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+Project Gutenberg's The Rider of Golden Bar, by William Patterson White
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Rider of Golden Bar
+
+Author: William Patterson White
+
+Illustrator: Remington Schuyler
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2011 [EBook #34826]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: The girl seized his stirrup to save herself from
+falling.  FRONTISPIECE.  See page 55.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR
+
+
+BY
+
+WILLIAM PATTERSON WHITE
+
+
+
+WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
+
+REMINGTON SCHUYLER
+
+
+
+
+TORONTO
+
+THE RYERSON PRESS
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+_Copyright, 1922,_
+
+BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
+
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+Published January, 1922
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY POINT O' WOODS COUSINS
+
+LAURA, CHARLOTTE, JULIA, AND DOROTHY
+
+
+
+
+By William Patterson White
+
+
+  THE OWNER OF THE LAZY D
+  LYNCH LAWYERS
+  HIDDEN TRAILS
+  PARADISE BEND
+  THE HEART OF THE RANGE
+  THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I  BILLY WINGO
+    II  A SAFE MAN
+   III  WHAT SALLY JANE THOUGHT
+    IV  HAZEL WALTON
+     V  JACK MURRAY OBJECTS
+    VI  CROSS-PURPOSES
+   VII  RAFE'S IDEA
+  VIII  THE NEW BROOM
+    IX  THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY
+     X  A SHORT HORSE
+    XI  THE TRAPPERS
+   XII  THE TRAP
+  XIII  OPEN AND SHUT
+   XIV  WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT
+    XV  THE BEST-LAID PLANS
+   XVI  OBSCURING THE ISSUE
+  XVII  WHAT HAZEL THOUGHT
+ XVIII  THE BARE-HEADED MAN
+   XIX  THE PERSISTENT SUITOR
+    XX  A DISCOVERY
+   XXI  THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S NIGHTMARE
+  XXII  THE HUNCH
+ XXIII  THE GUNFIGHTERS
+  XXIV  CONTRARIETIES
+   XXV  JONESY'S ULTIMATUM
+  XXVI  THE FOOL-KILLER
+ XXVII  THE LONG DAY CLOSES
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+BILLY WINGO
+
+"But why don't you _do_ something, Bill?" demanded Sam Prescott's
+pretty daughter.
+
+Bill Wingo looked at Miss Prescott in injured astonishment.  "Do
+something?" he repeated.  "What do you want me to do?"
+
+"I don't want you to do anything," she denied with unnecessary
+emphasis.  "Haven't you any ambition?"
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"Then use it, for Heaven's sake!"
+
+"I do.  Don't I ask you to marry me every time I get a chance?"
+
+"That's not using your ambition.  That's playing the fool."
+
+"Nice opinion of yourself you've got," he grinned.
+
+"Never mind.  You make me tired, Bill.  Here you've got a little claim
+and a little bunch of cows--the makings of a ranch if you'd only work.
+But instead of working like a man you loaf like a--like a----"
+
+"Like a loafer," he prompted.
+
+"Exactly.  You'd rather hunt and fish and ride the range for monthly
+wages when you're broke than scratch gravel and make something of
+yourself.  You let your cows run with the T-Up-And-Down, and I'll bet
+when Tuckleton had his spring round-up you weren't even on the job.
+Were you?"
+
+"Well, I--uh--I was busy," shamefacedly.
+
+"Fishing over on Jack's Creek.  That's how busy you were, when you
+should have been looking after your property."
+
+"Oh, Tuckleton's boys are square.  Any calves they found running with
+my brand, they'd run the iron on 'em all right."
+
+"They'd run the iron on 'em all right," she repeated.  "But what iron?"
+
+"Why--mine.  Whose do you suppose?"
+
+"I don't know," she said candidly.  "I'm asking you."
+
+"Shucks, Sally Jane, those boys wouldn't do anything crooked.
+Tuckleton wouldn't allow it."
+
+"Bill, don't you ever distrust anybody?"
+
+"Not until I'm certain they're crooked."
+
+"I see," said the lady disgustedly.  "After you wake up and find your
+hide, together with the rest of your worldly possessions, hanging on
+the fence, then and not till then do you come alive to the fact that
+perhaps all was not right."
+
+"Well----" began Bill.
+
+"Don't you see by that time it's too late?" interrupted the lady.
+
+"Aw, I dunno.  I--I suppose so."
+
+"You suppose so, do you?  You suppose so.  Don't you know, my innocent
+William, that there are a sight more criminals outside of jail than
+there are in?"
+
+"Why, Sally Jane!" said the innocent William, scraping a fie-fie
+forefinger at her.  "Shame on you, shame on you, you wicked girl.  I am
+surprised.  Such thoughts in a young maid's mind.  No, I ain't either.
+I always said if your pa sent you away to school you'd lose your faith
+in human nature.  He did; and you did.  And now look at you, talking
+just like a district attorney.  And suspicious--I'd tell a man!"
+
+"Oh, darn!" wailed Sally Jane.  "I hate a fool!"
+
+"So do I," concurred Bill warmly.  "Tell a feller who's the fool you
+hate and I'll hate him, too.  One pair of haters working together might
+do said fool a lot of good."
+
+"Sometimes, Bill, my fingers simply ache to smack your long and silly
+ears."
+
+He nodded soberly.  "I know.  I often have the same feeling about
+people.  But don't let it worry you.  It don't mean anything."
+
+"Bill, can't you understand that I like you, and----"
+
+"Easily," he grinned.  "Of course you like me.  So do lots of other
+people.  It comes natural.  And that is another thing you mustn't let
+worry you, Sally Jane.  Just you take that liking for me and tend it
+real careful.  Put it on the window-sill between the pink geraniums and
+water it morning, noon and night, and by and by that li'l liking will
+wax strong and great and all that sort of thing, and you won't be able
+to do without me.  You'll have to marry me, I'm afraid, Sally Jane."
+
+"I will, will I?  And you're afraid, are you?  You big, overgrown, lazy
+lummox!  I wouldn't marry you ever."
+
+"I'm not so sure, but you needn't stamp your foot at me anyway.  It
+ain't being done this season.  People slam doors instead.  I'm sorry
+there isn't a door near at hand.  It must have been overlooked when
+Linny's Hill was made."
+
+"Bill, don't fool.  This is not any joking matter.  This
+come-day-go-day attitude of yours is bad business.  It's ruining you,
+really it is."
+
+"Drink and the devil, huh?"
+
+"Oh, you're decent enough far as that goes.  You never have been
+beastly."
+
+"I thank you, madam, for this good opinion of your humble servant."
+
+"Shut up!  I mean to say--  What I'm trying to beat into your thick
+head, you simple thing, is that in this world you don't stand still.
+You can't.  You either go ahead or you slip back.  And--you aren't
+going ahead."
+
+"If not, why not, huh?  I know you mean well, Sally Jane, and----"
+
+"And it's none of my business?  Oh, I know you weren't going to say
+that but you think it.  You're quite right, Bill--but can't you see I'm
+talking for your own good?"
+
+"Sure, yes.  My pa used to talk just like that before he'd go out
+behind the corral with a breeching-strap in one hand and my ear in the
+other.  I've heard him many's the time.  I used to hurt most unpleasant
+for two-three days after, special if he'd forget which end of the strap
+carried the buckle.  Old times, old times.  Now, I take it you were
+never licked, Sally Jane.  That was a mistake.  You should have been--
+What?  You don't mean to say you're going home?  And we were getting
+along so nicely too.  Well, if willful must, she must.  I'll hold your
+horse for you.  Again let me offer my apologies for the lack of a door."
+
+He sagged down on his heel and watched her ride away along the side of
+Linny's Hill.
+
+"I've often heard a woman's 'no' doesn't mean what it says," he
+muttered, fishing out the makings from a vest pocket.  "But Sally Jane
+is so persistent with it, I dunno.  I wonder if I really love her, or
+do I only think I do because I can't have her?  I suppose I'd feel
+worse'n I do every time she turns me down if I did.  Lord! she said, I
+said, he said, and may Gawd have mercy on your soul!"
+
+When his cigarette was going well he lazed over on his side, supporting
+his head on a crooked arm, and gazed abroad between half-shut lids.
+
+The view from Linny's Hill was all that could be desired.  At the base
+of the hill the Golden Bar-Hillsville trail, a yellow-gray ribbon
+across the green, led the eye across flats and gentle rises through
+shady groves of pine and cedar westward to where Golden Bar, a
+collection of toy houses, each one startlingly clear and distinct in
+that rarefied atmosphere, sprawled along the farther bank of Wagonjack
+River.
+
+The stream itself, a roaring river in the spring of the year, was now
+but a poor thing.  Shrunk to quarter-size, and fordable almost
+anywhere, it flowed in sedate and midsummer fashion between its
+cut-banks and miniature bluffs.  Bordered throughout its length by
+willows and cottonwoods, Wagonjack River meandered and wound its way
+southward from the blue and hazy tumble of peaks that was the main
+range of the Medicine Mountains to where the wide and pleasant reaches
+of the Peace Pipe watered the southern section of the territory.
+
+From Golden Bar to the Medicine Mountains was a long two hundred miles.
+From Golden Bar to the Peace Pipe was twice that distance.
+
+Crocker County, four hundred miles long by three hundred miles wide,
+bounded on the east by the Wagonjack, ran well up into the Medicine
+Mountains before giving way to Storey County.  Across the river from
+Crocker were two counties, of which Tom Read County was the northern
+and Piegan County the southern.  Shaler County ran the whole length of
+the southern side of Crocker, whose western line was the boundary of
+the neighboring territory.
+
+There you have Crocker, a county three hundred miles wide by four
+hundred miles long, and Golden Bar was its county seat.
+
+Political pickings in Crocker, which pickings the neighbors called by a
+much worse name, were consistently good.  A small Indian reservation
+lay partly in Crocker and partly in Shaler, but somehow the Crocker
+citizens always secured the beef contracts.  Crocker laws, provided the
+suspected person or persons were friendly with the county officials,
+were not administered with undue severity.  Coarse work was never
+tolerated, naturally; but if one were judicious and a good picker, one
+could travel far and profitably.  Thus it may be seen that Crocker was,
+as counties go, fertile ground for easy consciences.
+
+But, like Gallio, Bill Wingo cared for none of these things.  He
+watched the moving pencil-end that was Miss Prescott and her mount
+descend to the trail and ride along it in the direction of Golden Bar.
+
+Another pencil-end was riding the same trail,--away from Golden Bar.
+Traveling at their present rate of speed, the riders would meet not far
+from the scattering grove of cedars marking the entrance to the
+low-walled draw that led to the Prescott ranch house.
+
+Bill Wingo intently scrutinized the way-farer from Golden Bar side.
+
+"Looks like Jack Murray's sorrel," he mused, holding the cigarette in
+the corner of his mouth and rocking it up and down.  "If they stop,
+it's Jack."
+
+The pencil-ends drew together at the lower end of the grove.  They
+stopped.
+
+"Shucks," Mr. Wingo muttered mildly.  "I never did like that man."
+
+
+Said the first pencil-end to the second pencil-end, "Hello, Sally Jane."
+
+"Morning, Jack."
+
+"I was just a-riding to your place."
+
+"Don't let me stop you."
+
+"I'll ride along with you."
+
+"It's a free country."  She lifted her reins and "kissed" to her horse.
+"And at times I've known you to be amusing, Jack.  It's four miles to
+our ranch and you'll help to brighten the weary way."
+
+He spurred alongside and turned in his saddle to stare at her.
+
+"Is that all I'm good for--to help pass the time?"
+
+"What else is a man good for?"
+
+"Don't be so flip, Sally Jane.  You know----"  He stopped short.
+
+She waited a moment.  Then, "I know what?"
+
+"You know I've been loving you a long, long time," he said abruptly.
+"I didn't want to tell you till I had something to offer you besides
+myself.  And now I've got something--Rafe Tuckleton has promised to
+make me sheriff."
+
+"I thought the voters usually decided such things," said she.
+
+He laughed cynically.  "Not in Crocker.  _We_ know the better way.
+Well, I've told you, Sally Jane.  What do you say?"
+
+She looked at him coolly.  "What is this--a proposal?"
+
+"Sure, I want you to marry me."
+
+"No, you don't."  There was no hint of coquetry in either her tone or
+the direct gaze of her violet eyes.
+
+He crowded his horse almost against hers and dropped a hand on top of
+her hand where it lay on the saddle horn.  She did not withdraw her
+hand at his touch.  She simply suffered it impassively.
+
+"Don't you understand?" he said earnestly.  "Don't you understand that
+I love you, Sally Jane?  And I want you."
+
+Sally Jane continued to look at him.
+
+"I understand that you want me," she told him calmly.  "Why not?
+You're dark and tall and thick-lipped and headstrong.  I'm slim and
+red-haired and my mouth is full, too--but I'm headstrong, thank Heaven.
+My type appeals to your type, that's all.  Appeals physically, I mean.
+You'd like to possess me, but you don't love me, Jack Murray."
+
+"I tell you----" he began passionately.
+
+"You don't have to tell me," she said calmly.  "I know."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"By your eyes."
+
+"My eyes!"
+
+"Your eyes.  Love is something besides desire, Jack.  I know that lots
+of men don't think so; but women know.  You bet women know.  And I, for
+one, don't intend to risk my happiness on a twenty-to-one-shot."
+
+"What you talking about?" he demanded, scowling and withdrawing his
+hand.
+
+"You--and me--us.  If I married you, it's twenty to one our marriage
+would be unhappy.  There's too much of the animal in you, Jack."
+
+"You listen to me, Sally.  I tell you I love you and I'm going to have
+you."
+
+"I said you only wanted to possess me," she observed placidly.
+
+"Dammit, I tell you----"
+
+"That's right, swear," she interrupted.  "A man always does that when
+he can't think of anything else to say."
+
+"I'm gonna marry you," he persisted sullenly.
+
+"If it does you any good, keep right on thinking so.  It can't hurt me."
+
+"Has Bill Wingo----" he began, but sensed his mistake and stopped--too
+late.
+
+"You mean am I in love with Billy Wingo?" she put in helpfully.  "My
+answer is, not at present."
+
+"Meaning that you may be later on, I suppose."
+
+"I didn't say so.  Lord, man, haven't I a right to bestow my heart
+anywhere I like?  I intend to, old-timer."
+
+"You ain't gonna marry anybody but me," he insisted stubbornly.
+
+"There you go again.  Leave the melodrama alone, can't you?  This isn't
+a play.  It's real life."
+
+"I said I was gonna have you and I am," he said slowly.  "Neither Bill
+Wingo nor anybody else is gonna get you.  You were always intended for
+me.  You're mine, understand, mine!"
+
+Jamming his horse against hers he pinioned both her hands with his
+right, swung his left arm round her waist and crushed her gasping
+against his chest.  Be sure she struggled; but he was a man, and
+strong.  Forcing the back of the hand that confined her two hands under
+her chin, he tilted her head up and backwards.  Tightly she screwed up
+her mouth so that her lips were invisible.  Once, twice and again he
+kissed her compressed mouth.
+
+"There," he muttered, releasing her so abruptly that she almost fell
+out of the saddle and only saved herself by catching the saddle horn
+with both hands.  "There.  I've heard you boasted that no man had ever
+kissed you.  Well, you're kissed now and you won't forget it in a
+hurry."
+
+She settled her toes in the stirrups and faced him, her body shaking.
+Her hat had fallen off, her copper-colored hair hung tousled about her
+ears.  Violet eyes sparkling under the black eyebrows, lips drawn back
+revealing the white, even teeth--her features were a mask of rage--a
+rage that seethed and boiled in her passionate heart.
+
+Never in her life had she been so despitefully used.  Had she had a
+gun, she would have shot the man.  But she did not have a gun--nor any
+other weapon.  She had even dropped her quirt somewhere.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, striking her fists together.  "Oh!  I could kill you!
+You dog!  You beast!  Faugh!"  Here she wiped her mouth with the back
+of her hand and wiped her hand on her horse's mane.  "When I get home,"
+she raved on, "I'll try to wash the touch of your mouth off with soap,
+but I don't believe even ammonia will ever make my lips feel clean
+again!"
+
+He laughed.  She began to cry as her rage overflowed her heart.
+
+"When I tell my father," she sobbed, "he will kill you!"
+
+"Here, stop crying," he directed, stretching forth an arm and leaning
+toward her.
+
+At that she came alive with startling suddenness and with a full-armed
+sweep scored his cheek with her finger nails from temple to jaw.
+
+"Don't touch me!" she squalled.  "Don't touch me!  When my father gets
+through with you----"  She left the sentence unfinished and wheeled her
+horse.
+
+But he was too quick for her and seized the bridle rein and swung her
+mount back.
+
+"Listen," he said, his voice quiet but his eyes ablaze, "don't say
+anything to your father."
+
+"Afraid now, are you?" she taunted sneeringly.
+
+"Not for me, for him.  I don't want any trouble with your pa, not any.
+But if he jumps me, I'll have to defend myself.  And you know your pa
+was never very quick on the draw, Sally Jane.  So long."
+
+He let her bridle go and moved aside.  She snatched her horse around
+with a jerk and flew homeward at a gallop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+A SAFE MAN
+
+"We gotta be careful," cautioned Tom Driver, the local justice of the
+peace.
+
+"Careful is our middle name," Rafe Tuckleton said reassuringly.
+
+"I know, I know," persisted Driver.  "But you can't fool all the people
+all----"
+
+"Abe Lincoln said it first," Felix Craft interrupted impatiently.  "But
+he didn't live in Crocker County."
+
+"Or he wouldn't have said it, huh?" flung in Tip O'Gorman.  "Don't you
+fool yourself, Crafty.  Tom's right.  Human nature don't change any."
+
+"I s'pose you mean give the people a square deal then," sneered Felix.
+
+"If he does, he's crazy," said a lanky citizen named Shindle.
+
+O'Gorman grinned a wide Irish smile.  "No, I ain't crazy, but we'll
+give 'em a square deal alla same."
+
+"He is crazy," declared lank Shindle.
+
+"A square deal," repeated O'Gorman.  "A square deal--for us."
+
+"I thought so," nodded plump Sam Larder, speaking for the first time
+since the beginning of the discussion.  "A square deal--for us.  Let's
+hear it, Tip."
+
+O'Gorman sat back in his chair and crossed his legs.  "When a dog is
+hungry it ain't sensible to feed him a whole juicy steak.  He'll gobble
+it down an' come pesterin' round for more in five minutes.  But give
+him a bone and he'll gnaw and gnaw and be a satisfied dog for quite a
+long while."
+
+"What kind of a bone were you figuring on giving our dog?" inquired Tom
+Driver.
+
+"Sheriff."  Thus Tip O'Gorman with finality.
+
+Felix Craft shook a decided head.
+
+"Guess again.  Too much meat on that bone."
+
+"Not if it's the right kind of meat," said O'Gorman blandly.
+
+"Stop walking in the water," grunted the impatient Felix.  "Say it
+right out."
+
+"A sheriff with a ring in his nose," explained O'Gorman.
+
+"A weak sister, huh?" put in Tom Driver.
+
+"Or words to that effect," smiled O'Gorman.  "Can't you see how it is,
+gents?  To shove our ticket through we gotta give 'em one good man.  If
+we don't, the four legislators are a stand-off.  We may elect them.  We
+may elect our three justices, county clerk and coroner.  You can't tell
+what will happen to them.  Folks will scratch their heads this election
+and they'll vote their own way.  Take my word for it.  And when it
+comes to sheriff, folks are gonna do more than scratch their heads.
+They're gonna think--hard.  That's why we gotta give 'em a good man."
+
+"One of themselves, for instance?" said plump Sam Larder, locking his
+hands over his paunch.
+
+"Sure," O'Gorman drawled.  "Do that.  Give 'em somebody they trust and
+like for sheriff an' they'll be so busy thinkin' about electin' him
+that the rest of the ticket will slide in like a greased pig through a
+busted fence."
+
+"To tell the truth.  I'd more than half-promised the job to Jack
+Murray," remarked Rafe Tuckleton, incidentally wondering why Jack had
+not yet turned up at the meeting.  "He should have been here an hour
+ago."
+
+"You half-promised it to Jack Murray, huh?" exclaimed the lank citizen
+Shindle.  "Lemme tell you that I was a damsight more than half-counting
+on that job myself."
+
+"Neither of your totals is the right answer, Skinny," explained
+O'Gorman pleasantly.  "Nominatin' either you or Jack would gorm up the
+whole ticket."
+
+"Aw, the party is strong enough to elect anybody!" protested Felix
+Craft.
+
+"Not this year," contradicted O'Gorman.  "You ain't been round like I
+have, Felix.  I tell you I know.  Gents, if we go ahead and nominate
+either Skinny Shindle or Jack Murray, we'll all have to go to work."
+
+"Who you got in mind?" queried Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"Bill Wingo."
+
+Dead silence for a space.  Then Rafe Tuckleton looked at Sam Larder and
+whistled lowly.  Sam's eyes switched to Tip.
+
+"I don't see the connection," said Sam Larder.
+
+"Me either," concurred Rafe.
+
+"I should say not," Shindle declared loudly.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Tip O'Gorman, beaming impartially upon the
+assemblage.  "Take Skinny Shindle.  He----"
+
+"Aw right, take me!" burst out the gentleman in question.  "What about
+me!  What----"
+
+"Easy, easy," cautioned Tip O'Gorman, his smile a trifle fixed.  "I
+ain't deaf in either ear, and besides ain't we all li'l friends
+together?"
+
+"But you said----" Skinny tried again.
+
+"I ain't said it yet," interrupted Tip, "but I'm going to--gimme a
+chance.  It won't hurt.  It's only the truth.  Take Skinny and look at
+him.  He buys scrip at three times the discount anybody else does, and
+there was a lot of talk about that beef contract the agent gave him."
+
+"What of it?  Folks don't have to bring scrip to me if they don't
+wanna, and suppose there was chatter about the contract.  It's the
+government's funeral."
+
+"It came near being the agent's," slipped in Sam Larder, with a
+reminiscent grin.  "Some of them feather dusters like to chased him off
+the reservation when they saw the kind of cattle he gave 'em.  I saw
+'em.  They were thinner than Skinny.  No exaggeration.  Absolutely."
+
+"Well, that's all right, too," said Skinny.  "A feller's got to make
+money somehow.  Who ever heard of giving a Injun the best of it?  Not
+in Crocker County, anyway."
+
+"That's all right again, too," declared Tip.  "But that last deal with
+the agent was a li'l too raw.  Taking that with your prices for scrip,
+Skinny, has made a heap of talk.  You ain't a popular idol, Skinny, not
+by any means."
+
+"Damn my popularity!" snarled the excellent Skinny.  "I wanna be
+sheriff."
+
+"Like the baby wants the soap," said Tip.  "Well, you'll never be happy
+then, because you'll never get it."
+
+"Lookit here, Tip----"
+
+"You lookit here, Skinny," swiftly interjected Rafe Tuckleton.  "Is
+this campaign your own private affair, or is it the party's?"
+
+"The party's, I guess," Skinny reluctantly admitted.  "But I want my
+share of it."
+
+"You can have your share without being sheriff," Rafe told him.
+"You'll be taken care of, don't fret.  This here's a case of united we
+stand, divided we tumble.  Suppose any li'l thing upsets our plans, and
+our ticket don't go through?  What then?  What happens?  For one thing
+you won't get the contract for furnishing the lumber for the new jail
+and town hall that's gonna be built next year.  And for another, that
+land deal you and I put through last month will be investigated.  How'd
+we like that, huh?"
+
+"Rafe's right," said Tom Driver.  "This is no time for taking any
+chances.  It ain't a presidential year, and you can gamble there ain't
+gonna be a thing to take folks' eyes off the county politics.  We've
+all gotta give up something for the sake of the party."
+
+"I don't notice you givin' up anything," snapped the disgruntled
+Skinny.  "I seem to be the only one that loses."
+
+"And Jack Murray," supplemented Rafe Tuckleton.  "Hell's bells, Skinny,
+why didn't you say something sooner?  To-night's the first I ever heard
+you even wanted an office.  That's why I told Jack he could have it.
+He's a good man, but if I'd known----"
+
+"What difference does that make?" interrupted Skinny, bitterly.  "You
+couldn't give me the nomination anyway."
+
+"You could have had another office--say county clerk."
+
+"Wouldn't take it on a bet--not enough opportunity.  Aw hell, it's a
+dead horse!  Let it go, Rafe.  Tip, you've had a lot to say about me,
+now let's hear what you got against Jack Murray."
+
+"Yep," said Rafe Tuckleton, "let's have it.  I'll have to give Jack
+some reason for going back on him, and I don't see exactly----"  He did
+not complete the sentence.
+
+"Speaking personal," observed Tip, again on the broad grin, "I ain't
+got a thing against Jack.  Him and me get along fine.  But when Jack
+was first deputy two years ago he managed to kill four men one time and
+another."
+
+"That was in the line of duty," said Rafe.  "They all resisted arrest."
+
+Tip O'Gorman nodded.  "I ain't denying it.  And we've got Jack's word
+for it besides; but the four men all had friends, and when, as you
+know, each and every one of 'em turned out to be more or less innocent,
+why the friends got to talking round and saying Jack was too previous.
+Ain't you heard anything a-tall?"
+
+"I've heard it said he was a _leetle_ quicker than he maybe needed to
+be," conceded Rafe.  "But folks always talk more or less about a
+killing.  It didn't strike me there was enough in it to actually keep
+Jack from being elected."
+
+"There is.  They're only talking now, but nominate Jack and they'll
+begin to yell."
+
+"You must have been mighty busy these last few weeks, Tip," sneered
+Skinny.
+
+"I have," declared Tip.  "Seems like I've talked with every voter in
+the county.  I've gone over the whole field with a finetooth comb, and
+I tell you, gents, the bone for our dog is Bill Wingo.  Most everybody
+likes Bill.  He's a damsight more popular than the opposition
+candidate.  Bill will get a lot of the other feller's votes, but if we
+put up anybody else the other feller will get a lot of ours--and so
+will the rest of his ticket."
+
+Tip O'Gorman sat back in his chair and eyed his friends.  It was
+obvious that the friends were of two minds.  Rafe Tuckleton, his
+fingers drumming on the table, stared soberly at the floor.
+
+"Are you sure, Tip," inquired Larder suddenly, "that Bill Wingo is the
+breed of horse that will _always_ drink when you lead him to water?"
+
+Tip O'Gorman nodded his guarantee of Mr. Wingo's pliability of
+character.  "Bill is too easy-going and good-natured to do anything
+else."
+
+"I'd always had an idea he was a good deal of a man," said Sam Larder.
+
+"Oh, he'll stand the acid," Tip said.  "He'll go after anybody he
+thinks he oughta go after; but if we can't manage to give him the right
+kind of thoughts we're no good."
+
+"You needn't start losing flesh, Sam," slipped in Tom Driver.  "Bill
+would never go back on his friends.  H's just a big overgrown kid,
+that's all."
+
+Rafe Tuckleton leaned back in his chair and stared dubiously at Tip
+O'Gorman.  "All right for Bill, but how about Tom Walton?"
+
+"I'll bite," Tip averred blandly.  "How about him?"
+
+"Nothing, oh, nothing a-tall.  Only Tom Walton has been one too many
+round here for a long time."
+
+"He does talk too much," admitted Tom Driver, his bright little eyes,
+like those of an alert bird, fixed on Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"He's a very suspicious man," said the latter.  "He like to broke Simon
+Reelfoot's neck last week over a horse of his he said Simon rustled."
+
+"Serve Simon right," said Tip promptly.  "Simon's a polecat.  Always
+was.  Felt like breaking his neck more than once myself.  Good for
+Walton."
+
+"But Simon's one of our crowd," Rafe reminded him, "and he's been
+mighty useful.  We gotta consider his feelings."
+
+"Oh, damn his feelings.  The old screw ain't got any right to feelings."
+
+"Yes, but there wasn't any real actual proof about the horse--only some
+tracks in Simon's corral that Walton thought he recognized."
+
+Tip quirked a quizzical mouth.  "Between us, Rafe, what did Simon do
+with the horse?"
+
+"Sold him to a prospector who was leaving the country.  So it couldn't
+be traced."
+
+"Good horse was it?"
+
+"It was that chestnut young Hazel rides."
+
+"Hazel's own pony?  Lord!  Man alive, Simon is worse'n a polecat.  He's
+a whole family of them.  Why couldn't he have rustled some other horse?"
+
+"I ain't Simon, so I can't tell you," said Rafe dryly.  "But if you
+don't want anything done on Simon's account, how about this: yesterday
+one of my boys was shot at while he happened to be doing a li'l
+business on the Walton range."
+
+"What did your boy happen to be doing?" smiled Tip.
+
+Rafe attempted to excuse himself and his cowboy.  "It was a long-ear."
+
+"Branding it on the Walton range?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"With its mammy?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Serve the boy right."  Tip gave judgment.  "You and your outfit are
+getting too reckless for any use, Rafe.  The territory is not a
+Sunday-school.  You can't pick a man's pocket openly any more.  It
+isn't safe.  And you know it isn't safe.  Who was the boy and what time
+of day was it?"
+
+"Ben Shanklin; and it was round noon."
+
+"Worse and more of it.  My Gawd, Rafe, you gimme a pain!"
+
+Sam Larder shook a fat-cheeked head.  "Dangerous, Rafe; dangerous.
+You've got to consider a man's feelings now more than you used to.
+Haven't you told your man to always work round sunrise and sunset, and
+never to shoot a calf's mammy on her owner's territory?"
+
+"Others do, and get away with it.  Besides, he didn't shoot the cow."
+
+"He might as well have shot her," declared Tom Driver.  "He got caught,
+didn't he?"
+
+"Ben didn't get caught.  He made the riffle all right with two holes in
+his saddle-horn and one in his cantle that tore his pants."
+
+"What range?  Did he say?"
+
+"About fourteen hundred."
+
+"Fourteen hundred, huh?  Then he couldn't have been recognized."
+
+"Luckily not."
+
+"Luck is the word--for you--for us."
+
+"Wonder who did the shooting?"
+
+"I don't know.  Ben dug out one of the bullets from his horn.  It was
+fifty caliber--a Sharps."
+
+"That was Tom Walton himself," declared Tom Driver.  "He's the only one
+in his outfit owning a Sharps, and he won't let any one else shoot it.
+'Twas Tom Walton.  And don't be so positive Ben wasn't recognized,
+Rafe.  I hear Walton carries field glasses now."
+
+"He _is_ getting suspicious," smiled Tip O'Gorman.
+
+The smile stung the amiable Rafe.  "He's gotta be stopped."
+
+"How?"  Thus Tip.
+
+"There are ways," snarled Rafe.
+
+"Of course, but it doesn't pay to be too rough.  Tom has a great many
+friends.  We can't afford to stir up a whole kettleful of discontent.
+A little care, Rafe, is all that's necessary.  I think I'd impress my
+men, if I were you, with the absolute necessity of being careful."
+
+"I did tell 'em," said Rafe sullenly.
+
+"Your telling seems to have left them cold.  At least it left Ben
+Shanklin.  Damn his soul!  I almost wish Tom Walton had got him, the
+coyote!  He deserves to be got, gorming up our plans thisaway."
+
+"Well, everything turned out all right," Felix Craft tucked in hastily.
+"So why worry?  I'm sure Rafe's men will be more careful after this."
+
+"I wish I was sure," grunted Tip O'Gorman.  "They're a wild bunch,
+every last one of 'em.  I believe they just try to stir up trouble.
+They're eternally getting drunk and shooting up saloons and other
+places of business.  People don't like it."
+
+"Oh, boys will be boys," deprecated Rafe.
+
+"Your boys will be dead boys if they don't watch out.  Anyway, you put
+the hobbles on that Ben boy, Rafe.  We can't afford to have him spoil
+things."
+
+"How about having him spoil Walton?"
+
+"And antagonize all of Walton's friends, huh?  Bright, oh, very!"
+
+"If the feller who spoiled Walton was a stranger, it would be all
+right.  You couldn't connect an absolute stranger with us, could you?"
+
+"Let's hear your li'l plan," said Tip O'Gorman.
+
+Every man of them listened intently to the Tuckletonian plan.
+
+As plans go it was a good plan.  Procuring an assassin to do the dirty
+work is always a good plan.  Rafe knew a gunman, named Slike, in a
+neighboring territory.  For two hundred and fifty dollars, according to
+Rafe, Dan Slike would murder almost any one.  For five hundred it was
+any one, without the almost.
+
+"Can he do it?" doubted Tom Driver.
+
+"We all know how slow Tom Walton is on the draw," sneered Rafe.  "Which
+he's slower than Sam Prescott.  If Slike don't plug Walton three times
+before he can draw, I'll eat my shirt."
+
+"That sounds well," said Tip O'Gorman, eyeing Rafe with frank disgust.
+"But, somehow, I don't like the idea of having Walton killed."
+
+"Whatsa matter with you?" demanded the originator of the idea.  "Losing
+your nerve?"
+
+Tip O'Gorman's expression did not alter in the slightest.  He gazed
+upon his questioner as if the latter were a new and interesting
+specimen of insect life.
+
+"No," he said, "I don't think I'm losing my nerve.  Do you think I'm
+losing my nerve, Rafe?"
+
+Rafe looked upon Tip.  Tip looked upon Rafe.  The others held their
+respective breaths.  In the room was dead silence.
+
+"Do you, Rafe?" persisted Tip, his voice velvety smooth.
+
+Rafe found his tongue.  "No, I don't," he declared frankly.  "But, I
+don't see why you don't like my scheme."
+
+"Don't you?  I'll explain.  Tom Walton's niece, Hazel, is the drawback.
+Rubbin' out Tom would most likely put a crimp in her, sort of.  She
+lost her ma and pa only five years ago."
+
+"Aw, the devil!" exclaimed Rafe Tuckleton.  "We can't stop to think of
+all those li'l things.  We're here to make money, no matter how.  Good
+Gawd, Tip!  We ain't----"
+
+"Good Gawd, Rafe!" interrupted Tip.  "We ain't hiring any gunman to
+wipe out Tom Walton.  I'm no he-angel--none of us are, I guess; but
+I've known Hazel since she was a li'l squaller, and I won't sit still
+and see her hurt.  And that _goes_!"
+
+Tip nodded with finality at Rafe Tuckleton.  Rafe sat back on the
+middle of his spine and gnawed his lower lip.  His eyes were sulky.
+
+"I don't want to see Hazel hurt either," said Skinny Shindle with an
+indescribable leer, "but when it comes to a question of li'l Hazel or
+us, I'm for us every time."
+
+"You look here, Skinny," said Tip O'Gorman in a low dispassionate
+voice, "what I said to Rafe, I say to you: Hands off Tom Walton."
+
+"Oh, all right," said Skinny Shindle, "but if anything happens out of
+this, don't say I didn't tell you."
+
+"I won't say so, Skinny," Tip said good-naturedly.  "I won't say a
+word."
