After they’d ridden the half day’s journey to Paradise and deposited Spelling at the town jail, they continued across the prairie to where they hoped to find Burroughs and his troop. Julia had insisted she accompany Cole and there was little the scout could do to dissuade her. “I want to look at him straight in the eye and tell him what he’s done.”
On that first night, camping out under the stars, they sat beside the fire Cole had made, she gazing into the flames, he gazing at her profile. “He won’t care,” he said at long last.
“I know that. But I want him to know that I do.”
I“Is that why you forced Spelling to make his confession to the sheriff?”
She picked up a tiny piece of wood and tossed it into the fire. “I didn’t need to force him – he was terrified.”
“He didn’t seem so terrif
