you see he was sorry?
Everything shows that."

"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!"

"No--he didn't know about that till I told him."

"Till _you_ told him?"

"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room."

"So you freed him--_and took him to your room?_" She had never heard her
father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous
horror.

"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see--can't you see----Oh,
why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against
the rock.

Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through
her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now--this instant!"

Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew
of the attack on the sheep camp--heard of it on the way home from
school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for
nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from
yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I
took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again."

"Slept with Anna, did you?"

She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes.
From the time of the shooting."

"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business."

"And let you do murder?"

"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson
fiercely.

"Because I love _you_. But you're too blind to see it."

"And him--do you love him? Answer me!"

"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't
take odds of five to one against an enemy."

Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me,
girl?"

Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect _I_ can answer that, Mr. Sanderson.
Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing
as God ever made."

But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for
that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and
speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into
words--quick, eager, full of passion.

"I take it all back then--every word of it!" she cried. "You are
braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people--more chivalrous.
You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you
to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me
grossly."

"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily.