"I was told that I should find Miss Leigh here."
Alison said that was her name, and the man, drawing a chair forward, sat down opposite her.
"I understand that you have Winthrop's mortgage deed in your possession. He now desires you to hand it to me."
"I shall be very glad to get rid of it," declared Alison, taking the document out of a pocket in her light jacket. "Will you be able to get him off with it?"
"That's a matter on which I can't very well express an opinion until I have read the deed and had a talk with Winthrop. I've no doubt you have heard that he has just been arrested while endeavoring to escape, but I contrived to get a word or two with him and Corporal Slaney. The latter considers it advisable to get his prisoner out of the settlement as soon as possible, and I understand he means to spend the night at a homestead a few miles away. He has promised me an opportunity for speaking to Winthrop when he gets there."
"I should very much like to hear what you decide," Alison informed him.
"It's probable that I may find it necessary to make a few inquiries in connection with the affair, and I have another piece of business which will keep me a day or two in the neighborhood. If Winthrop has no objections, I could no doubt call on you at the Farquhar homestead on Monday."
Alison thanked him, and soon after he withdrew Hunter came out of the hotel with Thorne. Alison accompanied Thorne down to the street in search of Mrs. Farquhar. Then Hunter turned toward his wife.
"If you have nothing more to do here, we may as well be getting home," he said.
It was unusually dark when Florence Hunter drove out of the settlement with her husband riding beside the wagon, and the roughness of the trail made conversation difficult. Florence was, on the whole, glad of this, because, although she felt that there was a good deal to be said, she could not express herself befittingly while her attention was concentrated on the team. Besides, she wanted to see the man and watch his face when she spoke to him.
She was accordingly content that he should ride in silence except for an occasional disconnected observation about the horses or the trail, to which she merely made a casual answer. It was late when they reached the homestead, and though a light or two was burning nobody seemed to be about, which was, however, only what she had expected. Hunter led the horses away toward the stables, and entering the house she sat down to wait for him somewhat anxiously, though she realized that the possibility of his being angry would not have troubled her a little while ago.