+
+"Gentlemen," Felix Craft put in hurriedly, "let's go slow about now.
+No use saying anything hasty, not a bit of use.  Tip's right.  None of
+us want to hurt Hazel, and----"
+
+"And we want to be damn sure we don't want to hurt Hazel," interrupted
+Tip O'Gorman, his eyes fixed on Rafe Tuckleton's sullen face.
+
+"'T'sall right, 't'sall right," said Rafe, forcing a smile.  "Have it
+your own way, Tip.  Tom Walton's safe for all of me."
+
+"Good enough," Tip said heartily, shooting at Rafe a glance that was
+not completely trustful.
+
+Entered then Jack Murray, wearing a set smile across his scratched
+face.  He nodded to the assemblage, sat down jauntily on the edge of
+the table and brought out the makings.
+
+"Well!" he said, his eyes on Rafe Tuckleton, rolling the while a
+meticulous cigarette.  "Well, I suppose you've got the ticket all made
+up."
+
+"Just about," nodded Rafe.
+
+"What prize did I draw?"
+
+"A large, round goose-egg," Skinny Shindle answered for Rafe with
+malice.
+
+"Huh!"  Thus Mr. Murray, the hand he had reached upward to his hatband
+coming down without the match.  "You serious, Skinny?"
+
+"I wish I thought I wasn't," was the reply.
+
+Jack Murray turned a slow head back toward Rafe Tuckleton.  "You told
+me the sheriff's job was mine," he said bluntly.
+
+"I thought it was," admitted Rafe, looking straight into his eyes.
+"But we've heard some bad news, unexpected news.  It seems you ain't as
+popular with our citizens as you might be.  We understand that you're
+so little liked you wouldn't be elected in a million years."
+
+"Who told you that?"  Jack's tone was sharp.
+
+"I did."  Thus Tip O'Gorman in a tone no less sharp.  "And I know what
+I'm talking about, you can gamble on that."
+
+"Tip's had his ear to the ground pretty steady," said Rafe Tuckleton.
+"He knows what's on every voter's mind, and if we nominate you for
+sheriff it means the defeat of the party.  Listen, and I'll explain the
+whole thing."
+
+Jack Murray listened in silence.  When Rafe said his last word, Jack
+Murray laid his unlighted cigarette across the end of his left index
+finger and teetered it slowly.
+
+"Who you figurin' on running in my place," he drawled, his dark gaze on
+the cigarette.
+
+"Bill Wingo."
+
+The teetering stopped.  The cigarette slipped into the fork of two
+fingers.  The man slid to his feet.
+
+"Bill Wingo," he repeated.  "Bill Wingo, huh?  Well, this is a
+surprise."
+
+Without another word he left the room, closing the door behind him very
+gently.
+
+When he had gone Tip O'Gorman threw a whimsical glance at Rafe
+Tuckleton.
+
+"I'd feel better if he'd slammed that door," said Tip O'Gorman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+WHAT SALLY JANE THOUGHT
+
+"Careless child," observed Bill Wingo, coming up on the porch where
+Sally Jane lay in the hammock.  "You dropped your hat in the draw.  I
+found it this morning.  Here it is.  Don't move, sweet one.  Of course,
+if you asked me to sit down or didn't ask me I would, and if you felt
+like rustling some coffee and cake, or lemonade and doughnuts, or even
+just a piece of pie with a bite of cheese on the side--just a bite, not
+over half a pound, I don't like cheese much--I wouldn't stop you."
+
+"Stop calling me 'sweet one,'" Miss Prescott said crossly.  "I'm not
+your sweet one, or anybody else's sweet one, and I'll get you something
+to fill your fat stomach, you lazy loafer, when I get good and ready.
+Not before."
+
+"Well, all right," he murmured resignedly, settling down on the stout
+pine rail of the porch and fanning himself with his hat.  "But I love
+you just the same.  What's that?  Did I hear you curse or something?"
+
+"Something.  I only said damn because you make me sick.  Love, love,
+love, morning, noon and night!  Don't men ever think of anything else?"
+
+"Not when you're around," he told her.
+
+"Oh, it's the very devil," admitted Sally Jane, rubbing her red mouth
+with a reflective forefinger.  "Am I so alluring?"
+
+"Who has been kissing you now?" he asked idly and wondered why her face
+should flame at the word.  Wondered--because everybody knew Sally Jane.
+
+On her part she wondered if he had seen what had passed in the draw the
+day before, then decided instantly that he had not, else his manner
+toward her would have been decidedly different.
+
+"You haven't answered my question?" he persisted, still idly.
+
+"Does it need one?"
+
+"Well, no, not yet, anyway.  When you're engaged to me, I'll know who's
+kissing you."
+
+"Don't be disgusting."
+
+"No disgusting about it.  I'll probably hug you, too."
+
+"What dismal beasts men are," she said, with a mock shiver, having
+regained control of her jumpy nerves.  "I suppose you'd enjoy having me
+sit on your knee."
+
+"I would indeed," he told her warmly.  "I think that chair there would
+hold the two of us if we sat quiet--fairly quiet."
+
+It was at this juncture that her father, Sam Prescott, came out on the
+porch.
+
+"Howdy, young Bill," said Sam.  He invariably prefixed the adjective to
+Bill's name.  Why, no one knew.  It was doubtful if he knew himself.
+
+"'Lo, Sam," said young Bill.
+
+"Sam," said Sally Jane from the hammock, "s'pose now a man tried to hug
+you, and kiss you and make you sit on his knee, what would you do?"
+
+"If I was you, you mean?" inquired Sam judicially.  Middle-aged though
+he was, he never ceased to experience a pleasurable thrill when his
+daughter called him "Sam."  It reminded him so much of her mother.  "If
+I was you," he went on, without waiting for an answer, "and the feller
+which tried to make me do all those things was young Bill here, I'd do
+'em.  I really believe he likes you, Sally Jane."
+
+"You think so, do you?" sighed Sally Jane, smoothing her frock down
+over her ankles.  "You too, Samuel?  What chance has a poor girl
+got--without a club?"
+
+"I told her if she married me," spoke up Bill, "she could have jam on
+Sundays and butter the rest of the week."
+
+"There, you see, Sally Jane!" said Sam Prescott.  "He'll be good and
+generous.  And if you asked him for a new dress now and then, or a pair
+of shoes, I'll bet he wouldn't say no."
+
+Sally Jane stubbornly shook her copper-colored head of hair.  "Samuel,"
+said she, "you're the only man I ever loved.  Bill's all right in his
+futile, thumb-handed way, but he's not my Sam.  Now don't forget that
+one drink is enough for a plumpish man with a beautiful daughter, and
+that I want you to bring back a dozen cans of baking-powder, a dozen
+bars of May Rose soap, three dozen boxes of matches, four sacks of
+flour, sack of salt, sixty pounds of sugar, two papers of pins, four
+spools of number forty cotton and a pail of chocolate creams.  Be sure
+and take the cover off and see it's a full pail, and if Nate tries to
+palm off any stale stuff or hard candy on you, why just throw it in his
+face and tell him I'll come in and complain in person my next trip."
+
+"My Lord, Sally Jane," Sam exclaimed helplessly, "I can't remember all
+that!"
+
+"I know you can't," said Sally Jane calmly.  "I've merely been
+impressing it on you that there's a lot of errands for you to do.
+You'll find a carefully written list of everything I want stuck in the
+coil of the tie-rope under the seat of the buck-board.  You can't miss
+it when you go to tie the team."
+
+"And Sam," she added, raising her voice to a shout, for her father had
+already departed corralward, "be back by seven.  I'm gonna make a lemon
+pie."
+
+Her father waved a comprehending hand and disappeared behind the
+blacksmith shop.
+
+"You see," said Billy Wingo, with a smirk of self-satisfaction, "the
+male parent approves.  The last obstacle is removed.  Be a sport.  Take
+a chance.  You might go farther and fare worse."
+
+"I doubt it, William.  Not that you aren't a nice boy and all that sort
+of thing.  However, tell sister why you seek her company this morning?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course, sister not being a good excuse for coming, I did
+another reason.  I have a fresh bale of news for her li'l pink ear.
+Last night I was approached--" He paused dramatically.
+
+"How much did he try to borrow?" Sally Jane inquired indifferently.
+
+"Nothing like that, sweet one.  The political steersmen of our fair
+county rode out to my place last night and----"
+
+"What did the old thief want?" Sally Jane brutally wished to know.
+
+"_Steersmen_, beloved.  There were two of him, and you do both old
+gentlemen an injustice.  They----"
+
+"So Tip came with Rafe, did he?  And you mean to tell me you didn't
+even miss your watch after they'd gone?  You didn't?  They must be
+sick, the pair of them.  What did they do?"
+
+"Offered me the nomination for sheriff!"
+
+Sally Jane sat up abruptly, stuck her finger in her mouth, then held it
+up to catch the vagrant breeze.
+
+"The wind's still in the west," she said, making her eyes round as
+saucers.  "And you are still sitting there as large as life, and I'm
+here alive and in my right mind!"  Here she pinched her forearm.  "That
+hurt," she added.  "I really am not dreaming.  They want you for
+sheriff, huh?"
+
+"Don't 'huh' at me, Sally Jane.  It ain't being done by the best people
+no more.  And they want me for sheriff, really."
+
+"I wonder just how much of that really is real?"
+
+He wrinkled his forehead at her.  "Sometimes, Sally Jane, you talk most
+awful puzzling."
+
+"Those two old rascals!" she cried.
+
+"Don't you think their intentions are honorable?"
+
+Sally Jane's laughter was sardonic.
+
+"Are they trying to fool me, or what?" he persisted.
+
+"I don't know whether they're trying to fool you or not," was the
+reply, "but they're trying to fool somebody, that's a cinch."
+
+"Do you know now, Sally Jane, I was thinking something like that
+myself."
+
+She looked at him with a gleam of respect in her eyes.  "I wonder if
+you really have a brain after all, William.  Occasionally you give out
+a spark that leads one to believe that there may be a trace of
+reasoning power underneath your waving hair.  What makes you think they
+have an ulterior motive?"
+
+"Humanly speaking, I dunno why; but I do."
+
+"Instinct is the white woman's burden, boy.  You'd better leave it
+alone.  But it doesn't take any instinct to tell me that there's a man
+and brother hiding in the cord-wood.  To find the dark-hued
+gentleman--that is the question."
+
+"Why take the trouble?"
+
+"Why?  Listen to the man!  Why?  So you'll know what you're up against,
+that's why."
+
+"But I'm not up against anything," he objected mildly.  "I told 'em I
+didn't want the job."
+
+"What?"
+
+He rubbed an outraged ear.  "No need to deafen me," said he.
+
+"Deafen you?" she cried.  "I could take a club to you, you fat-head!
+The opportunity of a lifetime and you turn it down!  Oh!  I could
+shriek my head off with rage!  I never was so hopping in my life!  The
+first time an honest man is offered a political job in this county, for
+the honest man to turn up his nose, is----"  Words failed her.  She
+almost choked.
+
+"So-o, so-o," he soothed.  "Don't get so excited.  Remember we are
+young but once, and every outburst brings us nearer the grave.  I
+hadn't reached the end of my tale when you blew up and hit the ceiling.
+Lemme finish, that's a good child.  I told 'em I didn't want the job,
+but they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.  They said for me to think
+it over, and they'd be back in a couple of days and take it up with me
+again."
+
+"Bill," said Sally Jane, leaning forward, her violet eyes shining, "I'm
+serious."
+
+"I'll try to believe it," he said, regarding her with admiration.  "But
+just this minute you look like the most unserious thing I ever saw--and
+the most beautiful.  Listen, Sally Jane, I wish you'd do as I ask you.
+Close your eyes and plunge right in.  We'd be as happy as two pups in a
+basket.  Sign on the dotted line and leave the rest to me."
+
+Which nonsense she quite properly disregarded utterly.  "Bill, I want
+you to take that nomination."
+
+"But why, Sally Jane?  I don't wanna be sheriff."
+
+"Suppose I want you to?"
+
+"But why should you want me to?"
+
+"Isn't it enough that I ask it?"
+
+"You flirt!  You're utterly shameless!  You know you can twist me all
+round your li'l pink finger like a piece of string.  You know I'm fool
+enough to do anything you ask, and----"
+
+"Well then, good fool," she smiled her interruption, "it's all settled.
+You accept the nomination, and if you don't make things hum after
+you're elected, you're not the man I take you for."
+
+Bill slipped right off the porch rail and sat down limply on the floor.
+His eye-balls rolled up.  His hand fluttered over his heart.  He
+breathed with difficulty.  "At last," he muttered.  "Accepted!  The
+shock will be the death of me!  Water!  Water!  With a little whisky
+stirred in.  Just a little.  Not more than four or five fingers, or
+perhaps six.  No sugar."
+
+He got to his feet slowly and reseated himself on the rail.  "You won't
+go back on your word, Sally Jane," he told her soberly.
+
+"I can do lots of things you never heard of," said she.  "But making
+two meanings grow where only one grew before is not one of them."
+
+"Joking aside," he said, "will you marry me if I take this sheriff job?"
+
+"Joking aside," said she, "would you want me for a reason like that?"
+
+"Well, no," he admitted frankly.  "I'd want you to love me a lot."
+
+"I'd make a pretty worthless wife otherwise.  Honestly, Bill, I like
+you a great deal, but there's something lacking.  And when there's
+something lacking, there's nothing to be done.  Love is the greatest
+thing in the world, Bill.  It's what makes life worth living.  And you
+mustn't cheat it.  If you do, you might better never have been born."
+
+He nodded.  Try as he might, he was unable to feel very badly.  He
+decided to give it up as a hopeless job.
+
+"I see," he said gravely.  "Sometimes, Sally Jane, I get an idea that
+maybe you and me won't marry each other, after all.  But no matter what
+happens, I'll always be a brother to you.  You can count on me."
+
+He arose and made her a flourishing bow.
+
+"That," said Sally Jane, with her bright smile, "takes a load off my
+heart.  As a sister, I know I'd fill every requirement.  Be a good
+brother now, and do as I ask.  Be a sheriff."
+
+"All right," said Billy Wingo.  "I will."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+HAZEL WALTON
+
+"Now there," said Riley Tyler, staring at the driver of a buckboard who
+was tying her team in front of the Rocky Mountain store, "now there is
+a girl that is pretty as a li'l red wagon, new-painted."
+
+Billy Wingo, unmoved, continued to whittle the end of the packing case
+he was sharing with Tyler.  He did not even look at the girl, and she
+was a very handsome girl.
+
+"Yeah," said Billy Wingo.
+
+"Not that I cotton to a female girl as a usual thing," resumed Riley,
+"ever since a experience I had when young.  I'll tell you about it some
+time; maybe I better now."
+
+"No, not now," Billy made haste to say; for he had heard the story of
+every single one of Tyler's love affairs at least a dozen times.  "Le's
+talk about somethin' pleasant.  Try the weather."
+
+"You know, just for that," trundled on Riley Tyler, "we'll go on
+talking about young Hazel Walton over there.  Pity she's gone in the
+store.  You've never taken a good look at her, have you?"
+
+"Nor I don't want to," denied Billy with what seemed to Riley an
+unnecessary heat.
+
+"Why not?  Do your eyes good.  Tell you, Bill, she's got the
+best-looking black hair y'ever saw."
+
+"I saw her once or twice with her uncle," Billy admitted desperately.
+"She's all you say she is and more too.  Anything to please the
+children.  Don't you ever stop talkin', Riley?"
+
+"Not when I got somethin' like Hazel to talk about," declared the
+relentless Riley, warming to his subject.  "Y'oughta notice her eyes
+once, Bill.  Tell you, you never saw _eyes_ till you see hers.  They're
+eyes, they are!  Big and black and soft and eyewinkers long as a
+pony's.  Fact.  And she ain't lost a tooth.  She's still got the whole
+thirty-four.  You take my word for it, Bill, she's a whole lot
+different from other folks."
+
+"She's two teeth different anyway.  Most generally all other folks can
+crowd in their mouth are thirty-two."
+
+"What's a tooth more or less between friends?" said the unabashed
+Riley.  "She's got a whole mouthful, and when she smiles she shows 'em
+all."
+
+"That's great," yawned Billy, closing his pocket-knife with a click.
+"You forgot to say whether she's a good cook or not."
+
+"She's a number one cook," Riley told him seriously.  "Her coffee is
+coffee, lemme tell you, and she don't fry a steak to boot-leather
+neither.  Not her.  No.  She broils it, she does.  _Y'oughta_ taste her
+mashed potatoes.  No lumps in 'em or grit or nothin', only the mealy
+old potato; and butter beets!  My Gawd!"
+
+"Mixes 'em up with the potato, huh?"
+
+"Of course not, you jack--separate.  And canned peas--separate.
+Actually she cooks those peas so they're tender as fresh ones;
+tenderer, by gummy!  Makes her own butter, too, in a churn."
+
+"Well, well, in a churn.  I never knew they made butter thataway."
+
+"Shut up, Bill.  You ain't got any soul.  I stop at Walton's for a meal
+every chance I get.  Y'oughta see her cookin' a meal, Bill.  She rolls
+her sleeves up and she's got dimples in her elbows.  She's a picture,
+and you can stick a pin in that."
+
+"Why don't you marry the girl?"
+
+"I've asked her," was the reply made without rancor.  "She said, 'No
+thanks.'"
+
+"That's one thing in her favor."
+
+"Yeah, I think--Hey! what you tryin' to do, insult me?"
+
+"Insult you, you tarrapin?  You wouldn't know it if I did."
+
+"If I wasn't so comfortable, I'd show you something," declared Riley
+Tyler, sliding farther down on the small of his long back.  "But the
+heat has saved your life, William.  Yeah, otherwise you'd be a corpse
+all bluggy in the middle of Main Street.  I'm a wild wolf when I'm
+riled, you can gamble--  Yonder she comes.  She didn't stay long."
+
+Billy dug the Tyler shortribs with a hard elbow.  "Where's your
+manners?  Go over and untie the lady's team."
+
+"Too far.  She'd have 'em untied by the time I got there.  Besides, I'm
+too comfortable.  Another thing, I'd have to get up.  No, no, I'll stay
+here."
+
+Hazel Walton stepped into the buckboard, kicked the brake-lever and
+swung her team like a workman.  The tall near mule laid back his long
+ears and planted both hind feet on the dashboard.  _Smack!  Smack!_
+went the whip.  The mule tucked his tail, shook his mean head and tried
+to jump through his collar.  The brake-lever shot forward under the
+shove of the girl's straightened right leg.  The sensible off mule
+threw his head to the left to ease the hard drag on his mouth as the
+girl swayed back on the near rein.  The near mule, hearing the slither
+of the locked wheels behind him, and with his windpipe bent like a bow
+and his chin forced back to his chest, decided that fighting would
+avail him nothing and quieted at once.
+
+"Regular driver, that girl," Billy said approvingly.  "It ain't every
+woman can drive a pair of those big freight mules.  I never knew she
+was like that."
+
+"Lots of things you dunno," Riley hastened to say.  "You didn't even
+know she was pretty."
+
+Billy hopped across the sidewalk and ran out into the middle of Main
+Street.  The mules, hard held, slid to a halt.  Billy scooped up the
+package that had fallen from behind the seat and hurried up to the
+buckboard.
+
+"Your tarp's slipped a little, ma'am," said he, stowing away the
+package without raising his eyes to Miss Walton, who was leaning over
+the back of the seat.  "I'll tie it fast."
+
+Not till the tarpaulin was fastened to his complete satisfaction did he
+look up.  Then he realized that Riley Tyler had not told half the truth
+about Hazel Walton's eyes.  True, they were big and black and soft, but
+they were deep too, deep as cool rock pools, and they looked at you
+steadily with a straight look that somehow made you wish that you had
+been a better boy.
+
+Queer that he hadn't noticed this attribute before.  But at none of the
+two or three times he had passed the girl on Golden Bar's Main Street
+had she impressed him in the least.  He could not have described her to
+save his life.  Perhaps it was because he had not looked into her eyes
+before to-day.  But he wasted no time thinking about that.  He kept
+right on looking into her eyes.
+
+"You don't come in town very often," was his sufficiently inane
+observation.
+
+"Not very often," said she, and smiled.
+
+Yes, there were the teeth.  And weren't they white!  He didn't know
+when he had seen such white teeth.  And her mouth had a dimple near one
+corner.  Now the dimple was gone.  He wished it would appear once more.
+
+"Do it again," he found himself saying like a fool.
+
+She wrinkled her pretty forehead at him.  "What?"
+
+"Smile," he said, with a boldness that surprised himself.
+
+It surprised Hazel Walton, surprised her so that she jerked around to
+the front, "kissed" to the mules and drove away without a word.
+
+Billy stood quite still in the middle of Main Street, with his hat off,
+and looked after her a moment.  Then he pulled on the hat with a jerk
+and returned to his packing case.
+
+"What did she say to you?" Riley wanted to know.
+
+"None of your business," was the ungracious reply.
+
+"She left you sort of sudden," persisted Riley.  "And why did you stand
+still in the middle of the street and look after her so forlorn and
+long?"
+
+"I wasn't lookin' more than ten seconds," denied Billy, jarred off his
+balance for once in his life.
+
+"Shucks, I had time to roll a cigarette, and smoke it to the butt while
+you stood there nailed to the earth.  Yeah.  Tell you, Bill, you don't
+wanna let your feelings give you away so much.  Bad business that is.
+Somebody's bound to pick your pocket forty ways.  Y'oughta play poker
+more.  That would teach you self-control."
+
+"Bluh," grunted Billy.  "Think you're smart, don't you?"
+
+"I know I am," returned Riley, crossing one knee over the other and
+diddling his foot up and down to the thin accompaniment of a tinkling
+spur-rowel.  "I got eyes, I have.  I can see through a piece of glass
+most generally.  Oh, mush and milk, love's young dream, and when shall
+we meet again."
+
+"Aw, hell, shut up!" urged Billy, and shoved his friend off the packing
+case and went elsewhere hastily.
+
+Riley first swore, then laughed and reseated himself on the case.  Jack
+Murray, passing by, stopped and sneered openly.  It was obvious that
+Jack was in liquor.
+
+"He don't care how much he picks on you, does he?" observed Jack.
+
+Riley Tyler did not move hand or foot.  But a subtle change took place.
+Iron turning into steel undergoes such a metamorphosis.  The sixth
+sense of an observing old gentleman across the street and directly in
+line with Jack Murray informed its owner of the sudden chill in the
+air.  The observing old gentleman, whose name was Wildcat Simms, oozed
+backward through a doorway into the Old Hickory saloon.
+
+"Why are you walking like a crab, Wildcat?" queried his friend the
+bartender.
+
+"Because Jack Murray is talking to Riley Tyler."
+
+The bartender, wise in his generation, was well able to fill in the
+rest for himself.  He joined the old gentleman behind a window at one
+side of the line of fire.
+
+Riley Tyler, meanwhile, was fixedly regarding Jack Murray.
+
+"Meaning?" said Riley Tyler.
+
+Jack Murray came right out into the open.  "Ain't you able to stand up
+for yourself no more?"
+
+There it was--the deliberate insult.  Followed the movement so swift no
+eye could follow.  But Riley's gun caught.  Jack Murray's didn't.  When
+the smoke began to wreathe upward in the windless air, Jack Murray was
+calmly walking away up in the street and Riley Tyler was hunched across
+the packing case.  Blood was running down the boards of the packing
+case and seeping through the cracks in the sidewalk.
+
+Billy Wingo was the fourth man to reach Riley.  The boy, for he was not
+yet twenty-one, had been turned over on his back on the sidewalk.  He
+was unconscious.  Samson, the Green-Front Store owner, was bandaging a
+wound in Riley's neck.
+
+"Lucky," observed Samson, "just missed the jugular."
+
+"Where else is he shot?" queried Billy, his eyes on the blood-soaked
+front of Riley's shirt.
+
+"Right shoulder," Samson informed him.
+
+"I heard three shots," said Billy.  "Two was close together but the
+last one was maybe ten seconds later."
+
+"I only found the two holes," declared Samson.
+
+But when Billy and another man picked up Riley to carry him to the
+hotel, Billy found where the third shot had gone.  It had penetrated
+Riley's back on the left side, bored between two ribs, missed the wall
+of the stomach by a hair and made its exit an inch above the waistband
+of the trousers.
+
+The marshal, who had seen the crowd going into the hotel, arrived as
+Billy and Samson were making Riley as comfortable as possible on a cot
+in one of the hotel rooms.
+
+The marshal, whose surname being Herring was commonly called "Red,"
+thrust out a lower lip as he surveyed the man on the bed.
+
+"Even break, I hear," said the marshal.
+
+Billy set him right at once.  "You heard wrong, Red.  Riley's gun
+caught.  I found where the sight had slipped through a crack in the
+leather.  Besides, Riley was plugged in the back after he was down.  Do
+you call that an even break?"
+
+"Well, no," admitted Red Herring, who was inclined to be just, if being
+just did not interfere with his line of duty.  "Anybody see it besides
+you?"
+
+"I didn't see it a-tall.  I didn't have to.  I heard the shots--two
+close together and one a good ten seconds later.  Oh, Riley was plugged
+after he was down and out, all right enough.  Besides, Riley was lying
+across his gun hand when he was picked up, Samson says."
+
+"That's right," nodded Samson.
+
+"Jack was a little previous, sort of," frowned the marshal.
+
+"You think so," said Billy sarcastically.  "Maybe you're right."
+
+"Well, I can't do a thing," said the marshal.  "I didn't see it.  And
+these fraycases will happen sometimes."
+
+"Nobody's asking you to do anything," said Billy.  "I'm looking after
+this."
+
+"Now don't you go pickin' a fight with anybody," urged the marshal,
+instantly perceiving his line of duty.  "Judge Driver is dead against
+these promiscuous shootings."
+
+"Judge Driver can go to hell," Billy said with heat.  "What's this here
+but a promiscuous shooting, I'd like to know?  And I don't see you
+arrestin' anybody for it.  You said you couldn't."
+
+"I didn't see this one, and besides Riley ain't been killed, and no
+complaint has been made," defended the marshal, who was no logician.
+"But where a feller says he's gonna attend to somebody, that shows
+premeditation and malice aforethought, which both of 'em is against the
+statute as made and provided in such cases."
+
+"How you do run on," commented Billy.
+
+But the Red Herring lacked a sense of humor.  Heavy of soul, he frowned
+heavily at Billy.
+
+"You go slow," was his fishy advice.
+
+"Be careful and otherwise refrain from violence," observed Billy, whose
+English became better as his temper grew worse.  "I grasp your point of
+view," he added gravely.  "But I don't like it.  Not for a minute I
+don't.  I'll do as I think best.  I'd rather, really."
+
+"Don't you go startin' nothin' you can't finish," said the marshal,
+lost in a maze of words.  "I don't want to have to arrest you."
+
+"I don't want you to have to either," Billy averred warmly.  "Arrestin'
+me would surely interfere with my plans.  Yeah."
+
+"A sheriff-elect had oughta set a good example," argued the marshal.
+
+Riley Tyler rolled his head from side to side.  He muttered
+incoherently.  The men about the cot turned to look down at him.  Then
+he said, speaking distinctly:
+
+"He shot me after I was down."
+
+Billy Wingo raised his eyes and stared at the marshal.
+
+"How's that, umpire?" said Billy.
+
+"He's raving," snapped the marshal.
+
+"A man speaks the truth when he's thataway," rebuked Billy.  "I'm going
+to see about this."
+
+But the marshal blocked his way.  "I told you----" he began.
+
+"Get out of my way!" directed Billy, his gray eyes ablaze.
+
+The marshal got.  After all, he had no specific orders to prevent a
+meeting between Jack Murray and Billy Wingo.  Let Jack look out for
+himself.  No doubt Rafe and sundry other of his friends would be
+annoyed, but it couldn't be helped.  The marshal betook himself
+hurriedly to the back room of the Freedom Saloon.
+
+Billy, coldly purposeful, made a round of the saloons first.  In none
+of them did he find his man or news of him.  Finally, from the stage
+company's hostler tending a cripple outside the company corral, he
+learned that Jack had left town.
+
+"Which he went surging off down the Hillsville trail," said the
+hostler, "like he hadn't a minute to lose.  He told me he was going to
+Hillsville."
+
+"Told you?" Surprisedly.
+
+"Yes, told me, sure.  'If the marshal wants me,' says he, as he loped
+past, 'tell him I've gone to Hillsville.'"
+
+Here was an odd thing.  Jack Murray knew where he stood with the powers
+that were and consequently knew that the marshal would not want him for
+the shooting.  Yet here was Jack Murray not only leaving town hastily,
+as though he feared capture, but taking pains to leave word where he
+was going.  The two facts did not fit.  True, a gentleman seeking to
+mislead possible pursuers might lie as to where he was going.  In which
+case such a gentleman would not take a trail like the Hillsville
+trail--a trail visible from Golden Bar for almost five miles in both
+directions.  But if a person wished to be pursued----
+
+"I think I can see his dust still," said the hostler helpfully,
+pointing toward the spot where the Hillsville trail entered a grove of
+pines five miles out.
+
+"I think I see it too," declared Billy grimly, and went hurriedly to
+the hotel for his rifle and saddle.
+
+Hazel Walton, jogging along the homeward way, was overtaken by a
+horseman.  He nodded and called, "'Lo," as he galloped by.  She
+returned his greeting with careful courtesy.  But she scowled and made
+a little face after his retreating back.  She did not like Jack Murray.
+She never had.  The man had repelled her from the moment she first set
+eyes on him.
+
+It is human nature for one to take an interest in the movement of a
+person one dislikes.  Hazel wondered where Jack Murray was riding so
+fast.  For it was a hot day.  Her wonder grew when, twenty minutes
+after he had passed from sight, she perceived by the hoofmarks that he
+had left the trail and turned into a dry wash.  She knew that the wash
+led nowhere, that it was a blind alley, a cul-de-sac ending in a
+rock-strewn, unclimbable slope that was the base of Block Mountain.
+This wash was a good two miles beyond where the trail entered the grove
+of pines five miles out of Golden Bar.
+
+Beyond the wash the trail wound up the side of a hill.  At the crest of
+the hill the off mule picked up a stone.  Hazel set the brake, tied the
+reins to the felley of a wheel and jumped to the ground.  The stone was
+in a near fore, and jammed tight.  After ten minutes hard hammering and
+levering with her jackknife she had the stone out.
+
+As she released the foot from between her knees and straightened her
+back, her gaze swept along the back trail.  She saw only sections of
+trail till it passed beyond the grove of pines five miles out of town.
+The grove was now three miles behind her.  The wash into which Jack
+Murray had ridden was distant not half a mile.  The land on either side
+of the wash had once been burnt over and had grown up in brush and
+scraggly jack pine.
+
+Of the pines and spruce that had once covered the ground surrounding
+the wash, but one tall gray stub remained.  The eye of the beholder was
+naturally drawn to this salient characteristic of the landscape, She
+saw more than the stub.  She saw Jack Murray's horse tied to its bole.
+There was something queer about the horse's head.  Whereas Jack
+Murray's horse when it passed her on the trail had been a sorrel of a
+solid color, the head was now whitey-gray.
+
+Hazel was not of an abnormally inquisitive nature, but that a horse's
+head should change color within the space of half an hour was enough to
+make any one ask questions.  Ever since she and her uncle had come to
+realize that some one was rustling their cattle, neither of them ever
+left home without field glasses.  Hazel pulled her pair from beneath
+the seat cushion and focused them on the odd-looking horse.
+
+"Why, it's a flour sack over the horse's head!" she exclaimed.  "They
+say a horse won't whinny if you cover his head.  I wonder why Jack
+doesn't want him to whinny.  And _where_ is Jack?"
+
+Two minutes later she found Jack.  He was lying on his stomach in the
+brush behind an outcrop.  The outcrop overlooked the trail.  Jack's
+rifle was poked out in front of him.  It was only too obvious that Jack
+was also overlooking the trail.  Why?
+
+A few minutes later that question was answered by the sudden appearance
+of a rider at a bend of the trail a mile back.  Jack Murray must have
+glimpsed the rider at the same time, for Hazel saw him snuggle down
+like a hare in its form, and alter slightly the position of his rifle,
+although the rider was not yet within accurate shooting range.  With a
+gasp she recognized the rider on the trail by his high-crowned white
+hat: only one man in Golden Bar wore such a hat and that man was Billy
+Wingo.  Instantly she recalled what folks were saying of Jack Murray
+since it had become positively known that the party nomination for
+sheriff had gone to Billy Wingo, that Jack Murray "had it in" for
+Billy, that he had made threats more or less vague, and that he had
+taken to brooding over his fancied wrongs.  She realized that the
+threats had crystallized into action, and that this was an ambush.
+
+She knew that Billy would be masked by a certain belt of trees before
+he traveled another thirty yards, not to emerge into view again till he
+topped a rise of ground about a thousand yards from the base of the
+hill on which she stood.  It was a certainty that Jack would not risk a
+shot till his enemy had crossed the rise of ground.  If Hazel could
+only reach the top of the rise first--
+
+Hazel popped up into the seat of the buckboard as Billy reached the
+belt of trees.  It has been shown that Hazel Walton was a good driver,
+and she needed every atom of her skill to turn the buckboard in the
+narrow trail without smashing a wheel against the rocks that some
+apparently malign agency had seen fit to strew about at that particular
+spot.  The near mule, devil that he was, when he found that he was no
+longer headed for home, stuck out his lower lip and front legs and
+balked.
+
+This was unwise of the near mule.  He should have chosen a more
+opportune moment.  Hazel had no time to reason with him.  She set her
+teeth, slacked the reins, opened her jack-knife and jabbed an inch and
+a half of the longer blade into the mule's swelling hip.
+
+It is doubtful whether the recalcitrant mule ever moved faster in his
+life.  The forward spring he gave as the steel perforated his thick
+hide almost snapped the doubletree.  Hazel, her toes hooked under the
+iron foot-rail, poured the leather into the off mule.
+
+She made no attempt to guide her galloping team.  She did not need to.
+She barely felt their mouths, but ever she kept her whip going, and the
+mules laid their bellies to the ground and flew down that hill like
+frightened jack rabbits.  And like a rubber ball the buckboard bounced
+behind them.
+
+Hazel knew that Jack Murray behind his outcrop must hear the thunder of
+the racing hoofs, the rattle of the swooping buckboard.  Half-way down
+the hill she lost her hat.  Promptly every hairpin she possessed lost
+its grip and her hair came down.  In a dark and rippling cloud it
+streamed behind her.
+
+"Keep your feet, mules!" she gritted through her locked teeth.  "Keep
+your feet, for God's sake!"
+
+And they kept their footing among the rolling stones, or rather a
+merciful Providence kept it for them.  For that hill was commonly a
+hill to be negotiated with careful regard to every bump and hollow.
+Hazel's life was in jeopardy every split second, but so was another
+life, and it was of this other life she was thinking.  Reach that
+white-hatted rider she must before he came within thousand-yard range
+of the man behind the outcrop.
