She had taken the board off the doorway into the kitchen,so that she could use the cookstove.The man could have come in if he had wanted to,and that knowledge she found extremely disquieting.She went all through the house that morning,looking and wondering.
The living-room was now the dressing-room of Muriel and her mother,and the make-up scattered over the centertable was undisturbed;the wardrobe of the two women had apparently been left untouched.Yet she was sure that some one had been prowling in there in the night.She gave up the puzzle at last and went back to her breakfast,but before the company arrived in the big,black automobile,she had found a stout hasp and two staples,and had fixed the door which led from her room into the kitchen so that she could fasten it securely on the inside.
Jean did not tell Lite about the footsteps.She was afraid that he might insist upon her giving up staying at the Lazy A.Lite did not approve of it,anyway,and it would take very little encouragement in the way of extra risk to make him stubborn about it.Lite could be very obstinate indeed upon occasion,and she was afraid he might take a stubborn streak about this,and perhaps ride over every night to make sure she was all right,or do something equally unnecessary and foolish.
She did not know Lite as well as she imagined,which is frequently the case with the closest of friends.As a matter of fact,Jean had never spent one night alone on the ranch,even though she did believe she was doing so.Lite had a homestead a few miles away,upon which he was supposed to be sleeping occasionally to prove his good faith in the settlement.Instead of spending his nights there,however,he rode over and slept in the gable loft over the old granary,where no one ever went;and he left every morning just before the sky lightened with dawn.He did not know that Jean was frightened by the sound of footsteps,but he had heard the man ride up to the stable and dismount,and he had followed him to the house and watched him through the uncurtained windows,and had kept his fingers close to his gun all the while.Jean did not dream of anything like that;but Lite,going about his work with the easy calm that marked his manner always,was quite as puzzled over the errand of the night-prowler as was Jean herself.
For three years Lite had lain aside the mystery of the footprints on the kitchen floor on the night after the inquest,as a puzzle he would probably never solve.
He had come to remember them as a vagrant incident that carried no especial meaning.But now they seemed to carry a new significance,--if only he could get at the key.For three years he had gone along quietly,working and saving all he could,and looking after Jean in an unobtrusive way,believing that Aleck was guilty,--and being careful to give no hint of that belief to any one.And now Jean herself seemed to be leading him unconsciously face to face with doubt and mystery.
It tantalized him.He knew the prowler,and for that reason he was all the more puzzled.What had he wanted or expected to find?Lite was tempted to face the man and ask him;but on second thought he knew that would be foolish.He would say nothing to Jean.
He thanked the Lord she slept soundly!and he would wait and see what happened.
Jean herself was thoughtful all that day,and was slow to lighten her mood or her manner even when Gil Huntley rode beside her to location and talked enthusiastically of the great work she was doing for a beginner,and of the greater work she would do in the future,if only she took advantage of her opportunities.
