of his right hand. We had a little difficulty once
when he was resisting arrest, and it just happened that my gun
fanned away his trigger finger." He added reminiscently:
"A good boy, too, Neil was once. We used to punch together on the
Hashknife. A straight-up rider, the kind a fellow wants when Old
Man Trouble comes knocking at the door. Well, I reckon he's a
miscreant now, all right."
"They knew YOU--at least two of them did.
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