+
+Within thousand-yard range, yes.  Jack Murray's reputation with the
+long arm was of territorial proportions.  He had made in practice,
+hunting and open competition almost unbelievable scores.  Given
+anything like a fair shot, and it would be hard if he could not hit an
+object the size of Billy Wingo.  All this Hazel Walton knew, and her
+heart stood still at the thought.  But she was of the breed that fights
+to the last breath and a gasp beyond.
+
+She breathed a little prayer, dropped her right hand on the reins ahead
+of her left and turned the team around the curve at the foot of the
+hill as neatly as any stage-driver could have done it.  That they swung
+round on a single wheel did not matter in the least.  Beyond the curve
+one of the front wheels struck a rock that lifted Hazel a foot in the
+air and shot every single package and the tarpaulin out of the
+buckboard.
+
+And now the road passed the wash and ran straight for more than half a
+mile till it disappeared over the rise of ground.  Throughout the whole
+distance it was under the sharpshooting rifle of the man behind the
+outcrop.
+
+As she clung to the pitching buckboard and plied the whip, she
+speculated on the probability of Jack Murray firing on her.  He must
+realize her purpose.  He had been called many things, but fool was not
+one of them.  He might even shoot her.  She recalled dim stories of
+Jack Murray's ruthlessness and grim singleness of purpose.
+
+"Bound to get what he wants, no matter how," men had said of him.
+
+Four hundred yards from the curve where the buckboard had so nearly
+upset, a Winchester cracked in the rear.  The near mule staggered,
+tried to turn a somersault, and collapsed in a heap of sprawling legs
+and outthrust neck.  The off mule fell on top of his mate, and Hazel
+catapulted over the dashboard and landed head first on top of the off
+mule.
+
+The off mule regained his feet with a snort and a lurch, in the process
+throwing Hazel into a squaw bush.  Dizzy and more than a little shaken,
+that young woman scrambled back into the trail and feverishly set about
+unhitching the mule.
+
+She heard a yell from the direction of the outcrop above the wash.
+Fingers busy with the breast-strap snap, she looked back to see a man
+hurdle the outcrop and plunge toward her through the brush.
+
+"Wait!" he bawled.  "Wait!"
+
+Her reply to this command was to spring to the tail of the mule and
+shout to him to back.  He backed.  She twitched both trace cockeyes out
+of the singletree hooks (she was using the wagon harness that day)
+tossed the traces over the mule's back and ran round in front to
+unbuckle the dead mule's reins.
+
+"Halt or I shoot!"
+
+She giggled hysterically.  How could she halt when she had not yet
+started?  She freed the second billet, tore the reins through the
+terrets, and bunched the reins anyhow in her left hand.  He was a tall
+mule, but she swarmed up his shoulder by means of collar and hames,
+threw herself across his withers and besought him at the top of her
+lungs to "Go!  Go!  Go!"
+
+He went.  He went as the saying is, like a bat out of hades.  Hazel
+slipped tailward from the withers, settled herself with knees clinging
+high, and whanged him over the rump with the ends of the reins.  He
+hardly needed any encouragement.  Her initial cry had been more than
+enough.
+
+The man in the brush stopped.  He raised his rifle to his shoulder,
+looked through the sights at the galloping mule, then lowered the
+firearm and uttered a heartfelt oath.  It had at last been borne in
+upon his darkened soul that he possibly had made a mistake.  Instead of
+shooting the mule, in the first place, he might better have
+relinquished his plan of ambush and gone his way in peace.  There were
+other places than Golden Bar, plenty of them, where an enterprising
+young man could get along and bide his time to square accounts with his
+enemy.
+
+But the killing of the mule had fairly pushed the bridge over.  It was,
+not to put a nice face on it, an attack on a woman.  He might just as
+well have shot Hazel--better, in fact.  She had undoubtedly recognized
+him.  Those Waltons both carried field glasses, he had heard.
+
+"I'll get the mule anyhow," he muttered.  "That'll put a crimp in her."
+
+He dropped on one knee between two bushes, took a quick sight at the
+mule's barrel six inches behind the girl's leg and pulled trigger.
+Over and over rolled the mule, and over and over a short foot in
+advance of his kicking hoofs rolled Hazel.  Luckily she was not stunned
+and she rolled clear.  She scrambled to her feet and set off up the
+trail as fast as her shaking legs would carry her.
+
+"Damn her!" cursed Jack Murray, notching up his back sight.  "I'd
+oughta drop her!  She's askin' for it, the hussy!"
+
+His itching finger trembled on the trigger, but he did not pull.
+Reluctantly, slowly, he lowered the Winchester and set the hammer on
+safety.  The drink was dying out in him.  Against his will he rendered
+the girl the tribute of unwilling admiration.  "Whatsa use?  She's got
+too much nerve; but maybe I can get him still."
+
+On her part the girl pelted on up the rise, stumbled at the top and
+came down heavily, tearing her dress, bruising her knees and thoroughly
+scratching the palms of her hands.  But she scrambled to her feet and
+went on at a hobbling run, for she saw below her, rising the grade at a
+sharp trot, the rider of the white hat.
+
+Now she was waving her arms and trying to shout a warning, though her
+voice stuck in her throat and she was unable to utter more than a low
+croak.
+
+Billy Wingo pulled up at sight of the wild apparition that was Hazel
+Walton.  But the check was momentary.  He clapped home the spurs and
+hustled his horse into a gallop.  He and Hazel came together literally,
+forty yards below the crest.  The girl seized his stirrup to save
+herself from falling and burst into hysterical tears.
+
+"Lordy, it's the girl that dropped the package!" exclaimed Billy,
+dismounting in haste.
+
+He had his arm round her waist in time to prevent her falling to the
+ground.  She hung limply against him, and gasped and choked and sobbed
+away her varied emotions.
+
+"There, there," he said soothingly, patting her back and, it must be
+said, marveling at the length and thickness and softness and shininess
+of her midnight hair.  "It's all right.  You're all right.  You're all
+right.  Nothing to worry about--not a-tall.  You're safe.  Don't cry.
+Tell me what's bothering you?"
+
+And after a time, when she could speak coherently, she told him.
+
+It was a disconnected narrative and spotty with gasps and gurgles, but
+Billy made no difficulty of comprehending her meaning.  They who can
+construct history from hoofmarks in the dust do not require a clear
+explanation.
+
+When he had heard enough for a working diagram he plumped her down
+behind a fortuitous stone and adjured her to lie there without moving,
+which order was superfluous.  She did not want to get up again--ever.
+
+Billy stepped to his horse, dragged the Winchester from the scabbard
+under the near fender and trotted to the top of the rise.  Arrived at
+the crest, he dropped his hat and went forward crouchingly, his rifle
+at trail.  Sheltering his long body behind bushes he dodged
+zigzaggingly across the top of the ridge to an advantageous position
+behind a wild currant bush growing beside a jagged boulder.
+
+He lay down behind the wild currant bush and surveyed the landscape
+immediately in front of him.  At first he saw nothing--then two hundred
+yards away on his right front a sumac suddenly developed an amazingly
+thick shadow.  He automatically drew a fine sight on that sumac.
+
+The shadow of the sumac became thin.  A dark objected flitted from it
+to another bush.  The dark object was a man's head.  It was hatless.
+Billy smiled and decided to wait.  He understood that he was dealing
+with a man who could shoot the buttons off his shirt, but on the other
+hand, Billy did not think meanly of himself as a still hunter.  He lay
+motionless behind the currant bush and watched Jack Murray's advance.
+
+Billy smiled pityingly.  It was obvious to him that Jack Murray had
+never been on a man hunt before.  If he had he would have been more
+careful.
+
+"Good Gawd," Billy said to himself, "it's like taking candy from a
+child."
+
+It was destined to be even more like taking candy from a child.
+
+Four times before the bold Jack reached the crest of the hill he
+offered Billy a target he couldn't miss.  And each time the latter
+refrained from shooting.  Somehow he was finding it difficult to shoot
+an unconscious mark.  If Jack had been shooting at him or had even been
+aware of his presence, it would have been different.  But to shoot him
+now was too much like cold-blooded murder.  There was nothing of the
+bushwhacker in the Wingo make-up.
+
+Suddenly at the top of the rise, Jack Murray ducked completely out of
+sight.
+
+"Must have seen the horse," thought Billy, and looked over his
+shoulder.  No, it was not the horse.  Billy was on higher ground than
+was Jack and he could not see even the tips of his mount's ears.
+
+"It can't be my hat he sees," Billy told himself.
+
+Evidently it was the hat, for while Billy's eyes were on the hat, a
+rifle cracked where Jack Murray lay hidden and the hat jumped and
+settled.
+
+"Good thing my head ain't inside," said the wholly delighted Billy, his
+eyes riveted on the smoke shredding away above the bushes on the right
+front.  "I wonder if he thinks he got me."
+
+It was evident that Jack Murray was wondering too.  For the crown of a
+hat appeared with Jack-in-the-box unexpectedness at the right side of
+the bush below the smoke.  Experience told Billy that a stick was
+within the crown of the hat which moved so temptingly to and fro.
+
+Three or four minutes later, Jack Murray's hat disappeared and the
+rifle again spoke.
+
+"Another hole in my hat," Billy muttered resignedly and cuddled his
+rifle stock against his cheek.  "He'll wave his hat again, and then
+he'll be about ready to go see if the deer is venison."
+
+Even as he foretold, the hat appeared and was moved to and fro, and
+raised and lowered, in order to draw fire.  Then, peace continuing to
+brood over the countryside, the hat was crammed on the owner's head and
+the owner, on hands and knees, headed through the brush toward Billy's
+hat.
+
+Billy was of the opinion that Jack Murray's course would bring him
+within ten feet.  He was right.  Jack Murray passed so close that Billy
+could have reached forth his rifle and touched him with the muzzle.
+Instead he waited till Jack's back was fairly toward him before he
+said, "Hands up!"
+
+Jack Murray possessed all the wisdom of his kind.  He dropped his rifle
+and tossed up his hands.
+
+"Stand up.  No need to turn around," resumed Billy, Riley Tyler's
+six-shooter trained on the small of Jack's back.  "Lower your left hand
+slowly and work your belt down.  You wear it loose.  It'll drop easy.
+And while you're doing it, if you feel like gamblin' with me, remember
+that this is Riley's gun and I ain't used to it, and I might have to
+shoot you three or four times instead of only once, y' understand."
+
+Obviously Jack Murray understood.  He lowered his left hand and worked
+his gun-belt loose and down over his hip bone with exemplary slowness.
+The shock of his capture had evaporated the last effects of the liquor.
+He was cold sober and beginning to perceive the supreme folly he had
+committed in shooting a woman's mount from under her.
+
+"One step ahead," directed Billy when the gun-belt was on the ground.
+"And up with that left hand."
+
+Jack Murray, thumbs locked together over his head, stepped out of the
+gun-belt.  Billy went to him, rammed the six-shooter muzzle against his
+spine and patted him from top to toe in search of possible hide-outs.
+He found none except a pocket knife which did not cause him
+apprehension.
+
+"Le's take up the thread of our discourse," said Billy, "farther down
+the hill.  Walk along, cowboy, walk along."
+
+With Billy carrying both rifles and Jack's discarded gun-belt, they
+walked along downhill to where Billy's pony stood in a three-cornered
+doze.  It was then that Jack Murray caught sight of Hazel Walton lying
+on her back behind a stone, her arms over her face.  She looked
+extremely limp and lifeless.
+
+"I didn't shoot her!" cried the startled Jack.
+
+"I know you didn't," said Billy.  "The lady's restin', that's all.
+We'll wait till she feels like moving."
+
+Hazel Walton uncovered her face.  There was a large and purpling lump
+in the middle of her forehead, the skin of her pretty nose was
+scratched, a bruise defaced one cheek bone, and one eye was slightly
+black.
+
+"Your work, you polecat," Billy declared succinctly.  "You'll be
+lynched for mauling her like that."
+
+But Hazel Walton was just.  She sat up, supporting herself by an arm,
+and dispelled Billy's false impression.  "He never touched me--and he
+could have shot me if he'd wanted to."
+
+"So kind of him not to," said Billy with sarcasm.  "Who is responsible
+for hurting you?  Your face is bruises all over."
+
+"Is it?" she said, with an indifference born of great weariness.  "I
+suppose it must be.  I remember I struck on my face when he shot the
+mule I was riding.  He--he shot both mules."
+
+"He'll be lynched for that, then," Billy said decisively.
+
+"Who'll pay for the mules?" Hazel wished to know.  "We needed those
+mules," she added.
+
+Billy nodded.  "That's so.  If he's lynched for this attack on
+you--your mules--same thing if you know what I mean--you lose out on
+the mules.  Maybe we can fix it up."
+
+"Sure we can," Jack Murray spoke up briskly.
+
+"I'm not talkin' to you," pointed out Billy.  "Whatever fixing up there
+is to do, I'll do it.  You have done about all the fixing you're gonna
+do for one while.  Yeah.  I came out after you, Jack, to make you a
+better boy, but now that we got you where you'll stand without
+hitching, I can't do it.  I ain't got the heart.  Of course, if you
+were to jump at me or something, or make a dive for your gun I'm
+holding, I don't say but I'd change my mind in a hurry.  I kind of wish
+you had seen me back there a-lying under my currant bush.  Then we'd
+have had it out by this time, and I'd be going back to town for a
+shovel."
+
+"Don't you be too sure of that," snarled Jack Murray.  "Just you gimme
+my gun back, and I'll show you something."
+
+"I'll bet you would," acquiesced Billy, "but I'm keeping your guns,
+both of 'em.  I'd feel too lonesome without 'em."
+
+"Can't you do nothing but flap your jaw?" demanded Jack in a huff.
+"I'd just as soon be downed outright as talked to death."
+
+"But you haven't any choice in the deal," Billy told him in mild
+surprise.  "Not a choice.  You shut up.  I'll figure out what to do
+with you.  Y'understand, Jack, I've got to be fair to Miss Walton too.
+If you're lynched she won't get paid for her team, and I can't have her
+losin' a fine team of mules thisaway and not have a dime to show for
+it.  That would never do.  Never.  Lessee now.  You got any money,
+Jack?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Maybe ten or twelve dollars."
+
+"Maybe you've got more.  You know you never were good at figures.
+Lemme look."
+
+He looked.  From one of Jack Murray's hip pockets he withdrew a plump
+leather poke that gave forth a jingling sound.  A search of the inner
+pocket of the vest produced a thin roll of greenbacks.  But the bills
+were all of large denominations.
+
+"There," said Billy, "I knew you'd made a mistake in addition, Jack.
+You count what's here, Miss Walton."
+
+He tossed the greenbacks and the heavy poke into the lap of the girl
+who was now sitting up cross-legged, her back against the rock.
+
+"Sixteen hundred and twelve dollars and sixty-five cents," announced
+Hazel a few minutes later.
+
+"How much did your mules cost?" queried Billy.
+
+"Five hundred and a quarter the team," was the prompt reply.
+
+"Call it six hundred," said Billy briskly.  "It's only right for you to
+take something at an auction thisaway.  Strip off six hundred dollars
+worth of greenbacks and put them in your pocket."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't feel right about taking more than the regular price,"
+demurred Hazel.
+
+"No reason why you shouldn't.  No reason a-tall.  Jack's only paying
+you for the damage he did.  He's glad to pay.  Ain't you, Jack?"
+
+"I suppose so," grunted Jack.
+
+"There, you see.  Your uncle would want you to.  I know he would.  In
+fact, he'd be a heap put out if you didn't.  Those bumps of your's now.
+What do you say to one hundred wheels a bump?  You got three bumps and
+a scratched nose.  Which last counts as a bump.  In round numbers that
+makes four hundred dollars.  One thousand dollars to you, Miss Walton."
+
+"Here!" cried the outraged Jack Murray.  "You're robbin' me!  You're
+takin' every nickel I got!"
+
+"No, I ain't," denied Billy, "and don't go and get excited and put
+those hands down.  Don't you, now.  About that money--the worst is yet
+to come.  Young Riley Tyler not being here to assess his own damages,
+I'll assess 'em for him.  You put three holes in Riley.  Call it two
+hundred dollars a hole.  That makes six hundred dollars.  Just put that
+six hundred in a separate pile for Riley, Miss Walton."
+
+"I don't mind the man paying for the mules," said Miss Walton firmly,
+"but I can't take any money for my scratch or two."
+
+Billy looked at her, decided she meant it and said:
+
+"All right, put that four hundred with Riley's six.  Riley won't mind."
+
+"But I do!" shouted Jack Murray, his arms quivering with rage.  "You
+can't rob me thisaway.  By Gawd----"
+
+"Now, now," Billy cut in sharply, "no swearing.  You forget Miss
+Walton.  You're right about the money, though.  I can't rob you.  Miss
+Walton, dump all that money back in the poke and hand it to him.  He
+wants to go back to Golden Bar and be lynched."
+
+"I got friends in Golden Bar," blustered the prisoner.
+
+"None of 'em will be your friends after I tell 'em what you did to Miss
+Walton, Jack.  There's a prejudice in this country against hurting a
+woman.  Folks don't like it.  Aw right, get a-going, feller.  No, the
+other way--toward Golden Bar."
+
+A hearty groan wrenched itself from the depths of Murray's being.
+"Uncle!  Uncle!" he cried angrily.  "Have it your own way.  I don't
+want to go to the Bar.  Take all my money and be done with it."
+
+"I wouldn't think of such a thing," declared Billy, "though it wouldn't
+be any more than right if I did.  You're getting off too easy.  You'll
+live to be hung yet, I'm afraid, but I can't just see my way to downing
+you now and here.  No, you divide the money again, Miss Walton.  Six
+hundred for you, a thousand for Riley and twelve dollars and sixty-five
+cents tobacco money for this gentleman.--  Don't bother reaching for
+the money, Jack.  I'll put it in your pocket.  There you are.  Now,
+Miss Walton, if you'll wait here while I get this citizen started--
+You've got a horse somewhere, I expect, Jack.  Lead the way."
+
+
+"Oh, sure I saw him off all right.  I don't guess he'll be back for a
+while--not if he has brains.  You know, I owe you a lot, Miss Walton.
+You did the bravest thing I ever knew a man or woman to do.  You
+gambled your life to save mine.  You might have been killed, you know
+it?  And after me getting fresh there in the street, I dunno what to
+say, I don't."
+
+He knew that he was talking too much.  But in the reaction that had set
+in he was so embarrassed that it hurt.
+
+"Yeah!" he gabbled on, red to the ears, "you certainly are a wonder.
+I--uh--I guess we better be getting back to town.  You feel able to
+ride now?  My horse is gentle.  Besides, I'll lead him."
+
+It was then that reaction set in for Hazel Walton.  As the strain on
+her nerves eased off, everything went black before her eyes and she
+keeled over sidewise in a dead faint.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+JACK MURRAY OBJECTS
+
+"You hadn't oughta shot the girl's mules," said fat Sam Larder, shaking
+a reproving head at disconsolate Jack Murray.
+
+The latter endeavored to defend himself.  "I was drunk."
+
+"That's no excuse," averred Felix Craft.  "You had no business picking
+a fight with young Riley in the first place.  He's a popular lad, that
+one, and you ain't."
+
+"He made me mad, setting there in the sun joking with that damn Bill
+Wingo who's gonna be sheriff in my place.  Besides, I was drunk."
+
+"I saw the whole affair," said Sam Larder.  "Bill pushed Riley off the
+cracker box and you had to slur Riley about it.  Fool caper."
+
+"I never did like Riley," grumbled Jack Murray.  "He's a friend of Bill
+Wingo's and that's enough.  I figured by downin' Riley and skippin' out
+and lettin' that stage hostler know where I was going, Bill Wingo would
+come pelting after and gimme a chance to settle with him all salubrious
+and private on the trail somewheres."
+
+Sam Larder bluntly called the spade by its correct name.  "Bushwhack
+him, you mean."
+
+"Well, if I did, it's none of your business," snapped Jack Murray with
+an evil glance.
+
+"Then why make it our business by coming here bellyaching to me and
+Craft?" Sam Larder wished to know.
+
+"I came to you because I want my money--sixteen hundred dollars that
+bandit Bill Wingo stole off me."
+
+"He didn't say anything about any sixteen hundred," said Felix Craft,
+his eyes beginning to gleam.  "Tell us about it."
+
+"Yeah," urged Sam.  "Give it a name."
+
+Jack proceeded to give it a name--several names and all profane.  When
+he was calmer he gave a fairly truthful account of the financial
+transaction between Hazel Walton, Bill Wingo and himself.
+
+"And I'm telling you here and now," he said in conclusion, "that six
+hundred dollars is too much for that broken-down team of jacks.  And a
+thousand dollars for putting a few holes in Riley Tyler is plumb
+ridiculous.  My Gawd, he'll be out of bed in a month.  Wha' t'ell you
+laughin' at?"
+
+For his hearers were laughing--laughing immoderately.  They whooped,
+they pounded the table, they beat each other on the back till they sank
+exhausted into their chairs.
+
+Jack demanded again to be told what they were laughing at.
+
+"I'll leave it to anybody if this ain't the funniest thing ever
+happened in the territory," declared Sam Larder, when he could speak
+with coherence.
+
+Felix Craft nodded.  "Sure is.  One on you all right, Jack."
+
+"Aw, hell, you fellers can't make a monkey out of me."
+
+"Bill Wingo seems to have done that pretty thoroughly," said Sam Larder
+with a fat man's giggle.
+
+"I'm not through with him yet," snarled Jack Murray.
+
+"Where's your sense of humor?" grinned Felix.  "If you'll take my
+advice you'll walk round Bill Wingo like he was a swamp.  Ain't you had
+enough?"
+
+"I want my money back!" squalled the indignant Jack.
+
+Sam Larder kissed the tips of his plump fingers.  "The money's gone.
+Can't do anything about it now.  Can we, Crafty?"
+
+"Don't see how."
+
+Jack sat up stiffly, his face red with rage.  "You fellers mean to tell
+me you're gonna let me be robbed of sixteen hundred dollars?"
+
+Felix Craft spread eloquent hands.  "What can we do?"
+
+"I thought you were friends of mine," disgustedly.
+
+"We are," Sam hastened to assure him.  "If we weren't we'd have called
+in the sheriff long ago."
+
+"What's the sheriff got to do with it?"
+
+"He's got a warrant for your arrest--for assault and battery, malicious
+mischief, and assault with intent to kill.  Besides, the folks
+hereabout have got it in for you.  I wouldn't be surprised if they hang
+you--give 'em half a chance."
+
+"I know they would, damn 'em, but as long as they don't see me they
+can't lynch me, and they ain't likely to see me here in your house,
+Felix.  But I don't like the idea of that warrant."
+
+"I suppose not," said Felix.  "A warrant follows you all over while a
+necktie party generally stays close to home.  And no matter what the
+present sheriff does, I got an idea Bill won't forget that warrant any
+after he takes office--  Yeah, I know, cuss him out by all means, but
+after all, what are you gonna do about it?"
+
+"I didn't think he'd swear out a warrant," said Jack.
+
+Felix tendered his mite.  "There's a reward offered, too."
+
+A warrant was bad enough, but a _reward_!  Many people would be on the
+lookout to earn such easy money.
+
+Jack Murray felt an odd and sinking sensation in the region of his
+stomach.  "How much is it?"
+
+"Only three thousand dollars."
+
+"Only, huh.  Only?  Who's puttin' up the cash?"
+
+"Riley Taylor put his name down for a thousand and Hazel's uncle, Tom
+Walton, added six hundred, and----"
+
+"Why, that sixteen hundred is _my own money_!" interrupted Jack Murray.
+
+"I expect so," continued Felix.  "The other fourteen hundred was made
+up around the town."
+
+"I suppose you'll tell me you fellers put it up yourselves," said the
+sarcastic Mr. Murray, who did not expect any such thing.
+
+"Sure we did," said Felix.  "We had to.  Bill Wingo and Sam Prescott
+and Wildcat Simms brought the paper round, and we had to sign up.  I'll
+be out a hundred if you're caught, Sam two hundred, Tip a hundred, Rafe
+the same, and that's the way it went.  Even the district attorney
+chipped in his ante."
+
+Jack Murray was too horrified to speak for a minute.  While he wrestled
+with his thoughts Sam Larder spoke.
+
+"You see, Jack," said he, "we had to sit in.  If we hadn't, everybody
+would have said we sympathized with you, and we couldn't afford
+that--not with elections coming on.  It would never do.  Never.  You
+see how it is, I guess."
+
+"Yes, I see," said Jack bitterly.  "I see all right.  I see you've skun
+me between you.  That damn reward will make me leave the territory for
+a while."
+
+"Most sensible thing you could do," declared Sam Larder warmly.  "We
+don't want to see you get into any trouble, Jack.  You're young.
+Starting somewhere else won't be a hardship for you a-tall.  We'll be
+sorry to lose you," he concluded thoughtfully.
+
+"You ain't lost me yet," Jack snapped back.  "I may pull out for
+awhile, but I'll be back.  You bet I'll be back, and when I do come
+back I'll sure make Bill Wingo hard to find."
+
+"Don't yell so loud," Sam cautioned him, "or you may have the
+opportunity sooner than you want it.  You hadn't oughta come here,
+anyhow.  You dunno whether you were seen or not."
+
+"And you don't want to get a bad name, I expect," sneered Jack Murray.
+
+"You expect right," Felix Craft said with candid bluntness.
+
+"You see, we ain't been openly connected with any scandal yet,"
+contributed Sam Larder, glancing at the clock, "and while it ain't
+daylight yet, still--"  He paused meaningly.
+
+"You want me to drag it, huh?" growled Jack.
+
+"We-ell, maybe you'd better," admitted Sam.
+
+"If fifty dollars would do you any good, here it is," said Felix,
+thrusting a hand into his trousers pocket.
+
+Jack Murray spat on the floor.  "T'ell with your money.  I know who
+ain't my friends now, all right, and you can gamble I'm a-going right
+quick.  See you later."
+
+So saying, Jack Murray rose and left them.  He was careful to close the
+door quietly.  When he was gone, Sam grinned at Felix.  The latter
+broke anew into laughter.
+
+"His own money!" crowed Felix Craft.  "His own money offered as a
+reward!  If that ain't----"
+
+But what it was, was drowned in the bellowing cackle of Sam Larder.
+
+
+Billy Wingo removed his hat and stuck a brown head round the corner of
+the door jamb.  "Hello, Hazel!"
+
+"'Lo, Billy," said Hazel Walton, breaking another egg into the mixture
+of sugar and shortening in the yellow bowl.  "Chase that sprucy chicken
+out, will you, there's a dear."
+
+Billy did not misunderstand.  He had discovered that Hazel called any
+friend "dear."  It was her way of showing her liking, that was all.
+Nevertheless, the appellation never failed to give him a warm feeling
+that felt pleasant around his heart.  He shooed out the marauding and
+molting Wyandotte and then sat down on the doorstep and regarded Hazel
+with approving eyes.
+
+And Hazel Walton was undoubtedly good to look at as she stood there
+behind the kitchen table, stirring with a great spoon the contents of
+the yellow bowl.  There were dimples in her pretty elbows that matched
+the one in her cheek.  Billy could not see the ones in her elbows, but
+he knew they were there.  Her eyes were downcast.  He thought he had
+never seen such long lashes.  The eyebrows were slim and perfect
+crescents.  The round chin was made for the palm of a man's hand.  But
+her hair,--that was what Billy admired most of all.  It was so heavy
+and thick.  There was a bit of a wave in it, too.  And it always looked
+neat and tidy.  There were never any "scolding locks" at the nape of
+her neck, as there were on other necks that had come under his eye.
+But he was not in love with her.  Oh, no, not he.  After his latest
+turn-down by Sally Jane, he had made a resolve not to fall in love
+again, ever.  But there was no harm in going to see a girl.  How could
+there be?  Quite so.
+
+"Your uncle home?" he asked after a cigarette had been constructed and
+lit.
+
+"He'll be in for dinner," replied Hazel, with a swift flash of dark
+eyes.  "And there I was hoping all along you had come to see me."
+
+"I came to see you, too."
+
+"Me too is worse, lots worse.  Shows what an afterthought I am.  Life's
+an awful thing for a girl."
+
+"I'll bet it is.  For you especially.  This is the first time I ever
+came here that some one else wasn't here ahead of me.  Usually a feller
+has to fight his way through a whole herd in order to say good evening
+to you."
+
+Hazel put her head on one side and looked at him demurely.  "They come
+to see Uncle Tom."
+
+"Which is why they spend all their time talkin' to you."
+
+Hazel smiled.  "I feed 'em.  I'm a good cook, if I do say it myself.
+Stay to dinner, William?"
+
+"Not after that," he told her firmly.  "I don't want another meal here
+long's I live."
+
+"Just you let me catch you sloping out before dinner's over and done
+with, and I'll never speak to you again as long as _I_ live.  Besides,
+I want you to go fill the waterbucket for me in about ten minutes, and
+after dinner I need some help in the chicken-house, and Uncle is busy
+this afternoon.  So you stay and be mother's li'l helper, Bill, won't
+you?"
+
+"Putting it thataway," said Bill, "what can a poor man do?"  Here he
+licked his lips cat fashion and added "Is that cake for dinner?"
+
+"Of course not, you simple thing.  Here it is half-past eleven and the
+cake not even mixed yet.  I've got a dried-peach pie though.  It's
+outside cooling.  And there'll be fried ham, Bill, and corn
+fritters--the batter's all ready in that blue bowl.  Lima beans, too,
+the last you'll see this year."
+
+"I saw some young ones for another crop on the vines when I came
+through the garden," said Billy, who was no farmer.
+
+Hazel smiled pityingly.  "The frost will kill 'em before they get a
+chance to ripen.  It can't hold off much longer.  Do you realize it's
+nearly October, Bill?  We almost had frost last night."
+
+"Winter's coming."
+
+"Election will be here first.  Uncle Tom says you're sure to be
+elected.  My, how important you'll be.  Will you speak to a feller
+then, Bill?"
+
+"I might.  You never can tell.  Seen Riley lately?"--elaborately casual.
+
+"Saw him last Sunday.  To look at him now you'd never know he'd been
+shot, would you?  He's coming to dinner to-day--has some business with
+Uncle Tom."
+
+"Yeah, like the rest of 'em.  Fen dubs on the chicken-house.  You said
+I could help you with that, remember."
+
+Hazel nodded.  "Here comes Riley now."
+
+"No," said Billy, when Riley, having put his horse in the corral, made
+as if to step over him.  "You stay right here.  She's busy.  She
+doesn't want a long, lazy lump like you clutterin' up her nice clean
+kitchen.  Sidown on the step next mine.  I don't care how close you
+sit."
+
+"But I do," returned Riley, seating himself opposite his friend.  "Last
+time I sat next you I lost my tobacco.  Good thing my watch wasn't on
+that side."
+
+"Shucks, that watch!" Bill said scornfully.  "It was good maybe when
+your grandad had it.  It must have cost him two dollars easy."
+
+"Alla same, that's a good watch."  Riley returned tranquilly.  "It only
+loses thirty minutes a day now since I had it fixed.  Say, Hazel, lemme
+throw this jigger out, will you?  He's only sliming round to mooch a
+bid to dinner."
+
+"I've asked him to stay," smiled Hazel, "but I don't remember saying
+anything about it to you."
+
+"You didn't.  I said I was coming.  Here I am.  What's fairer than
+that, I'd like to know?  As I was sayin' before you interrupted, I saw
+you out ridin' last Sunday."
+
+"Did you?" indifferently.
+
+"Yeah--with that nice old Samson man."
+
+"He's not old," Hazel denied vigorously, "and anyway, he's nice."
+
+"He gives her lollypops," Riley confided to Billy, "and sometimes as
+much as half-a-pound of chalklet creams.  Oh, he's a prince."
+
+Hazel stamped a small foot.  "It wasn't half-a-pound.  It was--it
+was--"  Her voice dwindled away.
+
+"Say a pound," offered Billy, entering into the spirit of the thing,
+"and that's a generous estimate."
+
+"Almost as generous as Samson," grinned Riley.  "Hazel, go easy on the
+poor old feller.  He can't afford to be givin' you expensive presents
+like that."
+
+"Sure not," slipped in Billy.  "Why, I don't believe Samson makes a bit
+more than fifty per cent on everything he sells."
+
+"You two think you're smart, don't you.  He's a nice man, Mr. Samson
+is, and he spends an evening here quite often."
+
+"He never spends anything else," said Billy.
+
+"Cheap wit," flung back Hazel.
+
+"Almost as cheap as Samson," tucked in Riley.
+
+Hazel's eyes were beginning to sparkle, and Billy seized his
+opportunity.  "Here, here, Riley, stop it!  Don't you lemme hear you
+making any more slurs against Mr. Samson.  He's a friend of mine,
+and----"
+
+"Oh, you!" cried Hazel, instantly regaining her good humor.  "You're as
+bad as Riley, every bit.  But you almost did get a rise out of me.  I
+don't like to hear my friends run down."
+
+"I didn't mean it--anything," said Riley, with well-feigned humbleness.
+"I like Samson, I do, the poor old good-for-nothing lump of
+slumgullion."
+
+Billy shook a sorrowful head.  "Honest, Hazel, I'm ashamed of you,
+robbing the grave thataway."
+
+"I don't believe he's much over sixty, Bill," said Riley.
+
+"Say sixty-one."
+
+"He's forty-one, if you must know," Hazel said.
+
+"I knew it was getting serious," mourned Billy.  "They're exchanging
+birthdays.  We'll have to find us a new girl, Riley."
+
+"Not me.  I'm satisfied.  I'll stick to the last shout and a li'l
+beyond.  Hazel's only fooling these other fellers.  I'll make her the
+best husband in four counties, and she's the girl that knows it.  Don't
+you, Hazel?"
+
+"I'm not that hard up," replied the girl, with a smile that belied the
+harshness of her words.
+
+"There, you hear?" chuckled Billy.  "Now you'll be good, I guess."
+
+"If you won't have me for the twenty-fourth time hand-running, why not
+take Bill here?  He's a good feller, don't drink much, and he's got a
+heart of gold and a brand of his own--six horses and one calf at the
+last round-up.  Besides, if all that ain't enough, he's gonna be our
+next sheriff.  What more could a girl want?"
+
+"She'd want him to ask her first," said Hazel, not a whit put out.
+
+Riley turned to Billy in mock surprise.  "Ain't you asked her yet,
+Bill?  Shucks, whatsa matter with you?  You make me sick, and she don't
+like it either.  G'on--propose.  I'm with you.  We all are.  And she
+expects it, can't you see?  G'on, Tommy Tucker, sing for your supper."
+
+But Tommy Tucker firmly refused to sing.  Instead he seized the jibing
+Mr. Tyler by the ankle and skidded him off the step.
+
+"Ow-wow!  You poor flap!" bawled the erstwhile humorist, who had picked
+up a splinter.  "Leggo my leg, or I'll roll you!"
