, and looking up she found Dan before her.

"Oh! you should not," she whispered, hurriedly. "Why did you come back?
They do not suspect; they think I did it--and so--"

"What does this all mean?--what do you mean?" he asked. "Can't you
speak?"

It seemed she could not find any more words, she stared at him so
helplessly.

"Max, come here!" he called, to hasten steps already approaching. "Come,
all of you; I had only a moment to listen to the captain when he caught up
with me. But he told me she is suspected of murder--that a ring she wore
last night helped the suspicion on. I didn't wait to hear any more, for I
gave the little girl that snake ring--gave it to her weeks ago. I bought
it from a miner, and he told me he got it from an Indian near Karlo. Now
are you ready to suspect me, too, because I had it first?"

"The ring wasn't just the most important bit of circumstantial evidence,
Mr. Overton," answered the man named Saunders; "and we are all mighty glad
you've got here. It was in her room the man was found, and a knife she
borrowed from you was what killed him; and of where she was just about the
time the thing happened she won't say anything."

His face paled slightly as he looked at her and heard the brief summing up
of the case.

"My knife?" he said, blankly.

"Yes, sir. When some one said it was your knife, she spoke up and said it
was, but that you had not had it since noon, for she borrowed it then to
cut a stick; but beyond that she don't tell a thing."

"Who is the man?"

"The renegade--Lee Holly."

"Lee Holly!" He turned a piercing glance on Harris, remembering the deep
interest he had shown in that man Lee Holly and his partner, "Monte."

Harris met his gaze without flinching, and nodded his head as if in
assent.

And that was the man found dead in her room!

The faces of the people seemed for a moment an indistinct blur before his
eyes; then he rallied and turned to her.

"'Tana, you never did it," he said, reassuringly; "or if you did, it has
been justifiable, and I know it. If it was necessary to do it in any
self-defense, don't be afraid to tell it all plainly. No one would blame
you. It is only this mystery that makes them want to hear the truth."

She only looked at him. Was he acting? Did he himself know nothing? The
hope that it was so--that she had deceived herself--made her tremble as
she had not at danger to herself. She had risen to her feet as he entered,
but she swayed as