““Well, ma'am, as I said, I found Willow lying ill down on the riverbank." "What was she doing there?" Rider swallowed. "Ah,well, she, ah, was kind of taking a bath." "A bath!" The landlady looked like she was going to be sick. They now had Bartel's full attention. A grin wrinkled the corner of this mouth. "Oh,she was all done,of course," Rider rushed to explain. "Dressed,too," he lied. "Poor girl said she had a severe headache." Rider was sweating bullets. He'd rather face the whole Clanton gang than his formidable landlady. She had the uncanny ability to make him feel like a ten-year-old boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. And it didn't take much to figure out what her reaction would be to his "headache treatment." Since there were definitely no benefits to be won for total honesty, he reasoned that what she didn't know woulnd't hurt him .””