+
+But it was Riley Tyler who was rolled, and rolled thoroughly.
+
+"You boys stop that!" directed Hazel, appearing in the doorway with a
+bucket.  "Acting just like overgrown kids!  You ought to be ashamed!
+Bill, I'll take that bucket of water now, and Riley, how about fetching
+in an armful of wood for your auntie?"
+
+The two men started to obey, but stopped short in their tracks.
+
+Billy cocked a listening ear.  "Wasn't that a shot?"
+
+"Down the draw," responded Riley.
+
+"Near the Hillsville trail," was Hazel's opinion.  "There goes another,
+and another."
+
+"It's no hunter," declared Billy.  "I can hear horses galloping."
+
+Within five minutes they three saw a horse come galloping.  He was
+tearing up the draw.  The man on his back was half-turned about in the
+saddle, a rifle at his shoulder.  He fired.  They could not see what he
+was firing at.  There was a bend in the draw concealing what was behind
+him.
+
+But they could hear the galloping of the other horses quite plainly.
+The drum of the racing hoofs grew louder.  Three horses swept round the
+bend in the draw.  They were followed by two others.  The pursuers
+uttered a yell as they sighted the house.  The pursued fired twice
+without effect.  There was a crackle of shots from the five horsemen.
+Apparently none took effect on either the pursued or his mount.
+
+Billy regarded the pursued's mount with critical eyes.  "That horse is
+about done."
+
+"Yeah," acquiesced Riley.  "Not another mile left in him."
+
+It was but too evident that the horse was in distress.  He rolled a
+little in his stride.  Once he stumbled.  The rider caught him up with
+a jerk.  The man turned a desperate, determined face toward the house
+in the draw ahead of him.  He was not fifty yards from the house.  The
+draw was wide.  He sheered his horse to one side.  The animal
+staggered, crossed his legs and turned a complete somersault.  The
+rider flew from the saddle, turned over in the air and struck hard on
+his head and right shoulder.  The horse lurched to his feet and stood
+trembling.  The man lay still.
+
+The pursuing horsemen were coming along at their tightest licks, but it
+was Billy and Riley Tyler who were the first to reach the fallen man.
+Hazel, kilting her skirt in both hands, had run with them.
+
+Billy stooped and turned over the sprawled-out citizen.  The man, a
+square-jawed youngster with a stubby brown mustache, lay breathing
+heavily.  His sun-burnt skin was a little white.  Hazel pushed Billy to
+one side and sat down beside the young fellow.
+
+"Let me," she said quietly, and took his head in her lap.  "Riley, get
+me some water quick and the whisky bottle on the shelf over the
+fireplace."
+
+Riley darted toward the house.
+
+The five riders dashed up and flung themselves from their saddles.
+They were Rafe Tuckleton, Jonesy, the Tuckleton foreman, Ben Shanklin
+and two more of the Tuckleton outfit.  Billy faced them, his thumbs
+hooked in his sagging belt.
+
+"Caught him!" Rafe ejaculated with satisfaction, striding forward, his
+men at his heels.
+
+"He don't look shot any," said Jonesy.
+
+"Not a hole in him," Billy told them.  "He'll be all right in a minute."
+
+Tuckleton laughed harshly.  "He's due for a relapse about a minute
+after that.  Jonesy, get your rope.  That spruce up there on the flat
+will be fine."
+
+Hazel uttered a gasp of horror.
+
+"What do you expect to hang him for, Rafe?" demanded Billy.
+
+"Caught him branding one of my calves," was the ugly reply.  "Reason
+enough?"
+
+"I don't believe it!" cried Hazel.
+
+"You know him?" Rafe inquired contemptuously.
+
+"I never saw him before in my life.  But he doesn't look like a
+rustler.  He's got a good face."
+
+The Tuckleton outfit was moved to mirth.
+
+"A good face!" yelped the fox-faced Ben Shanklin, slapping his leg.  "A
+good face!  That's a fine one!"
+
+"I expect we'll have to turn him loose, boys," Jonesy said
+sarcastically, returning from his horse, and shaking out the coil of
+rope.
+
+"Oh, I guess we'll string him up all right," Rafe said with confidence.
+
+"Don't let them, Billy!" begged Hazel.
+
+Billy made instant decision.  "'Nds up!"
+
+Which command was backed by a six-shooter trained on the center of
+Rafe's abdomen.  The way the Tuckleton hands flew upward and locked
+thumbs above the Tuckleton hat was gratifying.  But the Tuckleton face
+was empurpled with rage.
+
+"Of course," remarked Billy, "one of you may hit me, but if I go Rafe
+goes with me."
+
+"It's all right, boys," Rafe assured his hesitating followers in a
+voice thick with anger.  "Lemme argue this thing."
+
+"There'll be no hanging here," said Billy.
+
+"You bet not!" chimed in the voice of Riley Tyler from a position
+thirty yards distant on the right.
+
+Riley had returned with the water and whisky.  He had been sufficiently
+thoughtful to bring with him a double-barreled shotgun.  He stood, the
+firearm held level with his hip, the blunt twin muzzles gaping at the
+Tuckleton outfit.
+
+"Hazel," said Riley, "I wanna borrow this shotgun for a few minutes.  I
+found it leaning inside the door.  Ben, I wish you'd come over here and
+take this water and whisky to the lady.  I'm stuck here, sort of."
+
+"You go ahead, Ben," said Billy.  "Don't lemme detain you."
+
+Ben went slowly.  He plumped whisky and bucket on the ground beside
+Hazel and then began to sidle casually toward the house.
+
+"You come right back," urged Riley, gesturing with the shotgun.  "The
+best place for you is right beside Jonesy.  He's gettin' lonesome for
+you already, ain't you, Jonesy?"
+
+Jonesy spat upon the ground.  Ben slouched back to his comrades.  While
+this byplay had been going on, Tuckleton had been talking at Billy.
+
+"Would you mind repeating all that?" said Billy, when Ben had rejoined
+the group at Rafe's back.  "I didn't catch some of it."
+
+Tuckleton glared, his little eyes hot with rage.  "I said that man's a
+cow thief and we're gonna stretch him!"
+
+"But you said that at first," pointed out Billy.  "And I said 'no'
+then.  I haven't changed my mind."
+
+"Since when have you been dry-nursing rustlers?" snarled Rafe.
+
+"I don't know he's a rustler."
+
+"I said he was, didn't I?"
+
+"You said so, sure.  But you might be mistaken."
+
+"I don't make mistakes like that.  And, anyway, all my boys here saw
+him branding that calf."
+
+"We sure did," corroborated Jonesy.  "Feller had a fire all lit, and
+was heating a running-iron when we jumped him."
+
+"Did the calf have its mammy along?" was Billy's next question.
+
+No one answered.  Billy, however, did not remove his eyes from Rafe's
+face.  The pause was becoming almost embarrassing when the five
+Tuckletonions made reply with a rush.  Two of them said "Yes," and the
+other three said "No."
+
+"There seems to be a difference of opinion," said Billy.  "Don't you
+know whether the cow was along?"
+
+"She wasn't along," declared Jonesy, sticking to his original assertion.
+
+"But Rafe said she was," said Billy.
+
+"I made a mistake," Rafe hastened to assure him.
+
+Billy nodded in triumph.  "Then you do make mistakes.  I always knew
+you did.  Funny how you and Jonesy saw things so different and all.
+Ben didn't see any cow either, and Tim Mullen and Lake did."
+
+"Maybe I made a mistake too," said Lake sullenly, taking his cue from
+his employer.
+
+"How about you, Tim?" persisted the questioner.
+
+Tim looked furtively from his employer to his foreman and back again
+before answering.
+
+"Speak up, Tim," directed Billy, "speak up.  You did or you didn't.
+Yes or no?"
+
+"Maybe I made a mistake," was Tim Mullen's final decision.
+
+"They seem to have come over to your point of view, Jonesy," Billy
+observed dryly.  "How about you?  Did you make a mistake too?"
+
+But Jonesy was not to be caught.  "The cow wasn't along.  I oughta
+know."
+
+"You don't need to be so fierce about it.  I was just askin' questions.
+If this feller had a fire and was heating a running-iron, I suppose he
+had a calf handy."
+
+"I said we caught him _with_ a calf," insisted Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"That's right, so you did.  Was the calf hog-tied?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"And when you saw this stranger and jumped him, I suppose you came
+boiling along right after him?"
+
+"Sure did."  Thus Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"None of you stopped anywhere, huh?"
+
+"Why, no, of course not.  It wouldn't be reasonable, would it, if we
+were chasin' him, to get off and fiddle around?"
+
+"No, it wouldn't be reasonable," admitted Billy.  "Then if none of you
+got off to turn the calf loose, the calf must still be there--calf,
+fire and running-iron?"
+
+Rafe looked a little blank at this.  So did the others.  Jonesy was the
+first to recover his spirits.
+
+"Unless somebody else turned it loose," suggested Jonesy brightly.
+
+"But the fire and running-iron will still be there."
+
+"Of course they will," Rafe Tuckleton declared heartily.  "Of course
+they will.  But it just occurs to me that this man may have had a
+friend with him we didn't see.  And that hog-tied calf and fire and
+running-iron--that last may have been a cinch ring, Bill--are evidence
+that'll hang this man.  Jonesy, suppose now you ride back to the fork
+of that split draw south of Saddle Hill, where we saw this man's fire,
+and see that nobody destroys the evidence before we get there.  Ben, I
+think you'd better go with Jonesy."
+
+"No," said Billy decidedly.  "Jonesy and Ben will stay right here."
+
+"Remember," called Riley, "that this Greener is double-barreled."
+
+"But see here--" Rafe began desperately.
+
+"No see about it," interrupted Billy.  "You'll all stay right here with
+us till Tom Walton gets here."
+
+"But suppose somebody destroys the evidence," worried Rafe.
+
+"I don't guess they'll destroy all of it," said Billy cheerfully.  "You
+see, Rafe, we want to go with you to the fork of that split draw south
+of Saddle Hill."
+
+Rafe's blazing eyes were fairly murderous.  His men muttered behind
+him.  But they made no hostile move.  They realized that Rafe would
+never forgive them if they did.  He would not be able to.
+
+In the meantime Hazel had been alternately bathing the senseless one's
+forehead and dribbling drops of whisky between his teeth.
+
+"He's coming round," she said suddenly.
+
+The man opened his eyes, groaned, grunted, and sat up.  He blinked his
+eyes rapidly several times and smiled pleasantly at Hazel.
+
+"That was a jolt I got," said he.  "Is there whisky in the bottle?"
+
+He took a long and healthy pull, drove in the cork with the heel of his
+hand, wiped his lips and then seemed to see Rafe Tuckleton and his men
+for the first time.
+
+"I seem to remember those bandits giving me the chase of my young
+life," he remarked, nodding his head.  "I don't know why.  I don't know
+why my unknown friend with the six-shooter and my other equally unknown
+friend with the scatter-gun are holding them up, but I'm glad they're
+doing it.  Still, why?  Why all this fuss and these feathers?"
+
+"I don't know either," replied Billy, continuing to watch Rafe
+Tuckleton and his men like the proverbial hawk, "but we hope to find
+out.  When a couple of friends of mine get here, we aim to find out."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+CROSS-PURPOSES
+
+"... and my name is John Dawson," continued the stranger, "and I'm on
+my way to visit my uncle at Jacksboro."
+
+"Uncle!  Jacksboro!" exclaimed Jonesy.  "Pretty smooth and thin."
+
+Tom Walton took no notice of Jonesy.  "Where'd you work last?"
+
+"Cross T in Redstone County."
+
+Tom Walton nodded.  "Turberville ranch?  Left ribs cattle, left
+shoulder and jaw horses?"
+
+"No, Tasker's," corrected John Dawson.  "Left hip cattle and horses, no
+jaw brand."
+
+"I know," said Tom Walton gently.  "I knew it was Tasker's.  I had
+to--be sure."
+
+"Whatsa use of this gassing?" demanded Rafe.  "I tell you, Tom, we
+caught this feller branding one of my calves, and I'll gamble he's the
+boy been doing all the rustling on your range too."
+
+"You might be right.  I don't know.  But he tells a straight story."
+
+"They all do.  He's a rustler.  Take my word for it."
+
+"But he said in the beginning," objected Tom, "that he never was near
+that split draw."
+
+"We saw him, I tell you!"
+
+"All right.  Soon as we eat, we'll all ride over to the draw and take a
+squint at the evidence."
+
+"What for?  Ain't my word enough?"
+
+"I don't believe in gamblin' with a man's life," said Tom smoothly.
+
+"Better be sure than sorry," said Billy.
+
+"I won't be sorry none to hang him, the cow thief!"
+
+"If I had my gun I'd argue that with you," remarked the prisoner
+pleasantly.
+
+Rafe was understood to damn all creation.  Oh, he was wild.
+
+"Dinner!" called Hazel from the kitchen door.
+
+"Too bad the sheriff ain't here," grumbled Rafe, on the way to the
+house.
+
+"It is too bad," Tom Walton flung over his shoulder.  "But I sent Roy
+for Sam Prescott.  He'll meet us on the Hillsville trail."
+
+Roy was the half of his outfit.  The Walton ranch was a little one.
+Even in big seasons Tom could not afford to employ more than three men.
+In winter he let them all go.  What little work there was to be done he
+managed to do himself.  Small rancher though he was, Tom Walton was not
+a nonentity in the community.  Folk trusted him.  He was known to be
+honest.
+
+After dinner the whole party, excepting Hazel, took horse and rode down
+the draw to the Hillsville trail.  Rafe and his outfit would have
+ridden to the trail at once.  But Billy Wingo carefully shepherded them
+from it.
+
+"We'll keep off the trail," said Billy.  "This Dawson man says he's
+never been off the trail till he got chased off by you fellers.  We may
+want to examine that trail for tracks later."
+
+The Tuckleton men muttered and swore, but they kept away from the
+trail.  Soon after the party reached the vicinity of the trail, Roy,
+Sam Prescott and two of his men trotted into sight.  Billy rode to meet
+them and turned them from the trail before they reached the spot where
+John Dawson said he had left it.
+
+Sam Prescott listened in silence to the respective stories of Rafe
+Tuckleton and John Dawson.  He seemed unimpressed by either.  When he
+had heard all they had to say, he dismounted and examined the hoofs of
+Dawson's horse.  Then he and Riley, closely followed by the others,
+rode along the edge of the trail scrutinizing the tracks upon its dusty
+surface.
+
+"Here's where he says he left the trail all right," observed Bill.
+"You can't mistake the point of that near fore shoe.  He says Tuckleton
+and his boys rode at him from over yonder, but if they chased him
+all-away from that split draw like they say they did, there wouldn't be
+a single track here.  They'd all be on the other side of those
+cottonwoods."
+
+He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward said cottonwoods growing
+about a hundred yards to the south.
+
+"Let's go over yonder where he said they came from," said Sam Prescott.
+
+They all went over yonder.  There they found the tracks of five horses.
+Not only that, but in a near-by depression behind some red willows they
+found where five horses had stood a considerable time.
+
+Sam Prescott picked up in turn the hoofs of every Tuckleton horse.
+
+"These five horses were standing here at least two hours," remarked Sam
+Prescott, staring at Rafe.
+
+The latter said nothing.  Really, there was nothing to say.
+
+Led by Sam Prescott and Billy, the party followed the tracks of these
+five horses back to the trail and into the draw leading to the Walton
+ranch.
+
+"You see," said Billy to Sam Prescott.  "Those horses were coming on
+the dead jump.  It's just like Dawson says.  They were chasing him."
+
+Although Billy's voice was loud enough for all to hear, none of the
+Tuckleton outfit took it upon himself to deny the statement.  It may be
+said that they were growing a trifle discouraged.
+
+"Le's go to the split draw," resumed Billy, when Sam Prescott had
+openly agreed with him.  "Maybe we'll find that calf and the fire and
+the running-iron.  But I expect that fire will be out by this time."
+
+"I guess likely."  Thus Sam Prescott, and turned his horse.
+
+But they did not find the calf and the extinct fire and the
+running-iron.  There was nothing in the split draw even remotely
+resembling any of these.
+
+"Come to think of it," said Rafe, weakly attempting a last defense,
+"maybe it was another draw."
+
+"Maybe it was," admitted Sam, turning to young Dawson.  "Maybe it was,
+but I'm satisfied it wasn't.  It was a good thing for you, young
+feller, that Billy Wingo and Riley Tyler were on the spot when your
+horse fell."
+
+"I know it," responded young Dawson heartily.  "I'm not forgettin' it.
+And maybe I can return the favor some bright and sunny day.  Now if I
+can have my gun, I'll just have a word or two with the man you call
+Tuckleton."
+
+"No words," said Sam Prescott firmly.  "Not a word.  This thing has
+gone far enough.  There'll be no shooting round here.  Rafe and his
+outfit are goin' home now, and you're riding with me back to Tom's
+ranch.  And to-morrow morning I'll see you off to Jacksboro.  Rafe, I
+don't want to hurry you----"
+
+Rafe Tuckleton and his outfit took the hint.
+
+"And you mean to tell me they can get away with a deal like that?"
+demanded John Dawson.
+
+Sam Prescott smiled wearily.  "What could they be arrested for--always
+supposing you could get the sheriff to arrest 'em, which he wouldn't."
+
+"Well----"
+
+"There y'are.  Of course you could call it attempted assault.  What's
+that?  Under the statute, a week in jail.  And who'd convict 'em?"
+
+Tom Walton laughed bitterly.  "You don't know this county, Mr. Dawson.
+Anything can happen here."
+
+"Seemingly it can," said Mr. Dawson in frank disgust.
+
+
+"You see," said Rafe, "I'd figured we'd have to find somebody to lynch
+for rustlin' so that infernal Tom Walton wouldn't be suspectin' us alla
+time.  Shindle ran across this Dawson party in Hillsville and guessed
+he'd fill the bill, he being a stranger and all."
+
+"So Skinny rode ahead and let you know he was coming, huh?" queried Sam
+Larder.
+
+"Yeah.  Oh, damn the luck!  Who'd have expected Wingo and Tyler to be
+at Walton's?"
+
+"They did put a crimp in your plans, sort of," assented Larder.
+
+"And now Tom Walton is more suspicious than ever," contributed Tip
+O'Gorman.
+
+"I can fix that Wingo, though," snarled Rafe Tuckleton.  "He'll never
+get elected sheriff now."
+
+Tip smiled.  "Won't he?"
+
+"No he won't he!"
+
+"That's just the thing will cinch his election.  I'm gonna play it up
+strong in the campaign."
+
+"What!  Why, he tried to show us up!"
+
+"And succeeded in doing it, according to your tell.  That's all right;
+Rafe, you were a little too raw, you know.  I've cautioned you about
+being more careful.  You wouldn't take advice and you'll have to take
+your medicine--this time.  I'll explain matters to Bill, where you
+stand and everything.  You'll find it won't happen again."
+
+With which Tuckleton was forced to be satisfied.
+
+That night Tip O'Gorman had a long talk with Billy Wingo.  Tip did not
+tell him all he knew, by any means.  Such was not his custom.  To
+understand Tip one had to do a deal of reading between the lines.  But
+when Tip went home, he carried with him the belief that Billy
+understood perfectly the desires and aims of the county machine and
+would be a willing worker.
+
+Billy sat looking up at the ceiling for quite a long time after Tip was
+gone.  Finally he laughed silently.
+
+"Tip, you're an old scoundrel," he said aloud, "but I can't help liking
+you, just the same.  I hope I don't have to step too hard on your toes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+RAFE'S IDEA
+
+"Tell you what, Jonesy," said Rafe, "this ranch needs a mistress."
+
+Jonesy laughed as at a pleasantry and continued to talk of the
+mischance in the matter of young Dawson.
+
+"I mean it," interrupted Rafe, wagging his head.  "I'm tired of living
+single."
+
+"Well," said Jonesy, "you can always get some petticoat to live with
+you for a while."
+
+"I don't mean a floozie.  I mean a sure-enough lady like."
+
+"Oh, one of _them_, huh?  I dunno, Rafe.  I married a good woman once,
+and take it from me they sure cramp a feller's style."
+
+"It depends on the woman.  There are women and women.  If a feller is
+careful who he picks, he don't run a bad chance.  Me, I got my eye on
+young Hazel Walton."
+
+Jonesy looked his astonishment.  "Her?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"After this Dawson business?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"She wouldn't look at you."
+
+"Don't you fool yourself.  Why wouldn't she look at me, I'd like to
+know?  I got money.  She could wear good clothes and have help in the
+kitchen.  What more could a woman want?"
+
+Jonesy shook his head.  "This Dawson business has queered you there,
+and you can bet on it."
+
+"Oh, that's easy explained--to her."
+
+"H-m-m-m, well, maybe so.  I dunno, she looks to me like one girl who
+knows her own mind.  And there's Tom Walton who don't like us, either.
+You gotta think of all these things."
+
+"I have.  The more I think of it, the more I think she'll do."
+
+"Funny you never noticed it before.  She's been around with her uncle
+several years now."
+
+"I never even gave her more'n a short look till I seen her holding that
+Dawson man's head in her lap, and then stickin' up for him the way she
+did.  I tell you, she looked mighty handsome."
+
+"She's a lot younger than you."
+
+"What's a few years between man and wife?  Besides, I ain't so old.  I
+ain't forty yet."
+
+"You will be next year, and I'll bet she ain't twenty yet."
+
+"She'll last all the longer."
+
+It was mid-morning next day, when Hazel was making butter, that a rap
+sounded on the kitchen door.
+
+"Come in," she called continuing to turn steadily the handle of her box
+churn.
+
+It was Rafe Tuckleton who opened the door and walked in.  Hazel's eyes
+narrowed at sight of the man.  Rafe Tuckleton!  What on earth did he
+want?
+
+"Uncle's out," she said shortly.
+
+"I didn't come to see him," explained Rafe, with a smile he strove to
+make ingratiating.  "I came to see you."
+
+"I don't know what you can want to see me about."
+
+"I have my reasons," said Rafe vaguely.
+
+Hat in hand, he started to sidle to a chair.
+
+"Don't they have any doors where you live?" Hazel inquired sharply.
+
+"Oh," Rafe wheeled hastily and closed the door.  He set a trifle to the
+young lady's account.  He was not accustomed to being talked to this
+way.  The snip!
+
+He gained the chair at last, sat down, crossed his legs and crowned a
+sharp and bony knee with his hat.
+
+"Yeah," he intoned, pulling one horn of his crescent-shaped mustache.
+"I come to see you."  It never occurred to him to offer to turn the
+churn-handle for her.  In his estimation women were made for the
+especial comfort and delectation of men.  Why put oneself out?  Quite
+so.
+
+Hazel continued to turn the handle in silence.
+
+"Makin' butter?" was Rafe's next remark.
+
+"Not at all," Hazel replied sweetly.  "I'm washing blankets."
+
+As humor it was not subtle.  But neither was the man subtle.  He
+laughed aloud and slapped his knee.
+
+"Pretty good.  Got a tongue in your head, ain't you?"
+
+Again he pulled his mustache and favored her with what he conceived to
+be a most fetching leer.  He succeeded in making her yearn to hurl the
+churn at him.
+
+"You've seen me," she said suddenly, raising her dark eyes to his face.
+"Why not move right along?"
+
+"That's all right," he said easily.  "You're only mad at me account of
+that business the other day.  Nothing at all, that wasn't.  Just a li'l
+mistake.  We all make them.  You mustn't hold it against me."
+
+"But I do hold it against you!" she cried vehemently.  "You tried to
+murder him!"
+
+Rafe raised a bland hand, palm outward.  "Not a-tall.  You've got it
+all wrong.  I might have known you would.  Women never do get things
+straight."
+
+"I got this straight all right, and you might as well know I haven't a
+bit of use for you, and I don't want you in my kitchen.  So there!"
+
+"Now listen, li'l girl," he said persuasively.  "You don't understand
+me a-tall, I tell you.  I may look hard--a rough diamond but I'm the
+pure quill underneath, and I like you."
+
+Hazel was so surprised that she stopped churning.  She stared at him,
+saucer-eyed, her mouth open.
+
+Rafe nodded his head at her.  "Yeah, I like you.  I have liked you
+a-uh-long time.  And I've got a proposition to make you.  How'd you
+like to marry me?"
+
+Hazel's expression registered immediate distaste.  "I wouldn't like.
+Not for a minute.  No."
+
+Rafe considered it necessary to explain matters more fully.  "I mean
+marry me all regular and go to live at my ranch.  You wouldn't have to
+work hard.  You could have the washin' done and have help in the
+kitchen.  I'm a mighty easy feller to get along with too, once you get
+to know me."
+
+"I don't want to get to know you!"  Hazel had resumed her churning, but
+her negation was no less decisive.
+
+"I'd be good to you.  Give you all the dresses and fixings you want--in
+reason.  Say, I'd even have one of these cabinet organs packed in for
+you.  New furniture, too--in reason.  I'll be generous.  I've got
+money, and I'd sure be willing to spend it on a girl like you."
+
+"You needn't bother."
+
+He removed his, hat from his knee, uncrossed his legs and dropped the
+hat on the floor.  He propped his hands on his knees and surveyed her,
+his head on one side.
+
+"You don't know what you're refusing," he told her.  "Marry me and you
+won't have to work like this.  Nawsir.  I'm a rich man, I am.  Here,
+let's talk it over."
+
+He rose to his feet and came toward her.  She promptly reached behind
+her and possessed herself of the singing kettle.
+
+"If you touch me," she said hysterically, "I'll douse you with boiling
+water!"
+
+"There, there," he said, with a light laugh, "I didn't mean to scare
+you.  Set the kettle down, there's a good girl."
+
+But the good girl had other ideas.  "You get out of here.  I don't want
+you around."
+
+Her show of temper caused his own to flare up.  "There's no use for you
+to get mad.  None a-tall.  You act like I'd insulted you instead of
+doing you a honor."
+
+At which her sense of humor came to her rescue and she laughed in his
+face.  He picked up his hat and faced her, scowling.
+
+"I ain't mad," he told her.  "Not a bit.  It don't pay to get mad with
+a woman.  But I want you to know I'm comin' back for another answer.  I
+ain't satisfied you mean 'no.'  And, anyway, I want you, and I'm gonna
+have you.  That's all there is to it.  You think it over."
+
+He nodded stiffly, still scowling, and started toward the door, but
+paused with his hand on the latch.  When he turned and came back to the
+table, she instantly retreated to the stove and laid her hand on the
+kettle.
+
+"You needn't go to pick up that thing," he said, both fists clenched on
+the tabletop.  "I ain't gonna hurt you.  I want to know something.
+Billy Wingo comes here, doesn't he?"
+
+"He comes--yes.  Why not?"
+
+"You like him?"
+
+"What's that to you?"
+
+"Do you like him?"
+
+"He's a friend of mine."
+
+"A girl don't flush up that way over a friend.  I know.  And I've
+heard, too.  They say you like Bill Wingo a lot.  They say you were
+going with Nate Samson till you met Bill.  Is that right?"
+
+"It's none of your business."
+
+"Lemme tell you something, young lady.  Don't you think for a minute
+that Bill Wingo feller can give you one tenth what I can.  Just because
+he was elected sheriff last week don't signify.  Yours truly is the dog
+with the brass collar around here, and don't you forget it.  You marry
+Bill, and you'll regret it."
+
+"If I marry you, I'll regret it,--that's sure."
+
+"Not a bit of it.  I'm ace-high in the county now, and I'll go higher
+in the territory.  You can't keep me down.  I'll make money, more'n you
+can shake a stick at.  You needn't think you'll have to live on a ranch
+all your life.  Within three years after you marry me I'll take
+you--yes, I'll take you to Hillsville to live where you can see folks
+all you want.  You know Hillsville has almost three thousand people.
+You wouldn't be lonesome there.  I----"
+
+"It's no use talking," she interrupted, taking care not to remove her
+fingers from the kettle.  "I wouldn't marry you or anybody else of your
+crowd, not if he was the last man on earth."
+
+"'My crowd!'  What's the matter with my crowd?"
+
+"Your crowd!  Yes, I'd ask, I would!  What do you suppose I mean?  The
+gang that runs this county, that's what I mean!  The gang that has a
+finger in every crooked land deal and cattle deal, the gang that cheats
+the Indians on the government contracts.  Yes, and if it hadn't been
+for your gang and for what they've done to the morals of Crocker
+County, you wouldn't have dared to try and lynch young John Dawson the
+way you did!  Let _me_ tell you something: The new sheriff will show
+you a thing or two.  _He_ is honest!"
+
+"Is that so?  Honest, is he?  You know who elected him, don't you?
+_We_ did, and we own him, body and soul and roll.  He'll sit up and
+talk when we tell him to, and he will lie down and go to sleep when we
+tell him to; and if he don't, he's mighty liable to run into a spell of
+bad health.  Not that we'll want him to do anything he shouldn't.  Not
+us."  Thus Rafe Tuckleton, realizing his temper had carried him away
+and he had said too much by half, thinking it well to right matters if
+he could, continued hurriedly:
+
+"Those cattle deals you spoke of and the government contracts weren't
+crooked a-tall.  Just straight business, but of course the fellers we
+got 'em away from are riled up and bound to talk.  Naturally,
+naturally.  But don't you get the notion in your head that everything
+wasn't all right.  Everything was perfectly straight and aboveboard,
+you bet.  Shucks, of course it was.  I could explain it to you mighty
+easy, but it would take a lot of time and whatsa use?  Politics ain't
+for women, or business either, for that matter.  You better forget what
+you've heard about our crowd.  It's just a pack of jealous lies, that's
+all, and if you'll tell me the name of who told you anything out of the
+way about us, I'll make him hard to find."
+
+"I know what I know," said the stubborn Miss Walton.  "You can't fool
+me!  Not for a minute!  And I've listened to you long enough!  You get
+out of here and don't you come back!  Flit!"
+
+She swung the kettle from the stove.  Rafe Tuckleton sprang back two
+yards.  His temper had again gained the ascendancy.  He was so mad he
+could have beaten her to a frazzle.  But there was not a club handy,
+and moreover the lady had, by way of reinforcing the kettle, slipped a
+butcher knife from the table drawer.
+
+"All right," gritted Rafe, and turned around from the door to shake his
+fist at her.  "I'll get you, you li'l devil!  You needn't think for a
+minute you can get away from me by marrying some one else.  I don't
+give a damn whether it's Bill Wingo or who it is!  Within a week after
+you get married, you'll be a widow!  A widow, y'understand!  I'll show
+you!"
+
+He went out, slamming the door.  Hazel made haste to run around the
+table and drop the bar in place.  Then she went to the window and
+watched the man cross to the cottonwoods where he had tied his horse.
+
+She uttered a sharp "Oh!" of disgust as he jerked at the horse's mouth
+and made the animal rear.  He brought it down by kicking it in the
+stomach.
+
+"What a beast!" muttered she, with a shudder.  "What a cruel beast that
+man is."
+
+Not till Rafe rode away, quirting his mount into a wild gallop, did she
+return to her churning.  She found the butter had come, and she removed
+the elmwood dasher and poured off the buttermilk.  She put the butter
+into a long bowl full of water and began to wash and knead it, but not
+with her accustomed briskness.  She was thinking of what Rafe Tuckleton
+had said.  He would come again, the brute.  She did not want him to.
+He had made her afraid.
+
+She shivered a little as she poured off the water in the bowl and
+refilled it from the water bucket behind the door.  She had no desire
+to marry anybody yet.  She supposed she would some time, of course.
+All girls did eventually.  But he would have to be some nice boy she
+loved.  She guessed yes.
+
+At that very moment a certain nice boy was riding up the draw toward
+the Walton ranch.  He met Rafe Tuckleton riding away.  Rafe gave him a
+nasty look.  The nice boy smiled sweetly and pulled his horse across
+the trail.  "Why all the hurry-scurry this bright and summer day?"
+
+It was not a bright and summer day.  It was late fall, the clouds were
+lowering darkly and there was more than a hint of winter in the air.
+
+Rafe Tuckleton pulled up with a jerk and a slide.  "What do you want?"
+
+"I don't know yet," was the reply, delivered with still smiling lips
+but accompanied by a look as chilling as the day.  "You been at
+Walton's?"
+
+"Yep, I have.  Not that it's any of your business."
+
+"Maybe you're right.  Let's go back and make sure."
+
+Rafe's blazing rage was so augmented by this naive suggestion that his
+native prudence was almost overcome by the sharp impulse to argue the
+matter.  But almost is not quite.  His coat was buttoned, and his
+six-shooter was under his coat.  Bill Wingo's six-shooter was likewise
+under its owner's coat, but the coat was unbuttoned and--Rafe recalled
+another day, a day when he had held his hands above his head while the
+muzzle of Wingo's gun gaped at his abdomen.  That had been a quick draw
+on the part of Billy Wingo.  Uncommonly quick.  What happened once may
+happen again.  This is logic.
+
+The logician spat upon the ground.  "Because you're elected sheriff
+now, you needn't think that you can boss everybody in the county."
+
+"But I ain't trying to boss anybody," denied Bill.  "I'm only askin' a
+favor of you, only a li'l favor.  And I'm hoping you'll see it that
+way.  I don't _want_ any trouble with you, Rafe," he added, "or with
+anybody else."
+
+Rafe hesitated.  He stared into Bill's eyes.  Bill stared back.  Rafe
+did his best to hold his eyes steady.  But there was something about
+that gray gaze, something that seemed to bore deep down into that place
+where his sinful soul lived and had its being.  The Tuckleton eyes
+wavered, veered, came back, clung an instant, then looked away over the
+landscape.
+
+"Turn your horse, Rafe," said Billy Wingo in a soft voice.
+
+Rafe Tuckleton turned his horse.  They rode back to the Walton ranch in
+silent company.  Dismounting at the door, Billy was careful to keep his
+horse between Rafe and himself.
+
+Billy looked across the saddle at Rafe.  "You better knock at the door,
+feller."
+
+With extremely bad grace, Rafe obeyed.  Following the knock, a window
+curtain was pulled aside and Hazel looked out.  She nodded and smiled
+at Billy.  The curtain dropped.  Billy heard the grating of the bar as
+it was withdrawn from the iron staples.  The door had been barred,
+then.  Why?  Was Rafe indeed the qualified polecat Billy had half-way
+suspected him of being when he meet him hurrying away from the Walton
+ranch?  But Hazel's smile had been natural as ever.  Bill took comfort
+in that fact.
+
+The door opened.  Hazel stood wiping her damp hands on her apron.
+
+"'Lo, Hazel," said Bill.  "Everything all right?"
+
+Hazel smiled again.  She _did_ have beautiful teeth.  There was the
+fetching dimple too.
+
+"Why, of course everything's all right," she told him.  "Why wouldn't
+it be?"
+
+Bill noticed that she did not look at Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"Here's Mr. Tuckleton," said he.
+
+"I see him," shortly.
+
+"And--you're--sure--everything's--all--right?" Bill drawled in a
+lifeless voice.
+
+"Of course I'm sure."
+
+"And--you're--sure everything--has--been--all--right--all day?"
+
+Hazel nodded.  "Of course it has.  Won't you come in, Billy--before the
+kitchen gets all cold?"
+
+"I'll put the li'l horse under the shed first.  He's kinda warm.  Rafe,
+don't lemme detain you.  You seemed all in a rush when I met you."
+
+Rafe Tuckleton lingered not.
+
+Billy Wingo led his mount under the shed and returned to the house.
+Hazel was pouring off the washing water when he entered the kitchen.
+
+"What made you bring Tuckleton back?" she asked pouring fresh water
+over the butter.
+
+"I met him coming away from here, and I didn't like the way he looked.
+I thought maybe--"  He let it go at that.
+
+"He was here for a while," said Hazel, bringing her bowl to the table
+and beginning again to knead the yellow mass of butter.  "I don't like
+that man."
+
+Billy was at the table instantly.  "Look here, Hazel----"
+
+"Look here, Billy," she mimicked, lifting calm black eyes to his face.
+"Don't you go fussbudgeting.  I'm quite capable of managing my
+admirers."
+
+"Admirers!  Him!" gasped Wingo.
+
+"He proposed to me.  I turned him down."
+
+"Shows your good sense," said Billy, going over to the chair lately
+vacated by Rafe Tuckleton and sitting down.  "But I'd like to know what
+he's thinking of, the old jake."
+
+Her amused eyes sought his.  "Am I such a poor match as that?"
+
+"You know what I mean," he grumbled.  "He's got no right proposing to
+you, no right a-tall.  Why, he's old enough to be your father."
+
+"So he is.  Do you know, I never thought of that?"
+
+"You're foolin' now," grunted Billy.  "Tell you, Hazel, what you want
+is some young feller with property and all his teeth."
+
+"I don't want anybody," she declared, "young or otherwise.  Billy,
+you're sheriff now--" she continued, changing the subject.
+
+"Not yet," he interrupted.  "I don't take office till the first of the
+year."
+
+She nodded.  "I understand.  And I want to ask you a question.
+It's--it's--you will say it's none of my business, I expect."
+
+"Anything's your business you want to ask questions about.  Fly at it."
+
+"Who elected you sheriff, Billy?"
+
+He regarded her in some surprise.  "The voters."
+
+"I know, but who manages the voters?"
+
+"You mean the party machine?"
+
+"That's it.  Well now, Bill, suppose the machine put a man in office,
+would he have to do what the machine told him?"
+
+"He would, if he was that kind of a man."
+
+She straightened and gave him a level look.  "Billy, they say the gang
+that runs this county elected you sheriff."
+
+"Who's they--Rafe Tuckleton?"
+
+"Never mind who.  What I want to know is do you have to do what that
+gang tells you to do?"
+
+"I don't have to.  Has anybody been saying I'd have to?"
+
+"I--you hear rumors sometimes, Billy.  Will you have a free hand, then?"
+
+"So far as my powers extend, I will," he said.
+
+"And you'll use it?"
+
+"I'll use it," curiously.
+
+"Is--is that quite safe?"
+
+"Safe?"
+
+"Safe to antagonize the gang?"
+
+"It may not be safe for the gang."
+
+Hazel raised a great gob of butter in her two hands and squeezed it out
+slowly between her fingers.  "Couldn't you give 'em their way, sort of?
+Not in everything.  I don't mean that.  But just enough to keep 'em
+good-natured?"
+
+His curiosity changed to blank amazement.  "You know what you're
+asking, I suppose," he said coldly.  "I thought you didn't like Rafe
+Tuckleton?"
+
+"I hate him," was her simple statement.  "But I--I'm afraid."
+
+"Afraid?  How afraid?"
+
+"Afraid for you."
+
+"Why for me?"
+
+"Because--oh, it's so hard to explain!" she almost wailed.  "You
+misunderstand me so.  You think I'm asking favors on their account!"
+
+He believed he detected a sob in her voice.  This would never do.
+Couldn't have Hazel crying.
+
+"If you'd only explain," he suggested soothingly.
+
+"Well," she said, her hands busy in the butter, "Sally Jane Prescott
+was over here yesterday, and she said what a darn good thing your
+election was for Crocker County; how you'd reform it and all that, and
+how you'd surely put out of business the gang that's running it now.  I
+agreed with her, of course, but I never really realized till--till
+later what it might mean to you."
+
+She paused.  He awaited her pleasure.  After a minute's silence she
+continued.
+
+"You see, Billy, you've been pretty nice to me--uncle and me.  And
+you've come to be sort of a--sort of a friend--kind of and--and I--we
+don't want to see you hurt," she finished with a rush.
+
+"So that's the reason you think I'd better go easy on the gang."
+
+"It will be safer.  You don't have to be too open about it.  You can
+arrest the people the gang doesn't care anything about."
+
+"That would be hard on the people, I should say."
+
+"It's better than running into danger all the time.  I tell you, Billy,
+as true as I stand here this minute, if you try to fight the gang, you
+won't last out your term."
+
+She clasped her hands and regarded him piteously.  When a pretty girl
+clasps her hands and regards you piteously, what are you going to do?
+Right.  You can't help yourself, can you?  Neither could Billy.
+
+But when he had kissed her three times on the mouth she pushed him away
+and cried distractedly.  "You mustn't!  You mustn't!  You don't know
+what you're doing!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I do," he assured her and seized her buttery hands.  "We'll
+be married to-morrow!"
+
+At which she whipped her hands from his grasp and put the table between
+them.  "No!  Go over there and sit down!"
+
+"I won't!  I love you!  And you love me!"
+
+"I don't," she stormed.
+
+"What did you kiss me back for then?" he demanded triumphantly.  "You
+did!  You know you did!  I felt you!"
+
+This was true.  But she continued to keep the table between them,
+despite his efforts to come around to her side.
+
+"You go over there and sit down--please!" she begged.  "Please, please,
+pretty please!"
+
+He went slowly.  He sat down.  He stretched his long legs out in front
+of him and teetered his heels on the rowels of his spurs.
+
+"Look here, Hazel," he complained, for he was feeling most ill-used, "I
+don't understand this a-tall.  You lemme kiss you three times and then
+you shove me away, and when I ask you to marry me, you run behind the
+table.  What did you let me kiss you for if you don't love me?"
+
+"I couldn't help myself.  You were so quick."
+
+"You kissed me back, too.  Don't forget that."
+
+"It was a mistake, all a mistake.  You don't love me."
+
+"You don't know a thing about it.  I do love you.  And you love me, you
+know you do."
+
+But by this time she had regained complete control of herself.  "I
+don't know anything of the kind.  Let's forget it."
+
+As if he could forget the pressure of her soft lips!  Why, for another
+such kiss he would cheerfully have fought a grizzly.  For that's the
+kind of a kiss it was.
+
+He shook his head.  "I can't forget."
+
+Her poor heart almost choked her at the words.  She wanted him to kiss
+her again, and keep on kissing her till she told him to stop.  How
+wonderful that would be!  But she stifled the desire with an effort of
+will that turned her cheeks white.
+
+"You must forget," she told him, her chin wobbling.
+
+"Tell me you don't love me, and I'll do my best."
+
+"I don't--" she began and paused.  To save her life she could not tell
+this man the contrary of what every fiber of her being was proclaiming.
+She could not.  She compromised.  "I don't know," she said tightly.  "I
+don't know."
+
+"But I know," objected Billy.  "You just give me a----"
+
+"No," she interrupted, "don't plague me, Billy, please don't.
+Just--just don't ask me again, that's all."
+
+"Is there anybody else?" he demanded.
+
+She shook her head.  "No one."
+
+"Then I've got a chance."
+
+But at this she took fright anew.  "You mustn't think of it!  You
+mustn't!  I can't marry you now, Billy."
+
+"Now?  All right, some other time."
+
+He stooped over as though to pick up something from the floor.
+Apparently he overbalanced himself, for he fell forward on his hands
+and knees.  When he picked himself up he was within arm's length of
+Hazel.  He reached out two triumphant arms and swept her against him.
+A bare instant she struggled desperately.  Then with a sigh she relaxed
+and put up her mouth to be kissed.
+
+"There, there," he said later, his lips pressed against her hair, "I
+knew it would be all right once you let yourself go."
+
+She lifted her body slightly in his arms.  "Tell me you love me,
+dearest."
+
+Then when he told her, she asked, "How much?  More than anything else
+in the world?  Are you sure?"
+
+What ridiculous questions.  Of course he was sure.
+
+"Then you'll do anything I ask, won't you?  Promise?"
+
+She raised her head from his shoulder.  "Promise?" she repeated, her
+warm lips on his.
+
+Even as her arms tightened about his neck, he felt a tightening at his
+heart.  And the latter was not a pleasant tightening.  What did she
+mean?  He loved her.  God, how he loved her dark loveliness, but--what
+was she driving at?
+
+"I can't promise till you tell what you want me to do."
+
+"No, say you promise.  Say it, say it."
+
+But he would not, and she tried a new angle.  "If I tell you, will you
+promise?"
+
+"After you've told me," he persisted.
+
+She sat up straight at this and took his face between her two arm palms.
+
+"Billy, you know I love you, don't you?"
+
+Looking into her eyes how could he doubt it.
+
+She resumed.  "You know I wouldn't ask you to do anything that wasn't
+for your own good, yet you won't promise the first promise I ever asked
+you to make."
+
+He shook his head.  "I can't."
+
+"All right, I'll have to tell you then, Billy.  I've heard
+things--about your job.  I've heard that if you don't do exactly as the
+gang says you'll be kuk-killed.  Oh, not exactly in those words, but I
+know what was meant.  No, I shan't tell you where I heard it.  It
+doesn't matter anyway.  It was bad enough when you--I thought you were
+just a friend, but now--now when you're just everything to me, I
+cuc-can't bear to have you run any risks.  Suppose something happens to
+you, what would I do?  I'd die, I think.  I'd want to, anyway."
+
+At which he tried to kiss away her fears, but these were too
+deep-rooted for any such old-fashioned remedy as that to be of any
+avail.
+
+"No, no, don't!" she protested, holding his head away by main force.
+"Not now.  I'm not through yet.  Listen.  You'll fight the gang, I know
+you will."
+
+He nodded a slow head.  "I've got to.  That's why I took the job of
+sheriff."
+
+"I knew it," she said sadly.  "But you can resign, can't you?"
+
+"I could, but I won't."
+
+"Not if I ask you to?"
+
+"I can't.  It would be lying down without a fight, and I've never done
+that yet.  They'd say I was afraid of 'em."
+
+"What does it matter what they say?  You'll have me.  We'll be
+together."
+
+He put up a hand and stroked the tumbled waves of her black hair.  "You
+wouldn't love me if I did a thing like that.  You'd know I wasn't doing
+right."
+
+She shook his face between her hands with gentle earnestness.  "Yes, I
+would!  I would!  I know I would!  Everything you do is just right!  It
+would be right if you did it!  Don't you see?  What does anything
+matter so long as we have each other?  Why do you have to risk your
+life?  Oh, take me away, beloved, take me away and I'll marry you
+to-morrow!"
+
+Because of what he did then, you'll say he did not love her.  But he
+did, heart and soul and body, he loved her.  Yet he put her resolutely
+from him and held her off at the full stretch of his arms.  "There's
+more to this than you've told me," said he shrewdly.  "You're scared.
+You're scared bad, but it isn't only the thought of the gang that
+scares you.  There's something else.  What is it?"
+
+At first she would not tell him.  He argued with her.
+
+Finally she surrendered.  "If you marry me and stay here, you'll be
+killed."
+
+He threw back his head and laughed.  "Is that all that's worrying you?
+We'll be married to-morrow, like I said."
+
+"No, we won't--unless you take me away at once.  No, don't kiss me.  I
+mean it."
+
+"Who told you I'd be killed?"
+
+"I won't tell you."
+
+"Tell me, and I'll make him come here and take back everything he said."
+
+But the recollection of what Rafe Tuckleton and his outfit had almost
+succeeded in doing to John Dawson was too fresh in her mind.  She did
+not dare tell Billy who had told her.  She knew right well that if she
+did it would simply mean that her lover would be killed the sooner.
+The odds against him were great enough as it was.
+
+She shook her head.  Her eyes were bright with pure terror.  "I can't
+tell you!" she whispered in agony of spirit.  "I can't!"
+
+"Was it Rafe?"
+
+"I can't tell you!" twisting her head to escape his eyes.
+
+"It _was_ Rafe!"
+
+"It wasn't Rafe!" she lied wearily.  "It doesn't matter who it was.
+Oh, boy, boy, I don't dare marry you if you stay here.  And I want to
+marry you, dear heart.  I love you so!  I love you!  Oh, let's go away
+where we can be happy together!  Why won't you be sensible and take the
+easiest way out?"
+
+"God knows I would if I could, but I've got to play the hand out.  I
+can't back down because there may be a li'l danger.  You know I can't,
+and down deep you don't want me to.  Listen.  When you saw Jack Murray
+was out to bushwhack me, what did you do?  Did you take the easiest way
+out and go on about your business, or did you jump right in and risk
+your life to save mine?"
+
+"That was different," said she piteously, realizing that her cause was
+lost, but fighting to the last.  "I did it for you.  I'd be willing to
+die for you any time.  Boy!  I love you so hard, nothing else matters!
+Nothing!  I'd lie, steal, cheat and fight for you!  Oh, I'm shameless,
+shameless!  But that's the way I love you!  Why can't you give up
+everything for me the way I would for you and take me away and marry
+me?"
+
+He was more than a little shaken.  He had to summon all his resolution
+to withstand her pleadings.  But he did more.  He got upon his feet and
+thrust her down into his place in the chair and held her there with one
+hand for all she struggled might and main to wind her arms again around
+his neck.
+
+"Listen to me," he said in a voice that trembled.  "You don't know what
+you are asking me to do.  If I did it, I'd be a dog, and I won't be a
+dog even for your sake.  Marry me now and we'll see it through, you and
+I together."
+
+She shook her head.  "I--I can't," she whispered, and added with most
+human logic, "I don't believe you love me!"
+
+At which he was moved to wrath.  "It's you that don't love me!  You
+listen here!  I've asked you for the last time to marry me!  You turned
+me down for some fool notion that isn't worth a hill of beans.  All
+right, let it go at that.  If ever you change your mind, you'll have to
+come to me and put your arms around my neck and tell me I was right to
+stick it out and you were wrong to want me not to.  And if you don't do
+it, you're not the girl I took you for, and I wouldn't look at you with
+a telescope!"
+
+She sat speechless.  Without another word he stooped, swept his hat
+from the floor and went out.  And, it must be said to his discredit, he
+slammed the door behind him.
+
+A long five minutes Hazel was staring wide-eyed at the door.  But he
+did not come back.  She crept to the window.  He was riding away down
+the draw.  He did not look back.  He passed out of sight around the
+bend.  Hazel slid quietly to the floor and, her face buried in her
+hands, began to cry as if her heart would break.
+
+For her little world had been shattered and she was left disconsolate
+among the fragments.  Her man did not understand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+THE NEW BROOM
+
+Tip O'Gorman sat comfortably near the red-hot stove.  The wind and the
+snow were blustering outdoors.  It was what the people you yearn to
+kill call a bracing day in January.  Actually the weather was such that
+the well-known brass monkey would have been frostbitten in at least one
+ear.
+
+"It's a good old world."  Tip sighed luxuriously and wiggled the toes
+of his roomy slippers.
+
+Entered then one who changed the pleasing aspect of the good old world.
+
+Judge Driver slammed the door behind him and untied the comforter that
+held the hat to his head.  He removed the hat and buffalo coat, hung
+both on pegs behind the door, sat down and glared at Tip O'Gorman.
+
+"You've done it now," exclaimed Judge Driver.
+
+"What particular thing have you on your mind?" Tip queried equably.
+
+"The sheriff you were so set on having elected!  Oh, yes, says you, put
+in an honest man.  Give the dear people a bone to chew on.  And we took
+your advice and gave 'em their bone.  And now look at the damn thing."
+
+"What's happened to the sheriff?"
+
+"Not a thing.  I wish something would.  It's what's happening to us
+that bothers me.  Your fine li'l love of a sheriff is appointing his
+own deputies."
+
+"The law gives him that privilege."
+
+"You don't understand.  I had picked two deputies for him to
+appoint--good safe men.  You know that part was left to me, and I fixed
+on Johnson and Kenealy.  This morning I mentioned their names to the
+new sheriff.  'I thank you kindly for your good intentions,' says Bill,
+or words to that effect, 'but I have already decided to appoint Shotgun
+Shillman and Riley Tyler.'"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I'd say what!  I'd say hell, I would!  Ain't it nice, ain't it funny,
+ain't it a pretty state of affairs?  And what are you going to do about
+it?"
+
+"Has he appointed 'em yet?"
+
+"They're sworn in by now.  He said he was expecting 'em any minute when
+I left."
+
+"Shillman's the nearest," said Tip, glancing out of the partly frosted
+window pane, "and he lives forty miles away.  I wouldn't count on those
+boys being appointed to-day.  The storm may have kept 'em away."
+
+"No such luck," growled the judge.  "They're appointed, all right
+enough."
+
+"Think so if it makes you happy," Tip said with a grin.  "You're always
+such a pessimist."
+
+"Here!" snarled the judge.  "Don't you try to ride me, Tip.  Say right
+out what you mean."
+
+"I did," smiled Tip.  "However----"
+
+"Huh," snorted the judge, and put his feet on the table and began to
+pull at his lower lip.
+
+"Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler," murmured Tip musingly.  "Hum-m-m!"
+
+"Can't you think of anything to do but buzz like a bee?" demanded the
+irritated judge.
+
+"There's lots of things you can learn from bees," protested Tip
+O'Gorman.  "Maybe they do buzz some, but they gather lots of honey."
+
+"We'll gather lots of honey, won't we?" snapped the other.  "Both
+Shotgun and Riley are absolutely honest."
+
+"And sharp--infernal sharp.  Don't forget that."
+
+"You take it easy."
+
+"Spilt milk.  We've overlooked a bet, that's all."
+
+"Oh, that's all is it?  I tell you it won't be all.  I've got a hunch."
+
+"Don't be superstitious.  Politics is no place to play hunches."
+
+"Apparently it isn't even a place to play common sense," said the
+judge.  "If it hadn't been for you and your advice, we wouldn't be in
+this fix.  You got us in.  Now you get us out."
+
+"You make me sick, Tom.  You're getting to be a regular old granny.  I
+tell you there is no rat in the hole.  Suppose Bill does appoint two
+honest deputies.  There is still Bill, isn't there?  What are two
+deputies going to do against Bill's orders?  And Bill will do what I
+tell him.  Oh, yes, he will.  You needn't shake your head.  I can
+manage Bill Wingo."
+
+"I wish I could be sure of that," worried the judge.
+
+"You can be, old-timer, you can be.  I'll manage Bill as per invoice,
+so you just bed your mind down and give it a rest.  The bottle's in
+that cupboard, water's in the kettle, sugar's on the table, lemons in
+that box.  Help yourself, make punch and be happy.  Make enough for
+two, while you're about it.  Your punch always did taste better than
+mine.  I never could mix one to taste anything like.  Lord knows how
+you do it.  It's a gift.  I hear you had a long run of luck at Crafty's
+last night."
+
+Et cetera, words with end and amen.  Tip O'Gorman was a skilful
+scoundrel.  He knew precisely how far to go and he rarely employed a
+shovel.  For even the dullest have a wit flash now and then.
+
+He soon had the jurist purring.
+
+To Billy Wingo that evening came Tip O'Gorman; a bluff, hearty,
+good-hearted Tip; a Tip that told funny stories and was a good listener
+himself and laughed at the right place.  You've heard it all before
+doubtless and know the method: "A chair for Mr. Dugan.  He owns the
+stockyards.  His pockets are full of greenbacks.  Let him win as much
+as he can and don't forget to tell Patsy to be waiting for him at the
+corner with the lead pipe when he goes out."
+
+The old, old game, you see.  Shabby, moth-eaten through and through,
+fairly obvious; but it works--most of the time.
+
+"That's fine whisky, Bill," observed Tip, cupping an affectionate hand
+ground his glass.  "No, no, tempt me not, brother.  I know when to
+stop, if I am old and sinful.  A pleasant fire, a comfortable room, a
+hot drink, and a cold and winter's night.  What more can a man want?"
+
+"What indeed?" said Billy politely.  Inwardly he thought, "What the
+devil does he want?"
+
+You will perceive that the game was not running true to form.  For it
+to be successful, the victim must not become a prey to low suspicion.
+
+"Sworn in your deputies yet?"  Tip made casual inquiry.
+
+"Not yet.  Storm might have kept 'em away."
+
+Then all was not lost.  Tip began to feel a mental glow.  He had been
+counting on the storm.
+
+"Have you appointed 'em?" he put the dread question.
+
+"Sure thing."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler."
+
+"Oh, yes.  Good men, both of 'em, but----"
+
+Tip O'Gorman fell silent.  He toyed with his glass.
+
+Billy Wingo regarded him slantwise.  That "but."  "Yes?"
+
+"But," continued Tip O'Gorman, "I know of better men."
+
+"Yeah?"  Rising inflection and a cocked eyebrow.
+
+"Yeah."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"Johnson and Kenealy."
+
+"Why Johnson and Kenealy?  Why not Shillman and Riley?"
+
+"Shillman and Riley never have done anything for the party.  Johnson
+and Kenealy have."
+
+"What have Johnson and Kenealy done for the party?"
+
+"For one thing, they have always voted right."
+
+"That is one thing, but not a large thing.  Other men have voted right
+too--frequently.  Some too frequently; if you know what I mean."
+
+"Politics, my dear fellow, is not child's play.  We do what we must to
+win.  But it doesn't pay to look a gift horse in the mouth too closely.
+He may bite."  Tip O'Gorman stared at the new sheriff.
+
+The latter smiled a long, slow smile.  "There are muzzles," said Bill
+Wingo.
+
+Tip dismissed this with a wave of his hand.  "Too big a horse and too
+many teeth," said he.
+
+"Ah!" murmured Billy Wingo.
+
+"Come, come, Bill, you're no fool.  You know what I'm after.  You know
+what you owe the party.  Johnson and Kenealy must be taken care of."
+
+"Must," observed Billy, "is the hardest word in the dictionary."
+
+"Sometimes it means the most," declared Tip O'Gorman.  "This is one of
+those times."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+There it was again, that irritating monosyllable.  For the first time
+Tip O'Gorman began to experience a doubt.
+
+"We expect you to appoint Johnson and Kenealy," he said bluntly.
+
+"And if I don't?"
+
+"Oh, you will--after you've thought it over."
+
+"I thought it over after Judge Driver came to me.  And I decided not
+to.  I prefer my own men."
+
+"Johnson and Kenealy will be your own men."
+
+"That is a question."  Billy sat back in his chair and made a church
+roof and a steeple with the fingers of his two hands.  He raised lazy
+gray eyes to Tip's face.  "That is a question," he repeated.  "They may
+be my men and then again--"  He ceased speaking, leaving the sentence
+unfinished.  The church steeple became a gallows.  "You see, I can't
+risk it," drawled Billy.
+
+Tip O'Gorman carefully set his glass down on the table.  "You must," he
+remarked softly.
+
+"As I said before," murmured Billy, his drawl drawlier than ever, "must
+is a hard, hard word.  But I'll tell you what I'll do, Tip," he
+continued in a louder, more cheerful tone.  "You show me what 'musts'
+in the statutes apply to the sheriff's office, and I'll obey every last
+one of 'em.  When I took office, I made oath to obey and support the
+laws, you know."
+
+He smiled at Tip.  The latter smiled back.  "Lookit here, Bill," he
+said in his best and most fatherly fashion, "I like you----"
+
+"I suppose that was why I was elected," interrupted Billy.
+
+"Partly," was the brazen reply.  "But there were other reasons, of
+course.  We needed a good man to win, a man that was on the level, an
+honest man, a----"
+
+"Not a crooked man, or a dishonest man, or a pink man, or even a man
+with purple spots.  So you elected me.  I'll take it as a compliment.
+Go on."
+
+"A straight man doesn't throw down his friends," said Tip O'Gorman.
+
+"Sure not," declared Billy warmly.  "He'd be a pup if he did.  I agree
+with you, Tip.  We won't fight over that."
+
+"You're throwing us down," insisted Tip.
+
+"Now, we're getting down to carpet tacks," said Billy.  "But who are
+'us'?"
+
+"The party."
+
+"The party?"
+
+"The party."
+
+"But the party and my friends are not necessarily the same thing."
+
+"We elected you."
+
+"That doesn't make you my friends.  Understand me, Tip, there are a lot
+of folks in the party I like and admire--a lot of 'em.  But the folks I
+like and admire don't come to me and give me orders, and my friends
+don't either.  Not that you've been giving me any orders, Tip.  You
+wouldn't do such a thing."
+
+"It's all right to ride me," said Tip, without losing for a minute his
+amiable smile, "but you might better leave off the spurs."
+
+"I ain't riding anything to-day," averred Billy.  "There's the bowl.
+Dip you out another glassful."
+
+Tip O'Gorman did not accept the invitation.  "I wish I could make you
+understand," he said slowly, crossing his legs and clasping both hands
+around a plump knee.  "This is a serious matter, Bill."
+
+"Sure it is," asserted Billy.  "You're serious.  I'm serious.  He, she
+or it is serious.  Outside of that, it's a fine, large evening."
+
+"Lookit here, Bill, what's your game?"
+
+"Game?  What game are you talking about?"
+
+"What do you want?  What are you after, anyway?"
+
+Billy made swimming motions with his arms and hands.  "Paddle out,
+paddle out.  You're over my head and getting deeper."
+
+"Are you trying to give me the double-cross?" inquired Tip.
+
+"Now why should I do a fool thing like that?"
+
+"I don't know.  I'm asking."
+
+"What makes you think I'm giving you the double-cross?"
+
+"The first favor I ever asked of you--the appointment of these two men."
+
+"When I was elected, then, it wasn't intended I should have a free
+hand?"
+
+"Free hand?  Of course, of course."  Tip was beginning to find the
+atmosphere oppressive.  He passed a handkerchief across his beaded brow.
+
+Observing which, Billy said affectionately, "It is hot in here.  Shall
+I open a window?"
+
+"Nemmine a window," Tip said.  "Think a shake, Bill.  Is it wise?"
+
+"Wise?"
+
+"You know what I mean."
+
+"Not I," denied the cheerful Bill.
+
+"You can't buck the party."
+
+"There ain't no such word, but just for the sake of argument, why can't
+I?"
+
+"It has been done, but----"
+
+"Where are the snows of yesteryear, huh?"
+
+Tip nodded.  "Something like that."
+
+"If I don't appoint your men and do appoint mine, what particular form
+of devilment would the party feel called upon to put on me?"
+
+"Devilment," grinned Tip.  "You don't know us."
+
+"Backward and forward, sideways and from the bottom up.  Don't you fool
+yourself I don't know you.  I been looking over the situation a long
+time.  It's been a liberal education."
+
+"So that's it," murmured Tip.  "Driver told me, but I didn't believe
+him."
+
+"The judge sometimes tells the truth."
+
+Tip O'Gorman sighed.  He thought he saw what he would have to do.  And
+he didn't want to do it.  It meant one more mouth to feed, and one more
+finger in the pie.
+
+"You understand, Bill," said he, "that it was always intended you
+should have your share."
+
+"Nothing was ever said to me about any share," said Billy truthfully.
+
+"We occasionally prefer to leave something to the imagination."
+
+"It beats leaving it to the taxpayer," smiled Billy.
+
+"Sure, sure."
+
+"But my share you were speaking of, Tip," prompted Bill.  "What is this
+share--large, small or indifferent?"
+
+"That depends," replied O'Gorman cadgily.
+
+"On the weather, or some one's generosity?"
+
+Was there mirth or something sinister in the gray eyes?  Tip O'Gorman
+couldn't be sure.  But Lord, there was no cause for apprehension.  He'd
+been making himself unnecessary worry.  Bill Wingo was too easy-going
+and good-natured to hold out on the boys.  He was just making a play
+for his legitimate share.  That was only right.  Not that Tip had
+intended in the beginning that Bill should have his legitimate share.
+These politicians!
+
+"You see, Bill, it's thisaway," said Tip.  "Some years the party makes
+more than other years, and----"
+
+"And the years it makes the most," insisted Bill, "are the years I make
+the most.  Is that it?"
+
+"You get the general idea."
+
+"But not the general idea of what I get," persisted the strangely
+obtuse sheriff.  "What is the minimum I can expect?"
+
+Tip did not relish being pinned down to cases in this fashion.  He
+preferred generalities.
+
+"The minimum," repeated Tip.
+
+"And the maximum," suggested Bill.  "I might as well know all the
+horrible details."
+
+"From three to five thousand dollars," said Tip, watching his
+_vis-a-vis_ closely.
+
+Said _vis-a-vis_ looked disappointed.  "Small change," he remarked
+coldly.  "Who gets the other nickle?"
+
+"Your salary is two thousand," Tip told him reproachfully, "and three
+to five thousand above that makes five to seven thousand.  What more do
+you want?"
+
+"Whatever's right," declared the amazing Mr. Wingo.
+
+"That's right--what I told you."
+
+"What did the last sheriff get?"
+
+"I told you it varied."
+
+"I know you told me.  Tell me again."
+
+Tip O'Gorman shifted his position in the chair.  He was being baited.
+He realized it now.  A slow anger rose in his breast.  But an admixture
+of dismay in the anger kept it from boiling over.
+
+He continued to temporize.  "Your slice will be worth while, well worth
+while.  Leave it to us.  You can trust me."
+
+"Can I?  I wonder."
+
+"Meaning?"  O'Gorman's face was cold as his heart was hot.
+
+"I wonder.  I do it now and then.  Habit, I suppose.  No harm in it, is
+there?"
+
+"Lookit here, you don't doubt me, do you?"
+
+"Unhand me, Jack Dalton!  I may be poor--I may starve to death, but I
+will never be an old man's plaything.  Better death than
+dishonor-rur-rur.  Don't be so melodramatic, Tip.  Who am I to doubt
+you?  You?  What a question!"
+
+The fingers with which Billy Wingo then proceeded to make a cigarette
+were steady and sure in every movement.  Billy licked the length of the
+white roll, smoothed it down and twisted one end.  Tip O'Gorman did not
+know what to make of him.  Or rather he thought he knew too well, which
+frequently amounts to the same thing.
+
+"You'd better trust me," rumbled Tip.
+
+"Be reasonable, Tip.  You ask for trust and you give me a stone."
+
+"A stone?"
+
+"What else is three to five thousand bucks, I'd like to know.  I'm no
+child, man.  I've got my growth, and I've put away childish things,
+including all-day suckers."
+
+"You must take me for one."
+
+"Not you, not in a million years.  But--"  Mr. Wingo paused and looked
+up at the ceiling.  His lips moved.  He muttered of figures and sums.
+
+Tip O'Gorman awaited his pleasure.  What else was there to do?
+
+"I think between nine and ten thousand is nearer the correct amount for
+li'l me," Billy said at last.
+
+"What?" screeched Tip, fairly jarred off his balance at last.
+
+Billy made his position plain.  "Say ten thousand in round numbers."
+
+"Ten thousand devils!"
+
+"Not devils--dollars."
+
+"You're crazy!"
+
+"It's the least you can do," insisted Billy.
+
+Tip O'Gorman made an odd noise in his throat.  After making which, a
+dog would have bitten Mr. Wingo.  Tip may have been a bad old man, but
+he was not a dog.  He really dissembled his foamingly murderous rage
+very well indeed.
+
+"I'll have to see the rest of the boys," said Tip O'Gorman, and he
+actually smiled.
+
+"Why, no," contradicted Billy.  "You won't.  Why should you?  Rafe and
+you are the dogs with the brass collars in Crocker County, and you wear
+more brass than Rafe, when you come right down to it.  What you say
+usually goes without question."
+
+"I never said ten thousand for a sheriff before," protested Tip.
+
+"There's nothing like establishing a precedent.  Don't be hidebound.
+This is the newer generation, and advanced age, you know; one that's
+advanced by jumps, if you could only be brought to realize it."
+
+Tip held up an arresting hand.  "Don't joke," he said.  "I realize what
+the blessed age is doing, but doubling the ante this way is more than a
+jump--it's a mighty wild leap."
+
+"It can be done," Billy said placidly.  "What are impossibilities
+to-day become realities to-morrow.  Q.E.D.  P.D.Q."
+
+Tip O'Gorman raised plump hands to the level of his ears.  "I didn't
+think when I proposed you for sheriff," he remarked earnestly, "that I
+was proposing a road agent too.  Oh, you burglar!  I do admire a hawg.
+Yes, sir.  But what can a feller do?  Ten thousand goes.  About those
+deputies--I don't suppose you'll have any objections, now that you've
+got what you want, to appointing Johnson and Kenealy?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed I have--plenty.  No Johnson and no Kenealy.  Shillman
+and Tyler.  Yes."
+
+"No.  You've got to earn that ten thousand."
+
+"Bribery and corruption, Tip, is a serious crime."
+
+"Bosh!  You listen to me, young feller.  We're buying you, body, soul
+and roll, with that ten thousand cases!  You've got to do as we say.
+Hells bells, what do you think you are?"
+
+"A stranger in a strange land.  Damn strange, too.  Tip, you're an old
+scoundrel!"
+
+Tip O'Gorman's hand halted half-way to his armpit.
+
+"No, no, Tip, not that," Billy warned him, keeping turned on the other
+man's stomach the gun that had suddenly appeared from nowhere.  "Don't
+turn rusty in here.  The carpet is new and so is the furniture.  Go a
+li'l  slow, or a li'l slower, whichever appeals to you."
+
+Tip locked his hands behind his head.  "Be sensible, Bill," said he
+calmly.  "You can't hope to buck us, if that's your idea.  You can't."
+
+"Can't I?  We'll see."
+
+"What can one man do?" contemptuously.
+
+"One-two-three.  Three men.  Three men can do a lot.  Yep.  I've seen
+it done."
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"I have.  But I want to be fair to you, Tip.  You'll notice I haven't
+removed your gun.  I'll return mine where it came from--behind the
+waistband of my pants.  Now turn your wolf loose."
+
+But Tip O'Gorman merely smiled.  "I thank you kindly," said he.  "You
+mean well; but as you say, the carpet and the furniture are new.  It
+would be a pity to spoil both them and the evening."
+
+"You mean we'll go outdoors then?"
+
+"_We_ will not, but _I_ will.  You will stay here and, I hope, enjoy
+one good night's rest."
+
+"One, huh?  Do I hear you say one?  I do.  I get your meaning, thank
+you.  So good of you.  Don't get up.  I would a tale unfold.  Did you
+ever hear the story of Benjy and the bear.  No?  This is it.  Benjy was
+out hunting one day and it happened the bear was out hunting too.  For
+the bear was hungry, and the bear saw Benjy before Benjy saw the bear.
+And after the dust had cleared away and all, the bear was bulgy and the
+bulge was Benjy."
+
+"Huh," snorted Tip O'Gorman, "what does that prove?"
+
+"It proves that it's better to be the bear than Benjy.  At least,
+that's the way it looks to a man up a tree.  I made up my mind some
+time ago that if I got tangled up in a situation like that I'd be the
+bear and not Benjy."
+
+Tip O'Gorman stared with an odd expression at Billy Wingo.  "You _have_
+changed," he remarked with conviction.  "I wonder----"
+
+"Give it a name," begged Billy, when Tip failed to complete the
+sentence.
+
+Mr. O'Gorman shook his bullet head.  "No, I got other fish to fry."
+
+He got up heavily and began to pull on his overcoat.
+
+When he was gone, Billy Wingo crossed the room unhurriedly and barred
+the door.  He threw a quick glance at the blankets nailed across the
+windows ostensibly to keep out the drafts.  All tight.  No one could
+look in.
+
+"All right, boys," he said in a conversational tone.  "You can come out
+now."
+
+The door of an inner room opened.  Two men emerged.  One was a long,
+lean citizen with a long, lean face barred by a heavy grizzled
+mustache.  The other was shorter, of equally lean build, and
+considerably younger.  The older man was Shotgun Shillman, the younger
+was Riley Tyler.
+
+In Riley's hand was a thin block of paper.  A pencil stuck up behind
+his ear.
+
+"Did you get it all?" queried Billy, sitting down in his chair and
+hunching it close to the table.
+
+"Most of it," Riley replied.  "All the important part, especially where
+he tried to buy you up.  Gee, you've got him now.  Send him over the
+road any time."
+
+"But it's only Tip," said Billy, taking the block of paper from Riley
+and riffling through the scribbled leaves.
+
+"Arresting him would sure throw a heap scare into the others," Riley
+grinned.
+
+"And that is what I want to avoid," said Billy.  "There's no use in
+scaring off the flock by downing one bird.  We'll just file away Tip
+O'Gorman's remarks for future reference.  We can afford to wait.
+Where's that Bible?  I'll swear you boys in right away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY
+
+It was the next day that Arthur Rale, the district attorney, called on
+the new sheriff.  He was a heavy-jowled, heavy-handed, heavy-bodied
+individual, with black hair, close-set eyes, and, what was curiously at
+variance with those heavy jowls, a long and pointed nose.
+
+Billy Wingo was expecting the district attorney to pay him a visit.
+For Shotgun Shillman had been told that Tip O'Gorman, Rafe Tuckleton
+and Judge Driver had spent the morning closeted with that gentleman.
+
+Billy Wingo was cleaning a Winchester when the district attorney
+knocked and entered.
+
+"Si'down, Arthur," invited Bill, indicating a chair with the barrel of
+the rifle.
+
+The district attorney returned the salutation gruffly.  Billy smiled
+sweetly down at the rifle stock he was hand-rubbing.  Mr. Rale stamped
+his feet, hung up his hat and coat and sat down heavily in the chair.
+Resting both fists on his knees, he fixed Billy with a hard eye.
+
+"What's this I hear?" he wished to hear.
+
+"I dunno," said truthful William.
+
+"I hear you've appointed Shillman and Tyler deputies," Rale said
+accusingly.
+
+"Seems to me I _have_ done something like that," admitted Billy.
+
+"You've got to cancel their appointments."
+
+"Got to?"
+
+"Got to."
+
+"I must be gettin' deaf," drawled Billy.  "Seems like I heard you say
+got to."
+
+"You heard me right," declared Rale, with a vicious snap of strong,
+white teeth.  "You cancel those appointments and put in Johnson and
+Kenealy instead."
+
+"Everybody seems to want those two fellers," said Billy, wagging a
+puzzled head.  "I don't understand it."
+
+The district attorney leaned forward.  His broad, flat face was
+venomous in its expression.
+
+"Look here," he said harshly, "you like Hazel Walton, don't you?"
+
+Whang!  In that confined space the crash of the gun was deafening.  The
+district attorney, coughing in the smoke, picked up himself and his
+chair from the ground.  He had fallen over backward at the shot, struck
+the back of his head and now his actions were purely mechanical.
+
+"Dazed you like, didn't it?" Billy queried in a soft voice.  "You did
+hit pretty hard.  Luck is with you to-day.  I'll bet if you went down
+to Crafty's, you'd bust the bank and Crafty's heart."
+
+Rale did not take the palpable hint.  He sat down again and looked
+uncertainly at Billy Wingo.  He had courage, this district attorney,
+the species of courage, you understand, that to function properly must
+have a shade the better of the break, that bets always on a sure thing
+and never on an uncertainty.
+
+Rale had been knocked off balance mentally and physically.  He did the
+wrong thing.
+
+"You tried to murder me," he blurted out.
+
+Billy shook a solemn head.  "You're mistaken.  If I'd tried to murder
+you, I'd have done it.  Accidents will happen, though, even to the most
+careful fellers.  Yeah.  You were speaking of the Waltons, Arthur.  I
+didn't quite catch what you said."
+
+He gazed expectantly at the district attorney.  It seemed to the latter
+that the barrel of the rifle was in a line with the third button of his
+vest.  Certainly the muzzle looked as large as a mine opening.  Was the
+rifle cocked?  Billy Wingo's large hand covered the breech.  Billy
+moved the large hand a trifle.  Yes, the rifle was cocked.  The
+district attorney's eyes strayed downward.  At Billy's feet was a spent
+shell.
+
+"Look here," said Rale, "if that shot was an accident, why did you flip
+in a fresh cartridge?"
+
+"How do you know I worked the lever?" demanded Billy.
+
+"Because the spent shell's on the floor between your feet."
+
+"You've been reading those detective stories again.  Arthur.  It would
+look mighty bad for me if you were to pass out in here to-night.
+You're a big man and a heavy man.  And the ground is frozen harder than
+rock.  Bet I'd have to use a pick.  I hope, Arthur, you're not thinking
+of doing anything to make me use a pick."
+
+Billy had uttered these sinister words in a mild and plaintive tone.
+The expression of his countenance was even milder and more plaintive.
+The district attorney found it difficult to believe that he had heard
+aright.  Yet he had heard the report of the rifle aright.  There could
+be no mistake about that.
+
+The district attorney sat rigidly erect.  He cleared his throat.  He
+wished his heart would stop pounding so hard.  Odd, too, that it should
+seem to have moved out of its usual position to another that was
+already occupied by his windpipe.  Breathing and speaking were rendered
+difficult.  Quite so.
+
+He cleared his throat again.  "Wingo," he said, "are you threatening
+me?"
+
+"Threatening you?" Billy said in a shocked tone.  "Certainly not.
+Wouldn't think of such a thing."
+
+The district attorney tried again.  "Wingo, I don't know what to do
+with you.  I----"
+
+"Don't do anything," suggested Billy.  "I'd feel better about it, too."
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Yeah, I would.  I've got a new job here, Arthur, and I guess it will
+keep me busy--busy enough, anyway.  And how am I going to swing it and
+do justice to the taxpayers, if well-meaning fellers like you are alla
+time experimentin' with me?"
+
+"Wingo," said the district attorney sternly, "stop this tomfoolery!
+Instantly!  You have played the buffoon long enough."
+
+"All right," smiled Billy.  "I'll be good."
+
+"That's better.  Much better.  Keep to that tone and we'll get along,
+we'll get along."
+
+Again the district attorney cleared his throat.
+
+"Lord, Lord," thought Billy Wingo, "what a foolish thing this man is!"
+
+The district attorney picked up the thread of his discourse.  "We can't
+have you upsetting our plans in any way, Wingo.  We can't have it, and
+we won't have it.  I order you to immediately cancel the appointments
+of Shillman and Tyler and appoint instead Johnson and Kenealy.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes," said Billy in a weary voice, "I understand.  I understand
+perfectly.  You can go now."
+
+"I'll go when I have your answer."
+
+"Your mistake.  You're going now."
+
+So saying, Billy arose, lowered the hammer of his rifle to the safety
+notch and laid the weapon on the table.  Then he raised himself on
+tiptoe and stretched luxuriously.  His arms came down slowly.  He
+turned a surprised gaze upon the district attorney.
+
+"Haven't you started yet?" he said briskly.  "Come, come, get a-going."
+
+Even as he spoke he leaped with cat-like agility upon the district
+attorney where he sat in his chair and wrenched the right arm of that
+surprised gentleman around behind his back.  With his left hand,
+despite the struggles and protesting roars of the captive, he removed a
+six-shooter from a shoulder holster and a derringer from a vest pocket.
+
+"You must be scared of some one," observed Billy Wingo, as the
+derringer followed the six-shooter to a place on the table.  "Arise,
+pushing your stomach ahead of you, and depart in peace."
+
+But the district attorney was averse to departing that way.  "You will
+regret this outrage!" he bellowed, his ripe cheeks and the veins in his
+neck swollen with passion.
+
+"So will you," said Billy, twisting the man's arm ever so slightly.
+"You are in a serious position.  If you'd only realize it, and be
+reasonable, we'd all be happier.  I don't want to break your
+arm--unless I have to.  Observe, Mr. Man, how easily I could do it."
+
+So saying, he pushed the district attorney's arm somewhat farther up
+his back.  The district attorney groaned.  Billy eased the pressure.
+The district attorney began to curse.  Billy, boosting him with his
+knee, assisted him toward the door.
+
+With his left hand Billy withdrew the bar from the staple, opened the
+door, swung his right foot and kicked the district attorney out into a
+snowdrift.  After him Billy tossed his coat and cap.  Then he closed
+the door and shoved the bar into place.
+
+"And that's that," said Billy Wingo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+A SHORT HORSE
+
+"You took your own time about coming," grunted Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+Dan Slike crossed his knees and stared at Rafe and Skinny Shindle.  "I
+always take my own time," said he, in a voice as blank and
+expressionless as his ice-blue eyes.  "Why hurry?"
+
+"Because you should have hurried," nagged Rafe.  "Y'oughta come when I
+wrote you last summer.  This Tom Walton has gone on living all fall,
+and here it is January and he ain't dead yet."
+
+"That's tough," sympathized Mr. Slike and wagged a belying foot.
+
+Skinny Shindle, looking somewhat worried, went to the door, opened it
+and looked out into the short hall.  Satisfied that the breed cook was
+busy in the kitchen, he closed the door and returned to his chair.
+
+"It's worse'n that.  Tom ain't the only li'l job I want you to attend
+to.  There's the sheriff, Billy Wingo."
+
+"That will be extra."
+
+"Extra?"
+
+"You haven't any idea I'm gonna do two jobs for the price of one, have
+you?"
+
+"Well----"
+
+"Well, nothin'.  I ain't in the business for my health, you can gamble
+on that.  If you're looking for charity, you're roping at the wrong
+horse."
+
+"No, no, nothing like that," Rafe hastened to say.  "I'll do whatever's
+right and fair.  You can trust me."
+
+Dan Slike shook a slow head.  An amused twinkle lightened those blank
+eyes.  "Oh, yes," he said.  "I'm almost sure I can trust you.  Yeah.
+Almost."
+
+"What do you mean?" blustered Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"Folks I talk to don't generally need any dictionary," said Slike.
+
+"Huh," grunted Rafe, content to let it go at that.  "Anyway, you'll be
+well paid."
+
+"I didn't come alla way from the Jornada just to hear you say I'd be
+well paid.  Your 'well paid' and my 'well paid' might be two different
+things.  Sometimes you and I don't talk the same language."
+
+Rafe Tuckleton considered a moment.  "Five hundred dollars apiece for
+Tom and the sheriff," said he, looking at Slike from beneath lowered
+eyebrows.
+
+"We'll bargain for 'em separately," said Slike.  "One thousand for Tom,
+payable in advance."
+
+"No," denied Rafe.  "Too much."
+
+"Aw right," assented Slike cheerfully.  "I'll be pulling my freight for
+New Mexico to-morrow.  What you gonna have for dinner?"
+
+"Let's talk it over.  One thousand dollars is a lot of money for a li'l
+job like rubbing out Tom Walton."
+
+"If it's a li'l job, why don't you attend to it yourself?"
+
+"Oh, I can't.  Impossible.  Why, man, consider my position."
+
+"Sure, I understand.  You'd rather live than have Tom Walton kill you.
+Don't know that I blame you, Rafe.  You always were a sensible jasper."
+
+Slike's eyes dwelt on Rafe's face with tolerant contempt.  The red
+color of Rafe's leathery cheeks was not entirely due to the heat of the
+cannon-ball stove.  No.
+
+"I'm not a gunfighter," disclaimed Rafe quickly.  "Never was.  That's
+your job."
+
+"And I am a gunfighter.  Always was.  And it's my job.  And I intend to
+get my price for my job.  One thousand in advance, or the deal's off."
+
+"I'm not a rich man," protested Rafe.  "I lack ready money.  So does
+Mr. Shindle here.  Say five hundred now and the rest in the spring."
+
+"I know how rich you are," said Slike.  "And I can make a fair guess
+how you and Mr. Shindle stand for ready money.  You can raise the
+thousand without too much trouble, I guess.  Anyhow, it goes."
+
+"You drive a hard bargain."
+
+"A man in my business can't afford to be squeamish."  As Slike spoke
+his eyes narrowed.
+
+"But----"
+
+"No buts.  You want Walton killed----"
+
+"Sh-h!  Not so loud," cautioned Skinny Shindle.  "Removed is a better
+word than killed, anyway."
+
+"Aw, hell," sneered Dan Slike, "you make me sick.  I've got no use for
+a jigger that don't call a cow by its right name.  I dunno the first
+thing about removing.  But I'll kill anybody you say.  I ain't a bit
+particular.  Not a bit."  Here Slike bent on Skinny Shindle the full
+measure of a most baleful regard.
+
+The strangely squeamish Shindle strove manfully to stare down the other
+man, but dropped his eyes within the minute.  This appeared to please
+Mr. Slike.  He smiled crookedly and turned his attention to Tuckleton.
+
+"Rafe," said he, "my time is money.  I can't stand here higgle-hoggling
+with you from hell to breakfast.  One thousand, or you get somebody
+else to do the job."
+
+"I suppose I'll have to do as you say," Rafe grumbled.  "And the same
+amount for the sheriff."
+
+"Not-a-tall," denied Slike.  "Not a-tall.  Do you think I'm gonna rub
+out a sheriff for a thousand cases?  You must have mush for a brain!
+Killing a rancher is a short hoss, but a sheriff is another breed of
+cat.  Besides, he's got two deputies, to say nothing of the feelings of
+the county.  Killing this sheriff for you means I gotta leave the
+county on the jump.  Do you think I'm gonna run the risk of being
+lynched for a measly thousand dollars?  If you do, take another think.
+Take two of 'em!  Me, I'll take two thousand for your man."
+
+"Two thousand dollars for simply shooting a sheriff?"
+
+"Again lemme remark that if the business was as simple as you say it
+is, you'd do it yourself.  Two thousand in advance."
+
+"But that's three thousand in all."
+
+"You're a wonder at arithmetic.  I make three thousand too."
+
+"But look here, Dan, we----"
+
+"I'm looking," interrupted Slike, "and three thousand dollars is all I
+can see.  You gotta expect to pay for your mistakes, Rafe.  If you
+didn't want to have this sheriff hold office, what did you elect him
+for?  You told me your political outfit was responsible."
+
+"How could we tell he'd turn out this way?  We took it for granted he'd
+do what the party wanted, and the first card out of the box he appoints
+his own deputies."
+
+"Good men with a gun?"
+
+"Both of 'em," Rafe nodded absently.
+
+"Wingo's no slouch himself," Shindle supplied without thinking.
+
+"And that's the kind of bunch you want me to go up against for a
+thousand dollars!" exclaimed Dan Slike.  "You fellers sure have your
+nerve!"
+
+Slike teetered his chair back on two legs and laughed loudly, but
+without cheer.  Rafe and Skinny found themselves somewhat chilled by
+the sardonic merriment.  They looked one upon the other.  Slike caught
+the look and laughed anew.
+
+"You're a fine pair," he said loudly, "a fine pair.  Letting a
+two-by-four sheriff run you.  Ha-ha, it's a joke!"
+
+"You go slow, you hear!" directed Skinny Shindle.
+
+Dan Slike's eyes slid round to survey Skinny.  "Me go slow?" he
+drawled, "Who'll make me?  You?  Not you or Rafe either.  Wanna know
+why?  Because I'm the best man in the room, that's why.  Wanna argue
+the matter?"
+
+Apparently neither Skinny nor Rafe cared to argue.  At least they made
+no audible reply to the challenge.
+
+Dan Slike nodded a satisfied head.  "Now that's settled, let's go back
+to business.  About that three thousand--yes or no?"
+
+Skinny looked at Rafe.  Rafe looked at Skinny.  Skinny shook his head.
+Rafe nodded his.  Dan Slike, missing nothing of the byplay, smiled
+delightedly.  His thin lips curled into a crooked sneer.
+
+"There seems to be a difference of opinion," said Dan Slike.  "Give it
+a name."
+
+"Three thousand is too much," averred Skinny Shindle.
+
+"You'll only have to pay half of it," said Rafe.
+
+"But this payment in advance--I don't like it," objected Skinny Shindle.
+
+Dan Slike's boots came down from the table.  They came down with a
+certain amount of speed, yet curiously enough they made not the
+slightest noise as soles and heels struck the floor.  Dan Slike's chair
+creaked as his body turned ever so slightly sidewise.
+
+"Shindle," said he softly, "you ain't thinking I wouldn't keep my part
+of the bargain if I take your money, are you?"
+
+"No, oh, no," Skinny reassured him hastily.  "Of course you would."
+
+"This being so," pursued Dan Slike, "what's the difference whether you
+pay me now or later?"
+
+"Why, none," admitted Skinny, finding himself fairly cornered.  "None
+whatever.  I--we will pay you what you ask."
+
+"Spoken like a li'l man," fleered Dan Slike, and switched his gaze to
+Tuckleton's face.  "Second the motion, Rafe?"
+
+"On one condition."
+
+"Let's have it?"
+
+"You finish both jobs within thirty days."
+
+"No, not thirty days, old-timer, nor yet forty-five.  Sixty."
+
+"Thirty."
+
+"Sixty days from to-night and the three thousand dollars, half gold,
+half bills, in my pocket by noon to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, hell, all right!" Rafe cried, tossing up helpless hands.  "Come
+around here to-morrow noon and get your money."
+
+Dan Slike nodded.  "Guess I'll be going, Rafe--No, nemmine dinner, I
+ain't hungry now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+THE TRAPPERS
+
+"It's the women make half the trouble in the world," mused young Riley
+Tyler, who had received the mitten from his girl of the period, the
+restaurant waitress, and was a misogynist in consequence.
+
+"You're wrong," said Shotgun Shillman.  "They make all of it."
+
+"All?"
+
+"All.  And not only that--they make all the good, too.  Yep, Riley, you
+can put down a bet there ain't a thing happens to a feller--good, bad
+or indifferent--that you won't find a woman at the bottom of it.  A
+good man goes to hell or heaven--it depends on the woman."
+
+"That's right, dead right," corroborated young Riley.
+
+"Those fatal blondes!" grinned Shotgun; for the waitress was decidedly
+of that type.
+
+"They're all deceivers," muttered Riley Tyler, reddening to his ear
+tips.
+
+"Ain't it the truth!" said Shotgun Shillman.  "They can lie to you with
+a straighter face than a government mule.  Like that jail lady in the
+Bible who put the kybosh on a feller named Scissors by nailing his head
+to the kitchen floor with a railroad spike.  Yeah, her.  Hugging him
+she was ten minutes before using the hammer.  Oh, that's their best
+bet; kiss you with one hand and cut your throat with the other."
+
+"That's news," said Riley Tyler.  "Where I come from the gent kisses
+with his mouth, and if he has to cut your throat he uses the butcher
+knife."
+
+"Did that hasher do all those things?" Shotgun asked instantly.
+
+Riley made believe not to hear.  Shotgun chuckled.
+
+"Billy's coming back," observed the latter, gazing through the window.
+"Where did he go?"
+
+"Walton's, he said."
+
+"I thought he liked Hazel Walton."
+
+"He likes 'em all."  Thus Riley, thinking of the scornful waitress who
+did not like him.  "'Lo, Bill, remember to wipe your feet on the mat.
+Li'l paddies all cold?"
+
+"She's a-thawing," replied Billy Wingo, kicking the snow from his
+boots.  "But I need a large, long, hot drink alla same.  Where is that
+bottle?"
+
+When the bottle and the three glasses had been returned to their
+appointed place between the horse liniment and the spare handcuffs,
+Riley moved listlessly to the front window and drummed on the pane.
+
+"Oh, the devil," Riley groaned.  "Here's work for li'l boys.  As if
+there wasn't enough to do in summer."
+
+"Good thing to-day's a chinook," remarked Shillman, without interest.
+
+Billy joined Riley at the window.  "Looks like Simon Reelfoot.  It's
+Simon's horse, anyway.  It is Simon.  I can see his long nose."
+
+Riley squinted at the approaching man.  "I wonder what he wants."
+
+"I thought maybe I'd ask him when he comes in," said Billy.
+
+"I would," observed Riley.  "That'll show you're interested in your
+job.  It'll please Simon, too.  He'll think you've got his interests at
+heart.  After that shall I kick him out, or will you let Shotgun bite
+him?"
+
+For Simon Reelfoot was not well thought of by the more decent portion
+of the community.  Men that put money out at high interest and are
+careless of their neighbors' property usually aren't.  It was said of
+him that he still had the first nickel that he ever earned.  Certainly
+he was not a generous person.  Three women, at one time and another,
+had been unlucky enough to marry him.  Each wife died within two years
+of her marriage--murdered by her husband.  Not in such a way, however,
+that the law could take its proper course and hang Simon by the neck
+till he was dead.  The murders were done in a perfectly legal manner
+and all above-board--overwork and undernourishment.  The two in
+conjunction will kill anything that lives and breathes.  So Simon, if
+not a murderer, was at least an accomplice before and after the fact.
+A cheerful creature, indeed.  There were no children.
+
+Something of all that Simon was and stood for passed through Riley
+Wingo's mind as he stood with Riley at the window.
+
+"He always keeps his horses in good condition," said Billy.
+
+"He does--the skunk!" acquiesced Riley.
+
+"Stop calling a honest citizen names," directed Shotgun Shillman.  "Mr.
+Reelfoot is an upright man.  I don't believe he'd rob a child or steal
+the pennies off a dead baby's eyes.  I don't believe he would--if any
+one was looking."
+
+Simon Reelfoot rode up, tied his horse on the lee of the building--he
+was always tender of his stock--and entered.
+
+"Howdy," he said glumly.  "Cold day."
+
+"If you'd wear something besides that relic of the days of '61 you
+wouldn't find it such a cold day," observed the straightforward Shotgun.
+
+At which allusion to his ratty old blue army overcoat Simon's upper lip
+lifted.  It might almost be said that he snarled silently.
+
+"Feller as poor as I am can't afford to buy buffalo coats," he declared
+in the grumbling rumble so oddly at variance with his build.  For he
+was a little clean-shaven man, this Simon Reelfoot, with a hatchet face
+and the watery peering eyes of the habitual drunkard.
+
+"Yeah," he grumbled, staring from one to another of the three officers
+with open disapproval.  "I ain't got money to buy buffalo coats.  I
+have to work to earn my living, I do.  I ain't got time to sit on my
+hunkers around a hot stove come-day-go-day a-taking the county's money
+for doing nothin'."
+
+"Which will be just about all from you, Reelfoot," Billy Wingo
+suggested sharply.
+
+"Oh, you can't scare me," said Simon, shaking a lowering and dogged
+head.  "I say what I think, and if folks don't like it they know what
+they can do."
+
+"Of course, Reelfoot," pursued Billy, with his most pleasant smile,
+"folks naturally know what they can do.  But you don't guess now it
+gives a feller any pleasure to squash every spider, caterpillar,
+hoptoad or snail he runs across.  And--  But I don't know that I ever
+saw any snails in this part of the county.  Suppose now we hold it down
+to spiders, caterpillars and hoptoads.  Yeah.  Why kill 'em?  Yeah
+again.  Why put the kibosh on you, Mr. Reelfoot, just because you make
+me think of a hoptoad?  You may be a bad old man.  I dunno that I care.
+But I don't like your company.  Not a bit.  You're a slimy old devil,
+and you never wash.  Therefore let's hear what your business is so you
+can take it away with you in a hurry."
+
+So saying Billy sat down, cocked his feet up on the table and regarded
+Reelfoot gravely.  Shillman and Tyler stood before the fireplace, their
+legs spread, their hands in the their pockets and their faces
+expressionless.
+
+Simon Reelfoot's upper lip lifted in the same soundless snarl.
+
+"I'll go when I please," he began, "and----"
+
+"You're mistaken," contradicted Billy, taking out his watch and holding
+it open in the palm of his hand.  "Not to give it too a coarse a name,
+you'll go when I please.  Yep.  If you haven't begun to state your
+official business with the sheriff within forty-five seconds, out you
+go, Mr. Reelfoot, out you go."
+
+"You fellers are paid to see that the law is obeyed," growled Simon
+Reelfoot.  "You can't throw me out."
+
+"'Round and 'round the mulberry bush,'" quoted Billy Wingo.  "Reverse.
+Try the other way for a change.  You're getting dizzy."
+
+"You make me sick, you fellers.  Talk!  Talk!  Talk!  That's all you
+do.  Talk alla time.  All right, I will see if you're able to do
+anything besides talk.  Two of my cows have been shot and there's two
+or three strangers baching it in that old shack of Cayler's on Mule
+Creek.  Cows are worth thirty dollars per right now, and I want you to
+find out if them fellers beefed my cattle."
+
+"Been over there yourself?"
+
+"Sure I have.  They wouldn't lemme get inside the door.  Threw down on
+me.  Bad actors, them two lads."
+
+"I thought you said there were three," said Billy Wingo.
+
+"Two or three," snappily.
+
+"Suspicions don't count for much," said Billy.  "You know that,
+Reelfoot.  Have you any evidence against these men?"
+
+"Sure I have," was the reply.  "The bodies of my two cows and a plain
+track of blood and moccasins to within a mile of the cabin."
+
+"Did the trail stop there--within a mile?"
+
+"Feller had a horse tied.  He packed on the beef and rode himself.  I
+trailed the horse to the corral back of the cabin."
+
+"Were you alone?"
+
+"My friend Jack Faber was with me.  He can back up everything I say."
+
+"And you mean to tell me, Reelfoot, that you trailed this beef to the
+Cayler cabin and then allowed the men inside to get the drop on you and
+run you off?"
+
+"They threw down first," Reelfoot insisted sullenly.  "They got the
+drop.  What could we do?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Billy Wingo dryly.  "I wasn't there."
+
+"Perhaps," put in the irrepressible Riley Tyler, "the parties of the
+second part forgot their guns."
+
+"A gun ain't much good when the other feller's got the drop," Simon
+said sourly.
+
+"The trick is," observed Billy, his manner that of one stating a newly
+discovered fact, "the trick is, Reelfoot, to get the drop first."
+
+Reelfoot gaped at him.  Then his jaws closed with a click.  But they
+reopened immediately in violent speech.  "What about my cows?" he
+squalled.  "What you gonna do about them cattle?"
+
+"We can't unscramble any eggs for you, Reelfoot, not being magicians,
+but maybe we can dump the rustlers for you.  How will you have
+them--shot or half-shot?  Now, son, you shut up, close your trap,
+swallow your tongue or something.  Riley Tyler is the only one allowed
+to swear around me.  Where do you want to cool off--in here or out in a
+snowdrift?"
+
+Simon Reelfoot subsided into a chair.  He produced a plug of tobacco
+from one capacious bootleg, a clasp-knife from the other, snicked open
+the claspknife and haggled off a generous chew.
+
+Billy nodded approvingly.  "That's better.  Shotgun and I will be with
+you in two minutes."
+
+Simon Reelfoot glared out of the window.  Billy Wingo, whose eyes, for
+all their casualness, had not strayed from Simon for a minute, had not
+overlooked the pucker of worry that had appeared between Simon's chin
+and straggly eyebrows at the mention of the two minutes.  With folk
+like Simon it is always well to proceed with caution, to learn the real
+reason, not the apparent one at the bottom of every move.  Quite so.
+Why was Simon worried?
+
+Simon's gaze returned from the world without.  It skimmed across Billy
+Wingo, dodged around both Shillman and Tyler, and dropped to the floor,
+where it fastened upon and clung to the nobbly tips of the Reelfoot
+boots.
+
+"I don't guess there's any tearing rush," he mumbled.
+
+Strangely enough or rather naturally enough, Billy experienced no
+surprise at the remark.  "No hurry, huh?" he observed.  "A minute ago
+you were in a hot sweat to have us do something right away quick.  And
+now you ain't.  What has changed you, Mr. Reelfoot?  I ask to know."
+
+"I want the job done right," was the lame explanation.  "If you hustle
+off too sudden you might forget something."
+
+"What do you think we're liable to forget?" queried Billy.
+
+"How do I know what?  But I know it don't pay to go off half-cocked."
+
+Again Simon Reelfoot's eyes strayed to the window.  When the eyes
+swiveled back to meet those of Billy Wingo, the pucker of worry had
+been wiped from Reelfoot's eyebrows.
+
+"No," he resumed, in a tone that was unmistakably relieved, "it don't
+pay to go off half-cocked."
+
+"No, it don't," concurred Billy, wondering greatly, both at the change
+in Simon's expression and the relief in his tone.  Why?  He desired to
+know why.  And he made up his mind to know why.  For among his other
+vices, Simon was friendly with Rafe Tuckleton and his precious gang.
+
+Billy Wingo, shoving cartridges through the loading-gate of a
+Winchester, slouched casually past the window through which Simon was
+looking.  He perceived, kicking his way through the snow, Mr. Tom
+Driver, the local Justice of the Peace.  There was no one else in sight.
+
+"Lordy, how the snow dazzles your eyes," remarked Billy, stepping back
+and squinting.  "Is that Tom Driver coming here?"
+
+"Where?" inquired Simon Reelfoot, and looked through the wrong window.
+Yet when Simon had glanced through the other window a moment before, he
+must have seen the judge.  Hum-m!  Billy Wingo continued thoughtfully
+to shove cartridges through the loading-gate.
+
+Entered the judge.  "Good morning, gentlemen!" was the judicial
+greeting.  The judicial eyes absorbed the sheriff's preparations.
+"You're not going anywhere, are you, Bill?" he inquired, hooking a
+chair up to the table and sitting down after he had hung up his hat and
+coat behind the door.
+
+"Reelfoot's had two cows shot," explained Billy.  "He thinks he knows
+who did it.  Shotgun and I are going to see about it."
+
+"Only two cows," said the judge.  "Then your presence isn't absolutely
+necessary.  You can send Riley Tyler instead.  I have a little business
+to go over with you, Bill--a county matter.  And----"
+
+"Is it important?"
+
+"I think it is."
+
+"All right.  I'll stay.  Riley, I guess you'd better go with Shotgun."
+
+It was pure chance that enabled Billy to catch the gleam of
+satisfaction in Reelfoot's eyes.  He had just happened to be looking at
+the man.  Satisfaction, yes.  Why?  Why was Simon glad chat he, Billy
+Wingo, was not going with him on the trail of the beef-killers?
+
+When Shotgun and Riley were gone away with Reelfoot, Billy looked
+across at the judge and nodded.
+
+"Fly at it," said he.
+
+Without haste the judge fished some papers from his pocket and opened
+them on the table.  He did it awkwardly.  His fingers might have been
+all thumbs.  He seemed to have difficulty in finding the paper he
+wanted.
+
+Billy Wingo, his eyes drowsy-looking, watched silently.  "What's it all
+about?" he asked curiously.
+
+"Jake Kilroe," replied Judge Driver.  "He's been selling liquor to the
+Indians."
+
+"He always has."
+
+"I know he has.  And it's a disgrace to the community.  It's got to
+stop."
+
+Billy stared at the judge even more curiously.  For this high and moral
+tone he did not understand at all.  It was not like the judge.  It was
+not in the least like the judge.  No, not at all.
+
+"Stopping liquor-selling to the war-whoops is none of my job," pointed
+out Billy Wingo, "the man you want to see is Henry Black, the United
+States Marshal at Hillsville.  Besides, what have you got to do with
+it, anyway?  You're not a Federal judge?"
+
+"But the Federal authorities have ordered me to cooperate with them,"
+the judge said smoothly.
+
+"Which one asked you?" probed Billy Wingo.
+
+"The second deputy."
+
+"Slim Chalmers, huh?  When did you see Slim Chalmers?"
+
+"Day before yesterday."
+
+"Here?"
+
+"No, over at Hillsville."
+
+"I didn't know you'd been out of town," Billy Wingo burrowed along.
+
+"Just got back this morning."
+
+"No trouble getting through?"
+
+"Not a bit.  This chinook has thawed the drifts."
+
+"Did you go by stage?"
+
+"No, I rode."
+
+The judge was answering these apparently most unnecessary questions
+without a quiver or trace of annoyance.  Billy made another cast.
+
+"Did you ride your gray horse?"
+
+"No, the black."
+
+"I hope you wore a coat."  The gravity of Billy's tone could not have
+been bettered.
+
+"An overcoat?" smiled Judge Driver.  "Naturally."
+
+"That's good, that's good.  I like to see you looking after your health
+thisaway.  You'd be a valuable citizen to lose, Judge.  I dunno what
+we'd do without you.  I don't indeed."
+
+What had gone before had been bad enough in all conscience.  But this
+was even worse.  Yet the judge took no offense.  He merely smiled
+blandly upon Billy Wingo and proffered the latter gentleman his cigar
+case.  Billy declined with thanks.  Whereupon the judge drew a long and
+very black cigar from the case and bit off the end.
+
+"It's funny I didn't meet you in Hillsville," mused Billy, turning his
+head as if to look at the stove but in reality looking at a mirror
+hanging on the wall beside the stove that showed on its face an
+excellent reflection of Judge Driver's features.
+
+As he expected, the judge gave him a quick sharp glance, but what he
+had not expected was the demoniac expression of hatred that flashed
+across the judge's face as summer lightning flashes across the face of
+a dark cloud.
+
+Billy Wingo turned a slow head.  His eyes met those of the judge
+squarely.  Gone was the expression of hatred.  In its place was one of
+courteous regret,--regret that he had been so unfortunate as to miss
+his friend Sheriff Wingo in Hillsville.
+
+Billy nodded indifferently.  "That's all right.  I wasn't in
+Hillsville.  My mistake.  Sorry."
+
+The judge stared in frowning puzzlement.
+
+It was at this juncture that the door opened and Skinny Shindle
+entered.  He greeted the two men surlily and laid a note on the desk in
+front of Billy.
+
+"I stopped at Walton's on my way back from Hillsville," said Shindle,
+"and Tom's niece gimme this.  She said I was to be sure and give it to
+you soon as I could.  Seemed worried like, I should say."
+
+"When did she give you the note," Billy inquired casually.
+
+"When I stopped there for a drink.  I was only there about five
+minutes."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Oh, round half-past two."
+
+"And you came straight here?"
+
+"Sure I did.  You don't think I was gonna stop anywhere a day like
+this, do you?"
+
+Without another word Shindle pulled his fur cap forward, turned and
+walked out.  He closed the door with a slam that shook the building.
+Billy Wingo opened the note.
+
+
+DEAR BILLY:
+
+Please come out here as soon as you can.  Come to-night without fail.
+I need you.
+
+
+It was signed with Hazel Walton's full name.
+
+Billy folded the note carefully.  He did not look directly at the
+judge.  He looked at him by way of the mirror.  He was not unduly
+astonished to perceive that the judge was watching him like the
+proverbial hawk.
+
+Billy unfolded the note, read it again, then refolded it.  He started
+to put it into a vest pocket, though better of it, balled it into a
+crumple and tossed it into the cardboard box that served for a
+waste-paper basket.
+
+He got to his feet, pulled out his watch and glanced at the time.
+
+"Four-thirty-two," he muttered, apparently oblivious to the judge's
+presence.  "I'll have to hurry."
+
+He crossed the room to an open door giving into one of the inner rooms.
+Passing through the doorway, he pushed the door partly to behind him.
+Turning sharply to the left he sat down on a cot that creaked.  The
+foot of the cot butted against the jamb on which the door was hung.
+Billy threw himself sidewise and applied his eye to the crack between
+the door and the jamb.  His feet at the end of the cot were busy the
+while, gently kicking the wall and iron-work of the cot.  Any one
+hearing the noise would have been reasonably assured that Billy Wingo
+was employed in God knows what, at a distance from the door of at least
+a cot length.  What he might be doing did not matter.  The point was to
+give the judge the impression that he was not close to the doorway.
+
+Evidently the judge was thus impressed.  Billy saw him lean forward,
+pluck the wadded-up note from the wastebasket and dive noiselessly
+across the room to the stove.  Without a sound the judge opened the
+stove door and dropped the letter on the top of the blazing wood.
+Closing the door as noiselessly as he had opened it, the judge returned
+to his chair, sat down and crossed one knee over the other.  His
+expression was that of the cat that has just eaten the canary.  Billy
+could almost see him licking his demure chops.
+
+Billy returned to the office.  He was carrying a box of cartridges and
+an extra six-shooter.  His regular six-shooter, with its holster and
+belt, hung on the wall behind the table.
+
+"About Jake Kilroe now," said Billy, sitting down at the table and
+snicking open the box of cartridges, "about Jake Kilroe--what does the
+marshal want me to do?"
+
+"Get evidence against him," was the smooth reply.  "Enough to convict
+him, of course."
+
+"Of course.  Not enough to convict him would help us very little.
+Yeah.  Any suggestions, Judge?"
+
+"What kind of suggestions?" the judge inquired with just a trace of
+impatience.
+
+"How I'm to start in--what do you guess?  I don't know much about Jake,
+y'understand.  For instance, where does Jake get his liquor in the
+first place?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"I dunno.  Thought maybe you might.  Judges are supposed to know a lot.
+But if you don't, you don't, that's all."
+
+Judge Driver sat up a trifle straighter in his chair.  He looked at
+Billy with some suspicion.  It could not be humanly possible that Billy
+was joking with him, yet----
+
+"I guess I'd better start in this afternoon," continued Billy briskly.
+"There's nothing like a quick start.  And the marshal would like it
+too.  Suppose you and I, Judge, go down to Jake's and see what we can
+see."
+
+"I thought you were going somewhere else," demurred Judge Driver.
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"That note--  You said you had to go some place in a hurry."
+
+"Did I?  Well, I am.  I'm going down to Jake Kilroe's, and you're going
+with me, huh?"
+
+"Look here," said the judge, the light of desperation in his eyes, "you
+don't have to go down to Kilroe's now.  That can wait.  The marshal
+ain't in such a fright of a hurry as all that.  Go on and do whatever
+you have to do.  I didn't mean--I don't want this to interfere with
+your personal business, and I'm sure the marshal wouldn't.  He'll
+understand.  I know he will.  You go on and do whatever you have to do,
+Bill."
+
+"I will," murmured Billy.  "I will.  Where are you going, Judge?"
+
+"Oh, I guess I'll be drifting along, Bill," smiled the judge,
+half-turning on his way to the door.  "You don't need me any longer."
+
+"Yes, I do too," Billy declared fretfully.  "You come on back and set
+down.  I've got something here I want to read you."
+
+Involuntarily the judge's eyes strayed to the wastebasket.  He came
+back and sat down.
+
+On the table between the extra six-shooter that Billy had finished
+loading and the box of cartridges was a small leather-bound book.
+Billy picked up this book and turned to the index.  He ran his finger
+down the page till he came to that which he sought.
+
+"'Morality, rules of, where consonant with those of law,'" he read
+aloud, and turned back to page twenty-eight.
+
+Judge Driver stared at Billy Wingo in some amazement.  What on earth
+was the sheriff driving at.  Rules of morality?  Well!
+
+"This book," said Billy, glancing across at the judge, "is a copy of
+the grounds and maxims of the English laws, by William Noy, of
+Lincoln's Inn, Attorney General, and a member of the Privy Council to
+King Charles the First."
+
+"What in God's name," demanded the now thoroughly amazed judge, "has
+that to do with me?"
+
+"I want to read you something," persisted Billy.  "You know that our
+laws were practically taken from the English laws.  Our grounds and
+maxims are the same as theirs.  What's good law with them is good law
+with us, and _vice versa_.  You're a judge.  You know that as well as I
+do.  Don't you?"
+
+The judge nodded.  "I suppose so."
+
+"It says here," resumed Billy Wingo, "in section thirty-three under
+Moral Rules, that the 'law favoreth works of charity, right and truth,
+and abhorreth fraud, covin, and incertainties which obscure the truth;
+contrarities, delays, unnecessary circumstances, and such like.  Deceit
+and fraud should be remedied on all occasions.'  How about it?  Don't
+you agree with Mr. William Noy?"
+
+"He's right; but there's nothing new about it.  I knew it already."
+
+"Then you'll understand me, perhaps, when I tell you that I intend to
+get to the bottom of everything that has gone on here this afternoon."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that there has been more 'fraud, covin, and incertainties which
+obscure the truth' scattered round in this room to-day than by right
+there should have been.  I don't mind a little.  Human beings are odd
+numbers, anyway.  You've got to take all that into consideration."
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"Then, too," pursued the unheeding Billy, "'contrarities, delays,
+unnecessary circumstances, and such like,' I despise.  They give me a
+bad taste in my mouth.  Don't they you?"
+
+"They would any one," acquiesced the judge, and made to rise.  "Well,
+now you've read me what you wanted to, I won't keep you any longer.  I
+know you must be in a hurry to get away.  We'll let the Kilroe business
+wait over a few days."
+
+"Sit down, Judge," Billy Wingo murmured softly, his hand resting as if
+by chance on the butt of the six-shooter lying on the table.  "Sit
+down, do."
+
+The judge hesitated.  Then with the well-known hollow laugh, he sat
+down.  He looked at Billy Wingo.  The latter looked at him in silence
+for a space.
+
+"Judge," he remarked suddenly, "deceit and fraud should remedied on all
+occasions.  Tell me why you put that letter in the fire?"
+
+The judge continued to sit perfectly still.  It might be said that he
+was frozen to his chair.  Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, his right
+hand began to steal upward under the tail of his coat.
+
+"I wouldn't, Judge," continued Billy, "I just wouldn't if I were you."
+
+The judge's hand hung straight by his side.  "You're getting in pretty
+deep, Bill," he observed with a cold smile.
+
+"But not as deep as you are already," said Billy Wingo, with an even
+colder smile.  "You haven't answered my question yet--about the burning
+of the letter.  Why, Judge, why?"
+
+"Give it any name you like," replied the jurist carelessly.  "I don't
+feel like answering any more questions."
+
+"Yet a li'l while back you didn't mind answering any questions I felt
+like asking.  Was it to gain time, Judge--to gain time till Skinny
+Shindle came in and did his part with the note from Miss Walton?  Was
+it, Judge, was it?  Dumb, huh?  Aw right, perhaps you'd rather tell me
+why Simon Reelfoot acted about the same way, except Simon was special
+careful to make us mad besides--mad when it wasn't necessary to make us
+mad if Simon was playing a straight game, but necessary enough if Simon
+wanted to gain more time.  Yeah, Simon sure beat around the bush time
+and again before he came to the point.  I expect you were delayed
+getting here, huh, Judge?  Simon kept looking out of the window alla
+time, I remember."
+
+Billy Wingo felt silent and contemplated the judge.  The latter stared
+back, his face impassive.
+
+"Be advised," said the judge suddenly.  "You can't buck us alone.  You
+should know that."
+
+"I should--maybe," returned Billy Wingo.  "But I feel like taking a
+gamble with you.  So instead of going to Kilroe's, we'll do what the
+letter said and go out to Walton's to-day."
+
+The judge lifted his eyebrows.  "We?"
+
+"We," confirmed Billy calmly.  "You're going with me."
+
+"No," said the judge.
+
+"Yes," insisted Billy Wingo.  "And what's more, I'll lend you a suit of
+my clothes and my white hat and my red-and-white pinto.  Which there
+ain't another paint pony colored like mine in this county; and just to
+make it a fair deal, I'll wear your buffalo coat and your fur cap, and
+I'll ride one of your horses,--that long-legged gray, I guess, will be
+all right."
+
+The judge's face wore a curiously mottled pallor that gave it the hue
+of a dead fish's belly.  "Are you insane?" he gasped.
+
+"Not me," denied Billy Wingo.  "It's like I said.  I'm gambling with
+you.  I guess we understand each other, Judge.  Ain't it luck, you and
+I being about of a size?  Dressed up in my clothes with that white hat
+and all, you'd have to excuse anybody for mistaking you for me.
+Ca-a-areful, Judge, careful.  Don't do anything we would be sorry for.
+And don't take it so to heart; perhaps he'll miss you."
+
+For a space he considered the judge, then he said:
+
+"I guess we're ready for Riley, now."
+
+Despite his professional calm the judge almost bounced out of his
+chair.  "Riley!  Where----"
+
+"In the kitchen with the door open," explained Billy.  "He didn't go
+with Shotgun and Reelfoot a-tall--that is, not far.  Only round the
+house to the back door.  Reelfoot wasn't completely successful in
+separating me from my deputies.  You didn't catch me whispering in
+Riley's ear while he was getting ready, did you?  I thought maybe you
+wouldn't.  Your back was turned.  Moral: Never turn your back when
+there's a mirror behind you.  Riley, you'd better come in now."
+
+Whereupon there was a noise of bootheels, and Riley entered and smiled
+cheerfully upon the discomfited judge.
+
+"Howdy, your honor," said Riley Tyler.
+
+The judge made no acknowledgment of the greeting.  He continued to gaze
+before him with a set and stony face.
+
+"Riley," said Billy Wingo, without, however, removing his eyes from the
+judge, "I guess we'll need another witness.  I wonder if you could get
+hold of Guerilla Melody."
+
+Riley nodded and went out.
+
+"And that's that," said Billy Wingo, smiling.
+
+The judge's hands gripped the arms of the chair.  "You know that the
+man Melody is an enemy of mine," he said in a shaken voice.
+
+"I know that he is an honest man," returned Billy Wingo.
+
+"I won't go," the judge declared feebly.
+
+"You said that before," said Billy Wingo, in no wise moved.  "You'll go
+all right.  Yes, indeedy.  Do you wanna know why?  I'll tell you.  You
+see, Judge, I know what I'm up against.  I know that the only barrier
+that stands between me and the graveyard is the lead in this gun.  I
+like life.  I enjoy it.  Besides, I'm too young to die and too sinful
+and all that.  Therefore it's my business to see I ain't cut off in the
+flower of my youth, _et cetera_.  You're considerably older than me,
+Judge, considerably.  The gray is in your hair like frost on a punkin,
+and the devil has drawn two mighty mean lines down from your nose to
+the corners of your mouth, and the crows have messed up your
+eye-corners too, for that matter, and may the Lord have mercy on your
+soul, you miserable sinner, because I won't--if you don't do exactly
+what I tell you to do.  It's my life or yours, and it's not gonna be
+mine."
+
+"Baby talk," said the judge, but there was no conviction in his tone.
+
+"You think so?  Aw right, let it go at that.  Here's the rest of the
+baby talk: The first false move you start to make between now and the
+time I'm through with you, you get it."
+
+"You wouldn't dare!"
+
+"Wouldn't I?  Call me and see.  No trouble to show goods."
+
+The judge hesitated.  It was obvious that he was of two minds.  He
+chose the safer course--for the present.
+
+"There is a law in this country--" he began.
+
+Billy Wingo leaned forward, his chin jutting out.  His eyes were
+unpleasantly cold.  They matched his voice when he spoke.
+
+"Don't talk to me of the law," he said.  "It's you and your friends
+that have made the law in Crocker County a spectacle for decent men.
+Law!  You've dragged the statutes in the mud till you can't tell 'em
+apart from the turnips underground.  Law!  You've prostituted your
+office for a little filthy money here, there and everywhere, till it's
+a wonder you're able to live with yourself.  How do you do it?  Don't
+you ever get tired of your own stink, you polecat?"
+
+This was too much.  The judge was, after all, a human being.  He had
+his pride, such as it was, and courage of a kind.  He threw himself
+sidewise, and at the same time his right hand flipped up under his coat
+tail, flipped up and flipped out.
+
+There was a flash and a roar and a spirtle of smoke.  The judge's
+six-shooter was wrenched from his fingers and sent spinning across the
+room.  The judge remained upon the floor.  There was no feeling in his
+right hand.  But his right arm felt as if it had been struck with a
+spike-maul.
+
+The acrid smoke rose slowly toward the ceiling.
+
+"You can get up, Judge," Billy Wingo said calmly.
+
+The judge rose slowly and collapsed into the chair he had so abruptly
+vacated.  He held his right hand before his face and waggled it.
+Stupidly he looked at it.  The flesh of the trigger finger was slightly
+torn.  It bled a little.
+
+"The bullet didn't touch you," said Billy.  "The trigger guard did that
+when the gun was twiddled out of your hand.  The lead hit the frame in
+front of the cylinder.  Wait, I'll show you."  He crossed the room to
+where the judge's six-shooter lay, picked it up and brought it to the
+judge for his inspection.
+
+"See how I trust you," said Billy sardonically, holding up the judge's
+six-shooter within ten inches of the judge's eyes.  "You could almost
+grab this gun out of my hand if you felt like it.  I really dunno but
+what I hope you'll feel like it."
+
+But the judge did not feel like it.  He perceived without difficulty
+the gray splotch on the frame of the six-shooter that marked the spot
+where Billy Wingo's lead had struck, and he felt absolutely no
+inclination to gamble further with fate.  Not he.  No!
+
+Billy tucked the judge's six-shooter into his waistband and ran a hand
+over and under the jurist's outer clothing.
+
+"You might be carrying a derringer or something," he murmured in
+apology.
+
+But he found no other weapon, and he returned to his seat to await the
+arrival of Riley Tyler and Guerilla Melody.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+THE TRAP
+
+Guerilla Melody regarded the judge without expression.  "Huh," he
+grunted.  "Huh."
+
+The judge did not look at him.  He had cheated Melody in a cattle deal
+the previous year and had since found himself unable to look Melody in
+the eye.  Some villains are like that.  They are usually of the cheaper
+variety.
+
+"It's good and dark now," observed Billy Wingo, "and the moon will rise
+in another hour.  We don't want it to be too high when we strike the
+Walton ranch.  Why the smile, Judge?  Oh, I know.  You think we'll be
+seen by one of your friends when we're leaving, and he'll get to the
+ranch ahead of us.  I doubt it, Judge.  You know we ain't going by way
+of Main Street.  No, we're going out back of the corral.  The
+cottonwoods grow right up close to the back of the corral, and if we
+lead our horses and hug the posts, there ain't much chance of anybody
+seeing us.  No.  Come along, Judge, lessee how my clothes fit you."
+
+Within the quarter-hour they rode out of a belt of cottonwoods into the
+Hillsville trail, three wooden-faced men and the wretched judge.  The
+latter rode in front, with head bowed on hunched shoulders.
+
+Where the snow permitted they trotted, but most of the time they were
+forced to walk their horses.  Four times before they reached the draw
+leading to the Walton ranch they floundered through drifts that
+powdered the horse's shoulders.
+
+At the mouth of the draw the trail to Walton's was clotted with the
+tracks of a few ridden horses.
+
+"I guess," remarked Billy Wingo, "that Skinny Shindle came this way all
+right when he brought that note from Walton's."
+
+The judge shivered, but not with cold.  He was very miserable and
+looked it.
+
+The moon lifted an inquiring face over the rim of the neighboring ridge
+and threw their shadows, thin and long, across the green-white snow.
+
+"We turn here toward Walton's, Judge," suggested Billy, when the jurist
+continued to ride straight ahead.
+
+The judge pulled up.
+
+"I'm not going to Walton's!" he cried aloud.  "I'm not going, I tell
+you!  You can't make me!  You can't."
+
+His voice broke at the last word.  He threw his arms aloft in a wild
+gesture.  The features of the face he turned toward Billy were
+contorted with emotion.  He gibbered and mowed at them in the
+moon-light.  He looked like an inmate of Bedlam.  He was certainly in a
+bad way, was Judge Driver.
+
+Suddenly he lost his head.  He clapped heels to his horse's flanks in
+an effort to escape.  But both Billy Wingo and Riley Tyler had been
+waiting for precisely such a move ever since leaving Golden Bar.  Two
+ropes shot out simultaneously.  One fastened on the red-and-white
+pinto's neck, the other settled round the Judge's shoulders.  The paint
+pony stopped abruptly.  The judge flew backward from the saddle and hit
+the snow on the back of his neck.
+
+The three friends dismounted and gathered around the judge.  Riley
+loosened his rope.  The judge lay still and gasped and crowed.  The
+wind had been considerably knocked out of him.  When he sat up, he was
+promptly sick, very sick.  The paroxysm shook him from head to heels.
+
+It was half an hour before he was able to stand on his feet without
+support.  The three boosted him into the saddle, mounted their own
+horses and proceeded along the draw.
+
+Whenever the judge made as if to check his horse, which he did more
+than once, Billy Wingo would crowd his horse forward and kick the
+pinto.  Their progress may be said to have been fairly regular.
+
+A mile from the ranch house they climbed the shelving side of the draw
+and rode across the flat to where a straggling growth of pine and
+spruce made a black, pear-shaped blot along the smooth white slope of a
+saddle-backed hill.  The tail of this evergreen plantation ran out
+across the flat from the base of the hill almost to the edge of the
+draw they had just quitted.  A tall spruce, towering high above his
+fellows, formed the tip, as it were, of the stem of the pear.
+
+Beyond and below this spruce, where the draw met lower ground and lost
+its identity as a draw, was the Walton ranch house.  On the flat the
+evergreens barred the four riders from the eyes of any one watching
+from the house.
+
+The four men reached the trees, rode in among them.  Three of them
+dismounted and tied their horses.  The fourth remained in the saddle.
+Said Billy Wingo to the fourth:
+
+"Get down."
+
+The judge got down.  Swiftly his hands were tied behind his back, and
+his eyes were thoroughly blindfolded with his own silk handkerchief.
+
+"Now, boys," said Billy, lowering his voice, "I guess we know what to
+do.  You, Judge, won't have to say anything, but if anybody else thinks
+he has to say anything, he's got to do it in a whisper, and a skinny
+whisper at that.  Let's go."
+
+As Billy uttered the last low words Guerilla Melody seized the judge's
+right arm and forced him into motion.  With Riley Tyler leading the
+judge's mount, the three men scuffled in among the trees on the back
+trail.
+
+Billy Wingo stood silently in his tracks until the trio were out of
+earshot, then he padded to the spruce and halted behind it.  He removed
+his overcoat.  From a voluminous pocket he took what appeared to be a
+roll of cloth.  He shook out the roll and discovered the common or
+garden variety of cotton nightshirt, size fifty.
+
+"If whoever's in the house can pick me out from the snow after I'm
+wearing this, I'll give his eyes credit," he muttered, pulling on the
+garment in question over his head.
+
+He buttoned the nightshirt with meticulous care, fished a washed flour
+sack from a hip pocket and pulled it over his head.  A minute or two
+later he was joined by Riley Tyler.
+
+"If I didn't know it was you," whispered Riley in a delighted hiss,
+"I'd be scared out of a year's growth.  Those eyeholes are plumb
+gashly."
+
+"I expect," said Billy grimly.  "Get on your outfit.  I guess you ain't
+needed, but we can't afford to take any chances."
+
+Riley Tyler threw off his blanket capote, dragged from an inner pocket
+a disguise similar to the sheriff's and hurriedly put it on.
+
+"Don't come till you see the signal," cautioned Billy, "and if you hear
+any shots before I give the signal, stay right here where the cover's
+good and drop anybody you see running away.  Y'understand?"
+
+"You bet."
+
+"Judge swallow it all right?"
+
+"Down to the pole.  He thinks we're all three with him."
+
+Billy nodded.  "Better move along the draw about twenty yards," was his
+parting order.  "You can't see the side the cedars are on from here."
+
+Boldly, without any attempt at concealment, he walked straight to the
+edge of the draw.  Below him barely fifty yards distant were the
+snow-covered buildings that were the Walton ranch house, the bunk house
+and the blacksmith shop.  He could not see the corrals.  They lay
+beyond the crowding cottonwoods growing beside the little stream that
+supplied the ranch house with water.
+
+He half slid, half walked down the side of the draw and headed straight
+for the ranch house.  He could not see lamplight shining through any of
+the windows.  But there was a faint glow at the farthest of the windows
+in the side of the house.  This window he knew was one of three
+lighting the front room, a room that ran clear across the house.  This
+side of the house was clear of young trees and bushes.  But on the
+other side of the house, the north side, Hazel had planted young cedars
+to serve as a windbreak.  These cedars grew within a yard of the house.
+
+Without any fear of being discovered, so confident was he that it would
+be impossible to see him against the white background, he approached
+the blacksmith shop, slid between it and the empty bunk house and came
+to the right angle end of the kitchen.  His gun was out, be it known,
+but he held it behind his back.  He wanted no touch of blackness to mar
+the hue of his costume.
+
+At the corner of the kitchen he dropped on his knees and one hand.
+Here behind the windbreak the snow was no more than two or three inches
+deep, and he crawled along the side of the house toward the faintly
+glowing window that was his goal, at walking speed.
+
+Crouched beneath the window he laid his ear close to the window sill
+and listened.  For a space he heard nothing, then feet shuffled across
+the floor and there was the "chuck" of a log being thrown on the fire.
+Then the shuffle of feet again.
+
+Silence.
+
+Inch by inch Billy raised a slow head above the window sill.  When his
+eyes were level with the lower crosspiece of the sash, he paused.  For
+a long time he could see nothing within the room but the fire in the
+ruddy jaws of the fireplace with its attendant pile of logs, and a big
+chair over which had been thrown a buffalo robe.  Then after a time he
+saw, beyond the chair, the boot soles of a man lying on the floor.  The
+body of the man lay in the shadow cast by the big chair.
+
+There was something about those boot soles that told Billy that the man
+was dead.
+
+"I figured it would be this way," Billy told himself.  "I didn't see
+how else it could be.  Damn their souls!  They don't stop at anything!"
+
+He continued to stare unblinkingly into the room and after a time he
+made out the dim lines of another man's figure sitting on the table
+beside one of the front windows.  The head of this other man was turned
+away from Billy.  He was watching the draw through the front window.
+But there was no life in the draw--yet.
+
+Billy waited.  He continued to wait.  His feet began to get cold.  They
+gradually grew numb.  The hand that held the six-shooter began to have
+a fellow feeling, or lack of it rather, with the feet.  He changed
+hands and stuffed the chilled hand under his nightshirt into his
+armpit.  A cramp seized his left knee.  He straightened it gingerly and
+ironed out the cramp with the back of his gun hand.
+
+The cold crept up both legs.  When it reached his middle a cramp fell
+hammer-and-tongs upon his right knee, calf and sole of his foot.  He
+straightened that leg and dealt with it like a brother.
+
+S-s-suschloop!  A section of snow several yards square slid off the
+roof and avalanched upon him.  At the sound the figure at the window
+turned as if shot.  Billy, by a supreme effort of will, stifled the
+impulse to dodge and held his body motionless.  He was covered with
+snow.  Snow was down the back of his neck as well as on the window sill
+in front of his mouth.  To all intents and purposes and to any eye he
+was a pile of snow fallen from the roof.
+
+Swiftly the figure on the table walked across the room to Billy's
+window and looked out.  Billy remained with considerable less movement
+than the proverbial mouse.  The snow, while it covered his head, did
+not completely conceal his forehead and eyes.  But Billy reckoned on
+the reflection of the firelight on the window-pane to blind somewhat
+the man within.  For a few seconds the man stood looking out the window
+over Billy's head.  The pile of snow he gave but the most passing of
+glances.
+
+But to the frozen nucleus of the snow pile it seemed that the few
+seconds were hours and that the snow pile was subjected to the most
+searching scrutiny.
+
+The man returned to his post on the table by the front window, and
+Billy breathed again.  He had been unable to distinguish the man's
+features.  The light from the fire was not strong enough.
+
+After another century of waiting Billy perceived that the fire was
+again burning low.  There was a small spurt of sparks as the remnant of
+the log fell apart.  The man slipped from the table and strode across
+the room to the pile of logs and sticks beside the fireplace.
+
+This was the moment for which Billy Wingo had been waiting.  He
+scrambled on hands and knees to the front corner of the ranch house.
+Whipping a box of matches from a hip pocket, he lit one in a cupped
+hand.
+
+He let the match burn his fingers before flipping it down.  He stood at
+gaze, straining his eyes down the draw toward the Hillsville trail.
+Even as he looked a dark object detached itself from some bushes
+several hundred yards distant and moved toward the house.
+
+Billy returned to his post at the window.  Slowly he raised his head to
+the level of the lower crosspiece of the sash.  When his eyes again
+became accustomed to the darkness of the room he saw that the man was
+no longer near the fireplace.  He was standing at the front window,
+staring down the trail.
+
+On account of the soft snow Billy did not hear the approaching horse
+until it had almost reached the ranch house door.  When the horse
+stopped the man inside the ranch house moved quietly to the door and
+stood at one side of it.  His hand moved to his leg and came away.
+
+The rider dismounted.  Billy heard him rattle the latch of the door.
+
+"Don't shoot!" he heard him say in an agonized whisper.  "Don't shoot,
+for Gawd's sake!"
+
+Billy, watching at the window, saw the man in the room fling open the
+door.  For an instant the tall and hatless form of Judge Driver showed
+black against the expanse of snow framed in the doorway.  Again came
+the plea for mercy--a whisper no longer, but a wild cry of "Don't
+shoot!  Don't shoot!  It's me!  Driver!" as the judge, realizing only
+too well that any such outcry was tantamount to a confession of guilt,
+plunged into the room.  Obviously his purpose was to escape the fire of
+the avenging rifles that he had every reason to believe were somewhere
+in the brush along the draw.  He was acting precisely as Billy had
+reckoned he would act, and there was not the slightest danger of Billy
+or any of his men shooting him.  But a very real danger lay behind the
+ranch house door.  The judge's only chance lay in convincing the man
+behind the door in time.
+
+He convinced him.  The man yanked him roughly into the room and slammed
+the door shut.
+
+"Thank Gawd!  Thank Gawd!" babbled the judge, sinking back against the
+door, "I thought you'd shoot me!"
+
+"I damn near did," remarked the man, whose voice Billy now recognized
+as that of a late arrival in town, named Slike.  "If you hadn't jerked
+your hat off so's I could see your face, I would have.  When will Wingo
+get here, and didja get him to come by himself all right?  Huh?  Why
+don't you answer?  Whatsa matter?  Isn't he coming or what?  By Gawd,
+_you're wearing his clothes_!  Where is he?"
+
+"He's here!" gurgled the judge.
+
+"Where?"  Slike's voice was a terrible snarl.
+
+"Here--up on the flat."
+
+Slike promptly seized the judge by the throat.  "Then you led him here.
+What are you trying to do--double-cross me?"
+
+"No, no!" gulped the judge, pulling at the other's wrists.  "I couldn't
+help it!  He forced me to come!"
+
+"Then you did lead him here, damn your soul!  You white-livered cur, do
+you think I'm gonna hang on your account?  What did you tell him?
+Answer me, damn you!"
+
+To the accompaniment of a string of most ferocious oaths, Slike shook
+the judge as the terrier shakes the rat.  The judge fought back as best
+he could.  But he was no match for this man of violence.  Tiring at
+last, Slike flung him on the floor and kicked him.
+
+"I'd oughta stomp you to death!" he squalled.  "What did you tell him?"
+
+"Nothing!  Nothing!" cried the judge.  "He must have guessed it!"
+
+Dan Slike laughed.  It was a laugh to make you flinch away.  The hair
+at the base of Billy Wingo's neck lifted like the hackles of a fighting
+dog.
+
+"Guessed it!" yelped Slike.  "Guessed it!  Aw right, let it go at that.
+How far away is he?"
+
+But the judge had his cue by now.  "He's two or three miles back," he
+said faintly.  "If you start now you can get away."
+
+"You know damn well there's too much snow," snapped Slike.  "How many's
+he got with him?"
+
+"One--two."
+
+Slike kicked the judge in the short ribs.  "How many?  Tell the truth!"
+
+"Tut-two."
+
+"Three in all, huh? and you and me are two--say one man and a half,
+anyway.  Two to one call it.  What's fairer than that, I'd like to
+know?  We'll finish it out in the smoke right now."
+
+"What?"  There was considerably more than pained incredulity in the
+judge's tone.
+
+"We'll shoot it out with 'em here, I said.  I ain't kicked all the
+fighting blood out of you, have I?  If I have I can soon kick it in
+again.  Here, come alive, you lousy pup!  Get the gun off that feller I
+downed.  It's on his leg yet.  His Winchester is over there in the
+corner.  It's loaded, and there's two boxes of cartridges on that
+shelf.  Bring 'em all over here.  Then you take that window and I'll
+take this one.  We'll give 'em the surprise of their young lives.  Get
+a wiggle on you, Judge.  You've got a brush ahead of you.  Fight?  You
+can gamble you'll fight!  It's you or them, remember!"
+
+"Suppose he comes bustin' in the back way?" quavered the judge,
+perceiving that he had indeed fallen between two stools.
+
+"We'll try to take care of him.  But he'll come the other way, I guess."
+
+But Slike guessed wrong, for Billy Wingo, judging that the
+psychological moment had arrived, shoved his gun hand through a window
+pane and shouted, "Hands up!"
+
+"You dirty Judas!" yelled Slike and, firing from the hip, he whipped
+three shots into the judge before he himself fell with four of Billy
+Wingo's bullets through his shoulder and neck.
+
+Shot through and through, Judge Driver dropped in a huddle and died.
+
+Slike, supporting himself on an elbow, mouthed curses at the man who he
+believed had betrayed him.  The murderer's supporting arm slid out from
+under and he collapsed in a dead faint, even as Billy Wingo, with
+window glass cascading from his head and shoulders, sprang into the
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+OPEN AND SHUT
+
+"Well," said the district attorney, "you can't hold this man on any
+such biased evidence as this."
+
+"But you see I am holding him," pointed out Billy Wingo.
+
+"They'll get him out on a writ of habeas corpus."
+
+"They?  Who's they?"
+
+"His friends.  I suppose the man has friends."
+
+"Oh, yes," acquiesced Billy, "the man has friends.  Too many friends."
+
+The district attorney looked away.  "You'd better let him escape--or
+something," he suggested brazenly.  "We--we mustn't be made ridiculous,
+you know."
+
+"We?  We?  Don't get me mixed up with you, Rale.  I'm particular who I
+bracket with, sort of.  Another thing, the last time you were in here
+you went out on your head, remember.  Well, lemme point out that you're
+here, I'm here, so's the door, and history is just the same thing over
+again."
+
+The close-set little eyes wavered.  "I tell you, Wingo, the case looks
+black for you too."
+
+Billy Wingo rolled and lit a placid cigarette before he spoke.  "Black?
+For me?"  Inquiringly.
+
+"I'm afraid so."
+
+"You mean you hope so.  Go on."
+
+"There are a great many strange things about the whole affair.  For
+instance, why was Judge Driver wearing your clothes when the bodies
+were found?  If, as you say, you saw the whole thing, why did you not
+prevent the murder?  How do we know that you did not kill both Tom
+Walton and the judge and then lay the blame on this stranger?"
+
+"You don't know," admitted Billy.  "That's the worst of it.  But you
+will know.  Yeah, you will know."
+
+"I intend to look into your side of the case very closely, Wingo,"
+declared the district attorney.  "It may be that everything has not yet
+been told."
+
+"There is more in this than meets the eye," nodded Billy.
+"Considerable more."
+
+"If you persist in holding this man for a hearing," said Rale
+impressively, "it may--will, I should say--involve you.  I'd hate to
+see you get into trouble."
+
+"I'll bet you would," Billy concurred warmly.  "You'd hate it like you
+do your left eye.  But I'm gonna gamble with you.  I'll hold the man
+till the judge decides what to do."
+
+"In that case, I'll send for Judge Clasp at once."
+
+"Why Judge Clasp?  Why bother that old gent?"
+
+"Because Driver's dead," the district attorney explained impatiently.
+"We have to have a judge to hold the hearing."
+
+"Oh, I know all about that.  I've sent for one."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Judge Donelson."
+
+"But he's the Federal judge, and he lives way over in Hillsville,"
+objected Rale.  "Judge Clasp is nearer.  In a case of this kind when
+the judge of a district is unavailable, the nearest judge takes over
+the district.  The statutes----"
+
+"The statutes say 'any judge,'" interrupted Billy Wingo.  "On this
+point I am quite clear.  I looked it up to make sure.  'Any judge'
+means 'any judge.'  Nothing else.  And you know that Judge Donelson is
+a territorial as well as Federal Judge.  Technicalities can't pull your
+wagon out of this hole, Arthur, old settler."
+
+"I shall send for Judge Clasp at once," bumbled Arthur, old settler.
+
+"If you send right away, he should be here by day after to-morrow.
+Yep, day after to-morrow at the earliest."
+
+"Judge Donelson can't get here till the day after that," said Rale
+triumphantly.
+
+"Oh, he can't, can't he?" smiled Billy.  "Unless he has an accident
+he'll be here to-morrow.  You see, Arthur, I started Riley Tyler off to
+Hillsville ten minutes after I arrested Slike.  That's why I'm gamblin'
+that Judge Donelson will get here first."
+
+The district attorney openly lost his temper.  "I don't regard the
+evidence as given sufficient for indictment.  I shall ask the judge not
+to hold him."
+
+"Don't do anything rash, Arthur.  Remember the hearing will be at the
+Walton ranch to-morrow afternoon."
+
+"The Walton ranch!  It'll be held here in Driver's office, that's where
+it will be held."
+
+"Not a-tall.  I want Judge Donelson to see the layout.  Then he'll be
+able to tell better what's what.  The Walton ranch to-morrow afternoon.
+Don't forget."
+
+
+"Your Honor, I don't see how this man can be held," protested the
+district attorney.  "I claim that the sheriff's testimony is biased.
+How do we know that it wasn't the sheriff himself who murdered both men
+and wounded Slike?"
+
+"You can easily see, Judge," put in the coroner smoothly, "How flimsy
+the evidence is against the prisoner.  It is practically his word
+against the sheriff's The prisoner has explained everything--how he was
+coming to the ranch on business and was arrested by the sheriff the
+minute he stepped inside the doorway.  Why, your Honor, it's the
+plainest open-and-shut case I ever saw.  Absolutely nothing to it."
+
+"The coroner's right," boomed the district attorney.  "And I hereby ask
+that Dan Slike be released from custody and----" he paused dramatically.
+
+"Well--" prompted Judge Donelson, his old eyes inscrutable.
+
+"And I feel it my duty to charge the sheriff, William H. Wingo, with
+the murder of Thomas Walton, the murder of Judge Driver, and assault
+with intent to kill upon Daniel Slike."
+
+"Didn't the coroner's jury bring in a verdict of 'at the hands of
+persons unknown'?" inquired Judge Donelson.
+
+"They did," admitted the district attorney, "but it was in direct
+opposition to the evidence.  Indeed, the coroner instructed the jurymen
+otherwise."
+
+"Then he exceeded his duty.  But that by the way.  The jury brought in
+a 'persons unknown' verdict.  However, I do not agree with the jury."
+
+"I knew you would not," the district attorney cried triumphantly.
+
+"No, I believe the person is known.  Sheriff, will you tell us in your
+own words, how you happened to be on hand in time to be a witness of
+the murder of Judge Driver?"
+
+Like so many trained seals those present turned their heads to stare at
+the sheriff.  Some eyes were friendly, some noncommittal, but the
+majority were unfriendly.  This was because the crowd consisted largely
+of county office-holders.  Billy gave a straightforward and detailed
+account of everything that had led up to the murder of Judge Driver.
+
+As he concluded his story Judge Donelson nodded a slow head.  "Why did
+you not immediately enter the ranch house after you looked in the
+window and saw the boot soles of the dead man?"
+
+"Judge," said Billy, with a whimsical smile, "suppose now you went out
+hunting and you wanted to get more than one deer and had only one
+cartridge, what would you do--shoot the first deer you saw or wait till
+you got two in line?"
+
+"I see," nodded the Judge.  "I see.  Still, Sheriff, there is the word
+of Dan Slike.  It would have been better had you had another witness."
+
+"Another witness," said Billy.  "If that's all you want I have one.
+Riley Tyler, stand up."
+
+The younger deputy stood up and was duly sworn.  He deposed that the
+sheriff's match signal to Guerilla Melody to send the judge down to the
+house had been also a signal to him, Riley Tyler, to come down from the
+flat and take position under the window directly opposite the one at
+which the sheriff was posted.  All this had taken place according to
+plan.  Riley Tyler had heard every word uttered by both the judge and
+Dan Slike and had also seen Slike shoot the judge.  Furthermore he had
+talked with the Federal deputy marshal in Hillsville and learned that
+the marshal had never even thought of asking Judge Driver to approach
+the sheriff concerning the alleged bootlegging activities of Jake
+Kilroe.
+
+Riley Tyler concluded his testimony and sat down, taking occasion as he
+did so to wink at the district attorney.  The latter glared back with
+frank dislike.
+
+"The evidence I have just heard," said Judge Donelson, "is clear.
+There is no shred, jot or tittle of it that throws suspicion on Sheriff
+Wingo.  I will hold Daniel Slike for the grand jury.  If Judge Driver
+were alive, I would hold him as accessory before and after the fact.
+Do you still think, Mr. Rale, that Mr. Wingo should be held?"
+
+"Why--uh--uh----" stalled the district attorney.
+
+"Tell me," persisted Judge Donelson, "exactly what you think?"
+
+But the district attorney did not dare tell Judge Donelson anything
+like that.  Instead he said, with a smile he strove to make natural and
+pleasant:
+
+"Hold Mr. Wingo?  Certainly not.  I have misjudged him.  I am sure he
+will not bear malice against me."
+
+"Hold it against Mr. Rale?" said Billy, with the straightest face in
+the world.  "Certainly not.  I have misjudged him.  But I am sure he
+will not bear malice against me."
+
+Even the judge smiled.
+
+Dan Slike, lying on an improvised bed of blankets in the corner of the
+room, raised his head.  "You'll never hang me, y'understand," said Dan
+Slike.  "And you ain't got a jail in the territory big enough to hold
+me after I get shut of these scratches.  I'll see you later, Sheriff."
+
+Dan Slike added a curse or two and relapsed into silence.  Not a
+likable person, Mr. Slike.  No, not at all.
+
+
+"This," said Rafe Tuckleton, "is a helluva note."
+
+"It's all your fault," the district attorney recriminated bitterly.
+
+"You did most of it," flung back Rafe, always an enthusiastic player at
+the great game of passing the buck.  "You know damn well----"
+
+"Who thought of it first?" interrupted the district attorney.  "Who was
+the bright li'l feller, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Don't you try to ride me," snarled the genial Rafe.  "Dontcha do it."
+
+"Aw, shut up; you gimme a pain!  Gawd, and I'll bet your parents
+thought you was just too cunnin' for anything.  It's a shame they let
+you live.  To think of all the fatal accidents that might have happened
+to you, and didn't, almost makes a feller lose his faith in Providence.
+'Oh, yes,' says you, 'Wingo will walk into the trap with his eyes shut.
+It'll be just too easy.'"
+
+"Well, the first part worked all right," protested Rafe Tuckleton.
+"Dan downed Walton without any trouble.  How could I tell Driver would
+slip up on his part?  I'm glad Slike downed him.  Served him right for
+being a fool.  Reelfoot did his part all right, too."
+
+"How do we know Reelfoot did?  How do we know what happened before the
+fraycas at Walton's?  We don't.  We don't know anything except that Tom
+Driver is dead, Dan Slike wounded in the calaboose, and Skinny Shindle
+has skedaddled."
+
+"Skinny tell any one where he was goin'?"
+
+"He did not.  Soon as he heard that infernal Bill Wingo had pulled
+through without a hole in him, Skinny saddled his horse and went
+some'ers else a-whoopin'.  And I don't think he expects to come back.
+Oh, it's a fine mix-up all round, a fine mix-up."
+
+"Sh-sh," cautioned Rafe.  "Somebody coming--oh, it's you, Tip.  'Lo."
+
+"Yeah, it's me, Tip," said O'Gorman, closing the door carefully and
+sitting down on the only vacant chair.  "Look here, Rafe, what did I
+tell you about downing Tom Walton?"
+
+"I ain't downed Tom Walton," denied Rafe sullenly.
+
+"You had it done," insisted O'Gorman.
+
+"How do you know I did?" dodged Rafe.
+
+"By the way it was gormed up."
+
+"I suppose now if you'd planned it----"
+
+"I wouldn't have planned it in the first place.  I told you to keep
+your paws off, and now look at the damn thing."
+
+"It wasn't my fault," barked back Rafe.
+
+"Can't you say anything different?" the district attorney threw in
+drearily.
+
+"You don't even seem able to obey orders any more," said Tip O'Gorman.
+
+"I don't have to take orders from you," flared up Rafe.
+
+"No, you don't have to.  Nobody has to do anything they don't want to.
+But we've decided, Rafe, that hereafter you sit on the tail-board.  You
+don't pick up the lines again, see."
+
+"Who's we?" demanded Rafe.
+
+"Craft, Larder and myself."
+
+"You can't do anything!" Contemptuously.
+
+"No?  For one thing, we can keep you from shipping so much as a single
+cow."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Our ranges surround you on three sides, and where we don't fit in, the
+mountains do.  You can't drive through the mountains, and we won't let
+you drive through us.  That's how."
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Yeah, it's root, hog, or die, feller.  You gonna be good?"
+
+"I--I suppose so."
+
+"Good enough.  One slip on your part and you know what happens, Rafe.
+Bear it in mind, and it'll be money in your pocket."
+
+"You talk like a minister."
+
+"I wish I was one, preaching the funeral sermon over your grave.  Lord,
+what a stinking skunk you are, Rafe!"
+
+"Look here----"
+
+"Blah!  You are a skunk.  So crazy after money you had to go and hurt
+li'l Hazel Walton.  Damn your soul, I told you not to do anything to
+hurt her!  And you bulled right ahead!  You lousy packrat, you've
+broken that child's heart!  She thought the world and all of her uncle,
+she did.  I tell you, Rafe, you ain't fit to drink with a Digger or eat
+with a dog!"
+
+"I ain't gonna fight with you," declared Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"I was hoping you would," averred Tip.  "There'd be one tom-fool less
+to worry about if you did."
+
+"No, I can wait," said Rafe with a feline grin.
+
+"Oh, I'll be watching you, you rattle-snake," nodded Tip.
+
+"Go easy, you two!" snapped the district attorney, as a dog in the next
+room began to bark.  "There's somebody comin' up the path."
+
+The squabble went dead.
+
+"Good thing the wind's yowlin' its head off to-night," observed Tip
+O'Gorman.  "I forgot myself for a shake."
+
+Rafe Tuckleton looked at the floor.  There was venom in his heart and
+death in his thoughts.
+
+Tip O'Gorman fingered out the makings.
+
+He was shaking in the tobacco when Billy Wingo opened the door and
+strode without ceremony into the office.  He was followed by Riley
+Tyler.  The latter slammed the door behind him and set his back against
+it.
+
+"Three li'l friends together," said Billy, his eyes gleaming at them
+beneath the peak of his fur cap.  "I saw your light as I was passing,
+Arthur, and I thought I'd sift in and thank you for all those kind
+words of yours yesterday.  I appreciated 'em, you bet.  You too, Rafe,
+did about as well as could be expected.  Tip is the only one I can't
+thank."
+
+He smiled lazily on Tip.  The latter grinned back.
+
+"It ain't my fault you can't," returned Tip cryptically.
+
+Billy nodded, although naturally he did not grasp the other's meaning,
+and said, "Got another li'l matter for you gentlemen.  Finding you all
+together thisaway is gonna save me trouble.  I'm in luck to-night."
+
+"Aw, spit it out!" Rafe directed rudely.
+
+Billy looked pained.  "Our long-faced li'l playmate seems all fussed up
+over something.  Well, boys will be boys, I suppose, and burned fingers
+now and then have got to be expected."
+
+He paused and regarded them gravely.  Rafe's answering stare was
+darkling, the district attorney's uncomfortable, while Tip's was
+impersonal.
+
+"I hope you boys are feeling generous to-night," resumed Billy.
+
+Rafe Tuckleton stole a glance at O'Gorman.  Generous?
+
+"The fact is," went on the calm voice, "I'm takin' up a collection--a
+collection for Tom Walton's niece, Hazel."
+
+Billy thought that at the mention of the ranchman's name both the
+district attorney and Tuckleton stiffened their slouching bodies, but
+he could not be positive.  The lamp on the table gave a poor, weak
+light.
+
+"Her uncle's gettin' downed thisaway will be a bad blow for her.  He
+was all she had.  Y'understand now--the girl won't ever know that this
+is any benefit like.  She mustn't ever know.  It's insurance on Tom's
+life, see?  Sam Prescott was keepin' the policy for him in his safe.
+Tom must have forgot to tell her about it.  That's what Sam's going to
+tell her.  How much will you boys give?"
+
+Tip O'Gorman did not hesitate.  "You can put us down for a thousand
+apiece."
+
+"_What!_" chorused the district attorney and Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+The sheriff cocked an eyebrow at the two men.  "You think it's too
+little?  Well, I guess maybe you're right.  A thousand is enough for
+Tip here, but you two are rich men.  Say twice that--two thousand from
+each of you will be about right."
+
+The two rich men were speechless.  But only for a moment.
+
+"Two thousand!" gasped Rafe.  "Not a nickel."
+
+"Not a thin dime!" contradicted the district attorney.
+
+"Say not so!" said Billy Wingo.
+
+Tip O'Gorman nodded.  "'Say not so,' is right."
+
+Billy looked at the speaker approvingly.  "I'm glad Tip agrees with me.
+I'll take the money in gold, greenbacks and silver.  No drafts."
+
+The district attorney squealed like a stuck pig.  "No nothing, you
+mean!  Whadda you think we are?"
+
+"A couple of rascals," was the prompt reply.  "And there's a tax on
+rascals.  _That li'l girl has got to be taken care of_."
+
+Billy's voice was earnest.  But a sardonic devil looked out of his
+eyes.  He yearned with a great yearning for the district attorney and
+Rafe Tuckleton to join battle with him.  He knew that he could easily
+take care of both.  Tip O'Gorman was the unknown quantity.  One could
+never be quite sure what Tip was thinking.  One thing, Tip was neither
+a murderer nor a dealer in murder.  That had never been Tip's way.  And
+something told Billy that in the present crisis Tip would keep his
+hands off.  The issue lay strictly between Rafe, the district attorney
+and Billy Wingo.
+
+The district attorney by a great effort recovered his mental balance.
+"You are threatening," he bumbled lamely.
+
+"Not a-tall," returned Bill.  "I only said you and Rafe are a couple of
+rascals.  What's fairer than that, I'd like to know?"
+
+"It's blackmail--extortion," the district attorney trotted on.
+
+"Blackmail and extortion to subscribe money for the support of a girl
+whose uncle has been murdered?  No, no, you don't mean it, Arthur, old
+settler.  You mean that you and Rafe will be glad to do your parts.
+That's what you mean."
+
+"No."  Thus Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+"Yes--and again yes.  Three times in fact.  Rafe, how about that last
+deal of yours with the Indian agent?  Remember it?  The agent,
+y'understand, gets drunk sometimes, and a drunk will talk.  Ever
+thought of that?"
+
+If Rafe had not thought of that, he thought of it now.
+
+"And how about that last bribe you took?" pressed Billy, turning
+accusingly on the district attorney.
+
+The immediate shrinkage in the form of the district attorney was
+plainly visible to the naked eye.  He went a trifle paler too.
+
+"Do I get the two thousand apiece for Hazel Walton, Arthur?" demanded
+Billy.
+
+"Why-uh--yes, yes, of course.  I'd always intended to contribute.  I
+was just fooling.  Yes."
+
+"And you, Rafe?"
+
+Rafe Tuckleton nodded a reluctant head.  "I'll pay."
+
+"That's fine," said Billy heartily.  "I'll be around to-morrow for the
+money."
+
+Rafe Tuckleton did not attempt to demur at the shortness of time as he
+had done with Dan Slike.  He recognized the utter futility of arguing
+with a man like Billy Wingo.
+
+"By the way," said Billy, staring hard at Rafe Tuckleton, "I wonder if
+it was any part of Dan Slike's plan to kill Miss Walton too?"
+
+Rafe's face went wooden.  "How should I know?"
+
+Billy nodded.  "I was just wonderin'.  No harm in that, I suppose.
+Lucky she wasn't there alla same."
+
+"It was lucky," stated Tip O'Gorman.  "Do you know I've been doing a
+li'l wondering myself.  Why wasn't she there?"
+
+"She just happened to be visiting the Prescotts'," replied Billy Wingo,
+his eyes on Rafe's face.
+
+Rafe did his best to return the stare, but his eyes would drop despite
+his best effort.
+
+"You know that letter from Miss Walton Judge Driver threw in the
+fire--the one you heard me telling Judge Donelson about?" went on
+Billy.  "Yeah, that one.  It might have fooled me--I'm only human, you
+know, if----"
+
+"You're too modest," Tip interrupted dryly.
+
+"If it hadn't been for one or two li'l things," resumed Billy.  "The
+handwriting was a fine imitation--you couldn't beat it.  But I knew she
+hadn't written it."  He paused, and began to roll a cigarette.
+
+Rafe Tuckleton passed his tongue across his lips.  The district
+attorney looked down at his locked hands.  Of the three Tip O'Gorman
+was the only one to remain his natural self.
+
+"G'on," urged Tip, "give it a name."
+
+"You see," said Billy, "Skinny Shindle told me Miss Walton gave him the
+note about 2.30 P.M.  Now on that afternoon I happened to be at the
+Prescott ranch.  Miss Walton was there visiting Miss Prescott.  I
+didn't leave the Prescotts' till nearly three o'clock, and Miss Walton
+was still there and intending to spend the night.  That's how I knew
+she couldn't have written that note."
+
+"Nine miles from Prescott's to Walton's," said Tip.
+
+"Nearer ten," corrected Billy.  "Skinny was sure careless.  So were
+several other men.  You've got to make things fit."
+
+He nodded kindly to the company and abruptly departed with his
+companion.
+
+"I wonder what he meant by 'making things fit,'" mused the district
+attorney, following five minutes' silence.
+
+"I dunno," Rafe mumbled in accents of the deepest gloom, "but you can
+put down a bet he meant something."
+
+"He did," declared Tip O'Gorman, "and I'm telling you two straight,
+flat and final, you ain't fit to play checkers with a blind man.  It
+makes a feller ashamed to do business with you, you're so thumb-handed,
+tumble-footed foolish.  At the time the note was written from Walton's
+the girl was at Prescott's.  Oh, great!  And he knew it alla time.  And
+you two jokes wondered why your scheme fell through!  You know now,
+don't you?  Gawd!  What a pair you are!  Oh, I've always believed that
+a man makes his own li'l hell.  Whatever devilishness he does on this
+earth he pays for on this earth.  You fellers are already beginning to
+pay."
+
+Thus Tip O'Gorman, the moralist.  He departed wrapped in a virtuous
+silence.  He did not dare let the others know the actual worry that
+rode his soul.  He knew it was only a matter of time when Billy Wingo
+would be camping on his trail too.  Lord, how he'd been fooled!  He had
+never suspected that the sheriff possessed such capabilities.  And how
+had the sheriff learned of that flour deal between Rafe and the Indian
+agent.  The flour supposed to have been bought through another man.
+Rafe had not appeared in the affair at all, yet Billy Wingo knew all
+about it.
+
+And the bribe taken by the district attorney.  There was another odd
+chance.  Besides the two principals, Rafe Tuckleton and himself, Tip
+had not supposed that any one knew of the matter.  It was very
+mysterious.
+
+Tip could have kicked himself.  He alone was the individual responsible
+for the whole trouble.  If only he had not proposed the election of
+Billy Wingo--  But he had proposed it, and now look at the result!
+
+"Say, Bill," said the greatly impressed Riley Tyler on the way to the
+office, "what's this about that deal of Rafe's with the Indian agent?
+You never said anything about it before."
+
+"Good reason," grinned Billy, "it just occurred to me."
+
+"Occurred to you?" puzzled Riley.
+
+"Yeah, I don't actually know of any deal between Rafe and that thief of
+an agent; but knowing Rafe and knowing the agent, I guessed likely they
+had been mixed up together in a business way.  Seems I guessed right.
+Same with the district attorney, only easier.  If he's taken one bribe,
+he's taken forty.  Wouldn't be Arthur Rale if he hadn't."
+
+Riley Tyler chuckled.  "Poker is one fine game," said Riley Tyler.
+
+At the office they found Shotgun Shillman.
+
+"What luck?" asked Billy.
+
+"Plenty," was the reply.  "We went to the Cayley cabin first.  Nobody
+livin' there.  Ashes in the fireplace might have been a week or a month
+old.  But the balsam tips in the bunks were older than that.  They were
+last summer's cutting--all stiffer than a porcupine's quills."
+
+"As I remember that cabin," reflected Billy, "the balsam grew all
+around it."
+
+"They still do.  We found a quarter of beef hanging on a stub back of
+the house.  'There,' says Simon, 'there's proof for you.'  'Yes,' I
+says, 'let's see the cow it came off of.'  'Whatsa use?' says Simon.
+
+"'Lots,' I says.  'C'mon.'  He did reluctant, bellowing alla time how
+we'd oughta follow the tracks leading away from the house toward the
+Hillsville trail a mile away."
+
+"Were those tracks made by one man?" inquired Billy.
+
+"Looked so to me--anyway, we went along on the line of tracks leading
+to the dead cow.  It had been shot all right enough.  It oughta been
+shot.  It had big-jaw."
+
+"'You mean to tell me them fellers cut that quarter off a big-jaw cow?'
+I says to Simon.  'Sure,' he says.  'Aw right,' I says.  'Let it go at
+that.'  I poked around to find the other cow.  Simon raising objections
+alla time to me wastin' so much time and trying to get me off the
+trail.  Oh, he didn't care a whoop about me finding the second cow.
+Wasn't one enough?  Oh, sure, to hear him talk!  But I found the cow.
+It hadn't been shot a-tall.  Died of the yallers last fall.  And it had
+just about half rotted before freezing weather set in.  'I suppose,' I
+says sarcastic, 'both cows were killed about the same time.'  'You've
+guessed it,' says Simon, bold as brass.  'Now all you gotta do is chase
+right along back to the cabin and take up the trail like I wanted you
+to do in the first place and trail 'em down.'  He acted real
+disappointed when I left him standin' there and came away.  I'd have
+arrested him right then only you said not to."
+
+"Good enough," approved Billy.  "Plenty of time to arrest him later.  I
+want to give him plenty of rope.  One of these days I'll get a subpoena
+from Judge Donelson and serve it on him.  That'll give him plenty of
+time to think things over between now and the trial."
+
+"Simon ain't the kind to take things easy," mused Shotgun Shillman.
+
+"He'll fret his head off.  About the time Slike is well enough to stand
+prosecution, Simon Reelfoot will be ready to bust."
+
+But the well-known best-laid plans are more breakable than the equally
+well-known best-laid eggs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT
+
+"I tell you, Rafe," said Reelfoot in a panic, "they suspect me--they
+think I'm mixed up in this murder business."
+
+"Accessory before and after the fact," slipped in the district
+attorney.  A reptile himself, he relished the wrigglings of another
+reptile.  "If they prove it on you, you'll be hanged sure as Dan Slike
+will hang."
+
+"I ain't the only one they can prove it on," snarled Simon Reelfoot.
+
+"Who have you got in mind?" Rafe Tuckleton said in a colorless voice.
+
+"Both of you, for instance," Reelfoot informed him.
+
+"You do us a grave injustice."  Thus the district attorney solemnly.
+
+Rafe Tuckleton shook his head at Simon.  "Wrong tree.  You don't know
+anything about us."
+
+Simon Reelfoot gaped at both of them.  "Why, we fixed it up between us.
+You know we did.  You even wanted two cows killed so's to make it look
+lifelike to the deputies."
+
+Rafe looked at the district attorney.  "The man's mad."
+
+Simon's teeth snapped together like a cornered coyote.  "If you're
+trying to put this thing all off on me--" he began, and stopped.
+
+"We're not trying to put anything off on you," the district attorney
+told him silkily.  "There's nothing to put off on you anyway.  Not a
+thing.  You're nervous, that's all, Simon.  Your imagination is working
+overtime."
+
+"Sure is," corroborated Rafe.  "You don't think we've got anything to
+do with the murder of Tom Walton, do you, Simon?"
+
+The Reelfoot jaw dropped.  The man stared helplessly at Rafe and the
+district attorney.  "Whatell did--  Say, what else was all that
+rigamarole for then?"
+
+"What rigamarole?"  Oh, so patient was the voice of Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+Reelfoot gulped.  "You had me go to Wingo's office, and rile him up,
+and spin him a lot of jerkwater stuff about my rustled cows, so's to
+get him and his deputies all ready to go away with me, when Driver was
+to come in with that stuff about Kilroe and keep Bill in town while the
+deputies went with me.  Well, you know how only Shillman went.  But I
+couldn't help that.  Anyway, I suppose you thought you was foxy not to
+tell me the rest of the story about Skinny Shindle and the fake letter
+and so forth.  Gents, you was foxy.  Yeah, you was foxy.  But I'm foxy
+himself.  I can put two and two together and make four any day."
+
+He paused and glared at the pair of them.  "I wondered what it was all
+about.  Yeah, I wondered, and I asked you and you said it was to keep
+Bill Wingo from mixing into a li'l stock deal.  Stock deal!"  Here
+Simon spat upon the floor.  "Stock deal!" rushed on Simon.  "You never
+said it was murder."
+
+Rafe Tuckleton and the district attorney exchanged wooden looks.
+
+"Now that you mention it," said Rafe, "I don't believe we did."
+
+"I thought you didn't like Tom Walton," observed the district attorney.
+
+Simon Reelfoot swore a string of oaths.  "I didn't like him, not a bit.
+But I don't want to be hung for helping having him killed."
+
+"That would be unfortunate," murmured the district attorney.
+
+"I ain't sorry he was killed, of course," Simon fretted on, unheeding.
+"That part was all right, but I didn't want to be mixed up in it.
+There's no sense in doing a thing like that if you're gonna be caught.
+And I don't mean to be caught!  You didn't have no right to get me into
+this deal without telling me all the circumstances first," he concluded
+weakly.
+
+"Then you think you've been badly treated?" purred the district
+attorney.
+
+"I know it," declared Simon.
+
+"I'm sorry."
+
+"I didn't come here for sympathy."
+
+"What did you come for?"
+
+"Protection.  What do you s'pose?  You've gotta protect me."
+
+"Listen to him, Rafe.  Says we gotta protect him.  That new brand of
+whisky at George's Place is certainly awful stuff.  If you'll take my
+advice, Simon, you'll go a li'l easy on it till your system gets used
+to it."
+
+"Yeah, sosh up by degrees like," offered Rafe.
+
+"Look here," said the exasperated Reelfoot, "either you fellers pull
+suspicion off o' me, or I go to Wingo with the whole story."
+
+"What'll that get you?" demanded Rafe.  "Nothin', just nothin'.  Wild
+tales of dead cows and separatin' Bill from his deputies and all ain't
+evidence.  Nawsir.  Think again, brother, think again."
+
+"And, anyway," tucked in the district attorney, "what was wrong with
+the wild tale?  It came straight enough.  There were the tracks and
+there were the cows.  Who can say your story wasn't the truth?"
+
+"I tell you, they _know_ it ain't the truth."
+
+"How do they know?"
+
+Simon did not make immediate reply.  It was the worst thing he could
+have done.
+
+"Well?" prompted Rafe.
+
+"They--uh--uh--they know it."
+
+"How, I asked you?"
+
+"They didn't--Shillman got suspicious over the cows."
+
+"Why did he get suspicious over the cows?"
+
+Simon Reelfoot wriggled in his chair.  "Well--uh--I--he did, that's
+all."
+
+Rafe leaned forward.  His face was sharp with suspicion.  "_Why did
+he?_"
+
+"I--I----" Simon stammered, and bogged down right there.
+
+"C'mon," directed Rafe inexorably.  "Spit it out."
+
+"One of the cows had big-jaw," admitted Reelfoot.
+
+Rafe sucked in his breath.
+
+"What did the other one have?" almost whispered the district attorney.
+
+"The other one died of the yallers last fall," said Reelfoot in a voice
+that matched the district attorney's.  "But," he added hastily, "it
+come on to freeze soon after.  I--I sort o' hated to kill two _good_
+cows."
+
+"Seeing that two good cows were all you were putting up in return for
+the benefits you would derive from the--uh--political situation, you
+could have afforded to lose them."  Thus the district attorney, staring
+at Reelfoot.
+
+The latter looked with sullen foreboding at Rafe.  The Tuckleton face
+was bloated with rage.
+
+"So that's how it is!" he choked out.  "You had your orders and you
+muddled them out of rank meanness!  Too stingy to kill a couple of
+healthy cows, you hadda risk everything with one that died last year
+and another with big-jaw!  And then, after you've got 'em suspectin'
+you good and strong through what's first, last, and only your own
+fault, you come to us for help!"
+
+"Where else could I go?" queried Reelfoot sulkily.
+
+"To hell for all I care, you half-witted fool!  A big-jaw steer!  And
+the other one half rotten, I'll bet!"
+
+"I didn't think he'd notice it," defended Simon.
+
+"You didn't think!  No, I'll gamble you didn't!  You never have!  You
+couldn't!  My Gawd, you deserve to be hung!  I hope you are!"
+
+"You forget, Rafe," said the district attorney, "that you and I don't
+know what all Mr. Reelfoot is driving at."
+
+But Rafe Tuckleton was too angry to keep up the farce any longer.  "I
+hope the fool's hung!" he panted.
+
+"I'll take care not to go alone," said Reelfoot, pressing his
+advantage.  "You fellers will have to see that I'm protected or I'll
+tell what I know."
+
+"Blah!" blared the district attorney.  "You wouldn't dare snitch!"
+
+"I'll dare more than that to save my skin," Reelfoot declared hardily.
+
+Rafe Tuckleton returned to the charge.  "What in so-and-so and
+such-and-such did you do such a fool trick for?  Don't you
+know--couldn't you--oh, whatsa use?"
+
+"You oughta told me all the circumstances," persisted Reelfoot.  "That
+was _your_ fault.  If I'd knowed, I could have managed better."
+
+"I expect--you couldn't," said Rafe Tuckleton, with an appreciable
+pause after each word.
+
+"What you gonna do about it?" Reelfoot wanted to know, fidgeting in his
+chair.
+
+"You'll be taken care of now, you needn't to worry."
+
+"Oh, fine, fi-ine.  That helps a lot, that does, with either Bill Wingo
+or one of his deputies over to my place about every other day, snoopin'
+round and talking to my men."
+
+"They do that, do they?"
+
+"Yes, they do that."
+
+"What of it?" demanded Rafe.  "They can't find out anything, can they?
+You weren't fool enough to let on to your men--your foreman or anybody,
+were you?"
+
+"Sure not.  But----"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I don't like 'em slouchin' round this way.  You dunno what'll happen.
+They might find out somethin' you can't tell."
+
+"If you didn't tell any of your men, you're safe," soothed the district
+attorney, "so long as you keep your upper lip stiff.  You're just a
+li'l nervous, that's all, Simon.  Nothing to worry you a-tall.  Here,
+have another drink.  Rafe, shove the bottle over, will you?"
+
+Rafe Tuckleton pettishly obeyed, muttering under his breath.  It was
+only too painfully obvious that Reelfoot's remarks had upset him, and
+he didn't care who knew it.
+
+"Look here, Simon," he said suddenly.  "You wanna leave right here your
+notion that you'll snitch if it comes to the squeak."
+
+"I'll think about it," said Simon, setting down his glass deliberately.
+
+"Because," Rafe continued, as though there had been no interruption,
+"you wanna remember it's almost as easy to kill two men as it is one."
+
+"I'd thought of that," said Simon, "and I brought two of my men with me
+to-night.  They're down at the saloon waiting for me now."
+
+"A lot of good they are down there," sneered Rafe.
+
+"But they can do you and Arthur here a lot of harm later--if anything
+happens."
+
+"Don't you trust us?"
+
+"Not so far as I can throw a calf by the tail," was the candid reply.
+"I'm goin' now.  You fellers scratch your heads over what I've said.  I
+ain't gonna go to the pen for anybody, and you can stick a pin in that."
+
+When Simon was gone, the district attorney and Rafe sat in silence
+while a man, had one been so inclined, might have counted three
+hundred.  Neither looked at the other.  Rafe fiddled with his glass on
+the tabletop.  The district attorney rolled a slow cigarette.
+
+The district attorney was the first to break the silence with, "Simon's
+got a bad case of nerves."
+
+"We oughtn't to have used him," said Rafe.  "First thing you know the
+tom fool will say or do something we'll all be sorry for.  I didn't
+think he was like that."
+
+"Maybe we'd ought to have told him all of it from the beginning."
+
+"Not that.  No, he'd never have gone in it then.  He ain't got nerve
+enough.  I'm afraid Reelfoot's days of usefulness to us are over."
+
+"He's done good work in the past."
+
+"The past ain't now.  And I tell you, Arthur, if Simon gets any more
+jumpy than he is now, he'll kick the kettle over.  You hear me, he'll
+do it, the pup!"
+
+Rafe allowed the district attorney two full minutes to mull over this,
+then he continued:
+
+"We gotta get rid of him."
+
+The district attorney looked over at Rafe, his upper lip lifting.  "I
+suppose we gotta."
+
+"We'll work the old game over again."
+
+"Not on your life!  We turned it once!  And that was one too many."
+
+"We had bad luck, that's all.  Just a li'l hard luck.  Look here,
+didn't Simon say either Bill or one of his deputies were always
+snooping round his ranch?  All right, what more do we want?  We can fix
+it so's to get rid of two birds at a clip.  And it'll work this trip.
+We'll do it all right."
+
+"We'll have to."  The district attorney smiled grimly.
+
+Rafe Tuckleton gazed speculatively upon his friend.  "How about Tip
+O'Gorman?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+Rafe came flatly to the point.  "How about gettin' rid of him, too?"
+
+But this was going too fast for the district attorney.  He shook his
+head.  "No.  Too dangerous."
+
+"Now look here," said Rafe, leaning forward and tapping the district
+attorney's knee with a persuasive forefinger, "you're forgetting that
+all this trouble we're having is due to Tip O'Gorman.  If it hadn't
+been for him wanting a 'safe' man, Jack Murray would have been elected,
+and everything about now would be fine as frawg's hair in January."
+
+"Well, we had to give 'em one honest man," said the district attorney
+cynically.  "The voters were getting ideas."
+
+"Rats," snorted Rafe.  "What if they were?  I don't give a damn what
+Tip or anybody says, we were strong enough to elect our whole ticket.
+Huh?  No 'maybe' about it.  I know.  Tip's an old woman, I tell you.
+He's gettin' too big for his boots.  He needs a lesson."
+
+"Who'll give him one?"
+
+"We will."
+
+"No.  Not for a minute.  I know Tip.  I ain't locking horns with that
+gent."
+
+"Whatcha afraid of?  He can't do anything."
+
+"Can't, huh?  Aw right, let it go at that.  Not any for me, thanks."
+
+Again Rafe's persuasive forefinger came into action.  "Say, Tip ain't
+any grizzly bear, feller.  He's only a two-legged man like you and me.
+He can be put where he belongs."
+
+The district attorney remained unconvinced.  "I hear you say it."
+
+"Ain't you got any nerve a-tall?"
+
+"Where Tip is concerned, not much," was the frank reply.  "I've seen
+that man in action."
+
+"Action nothin'.  That's just what's the matter with that man--not
+enough action.  He'll go so far and no farther.  He don't want anybody
+wiped out if he can help it.  You saw what a fuss he made over Tom
+Walton's killing.  Lord!  He made me sick!  You might 'a' thought Tom
+was a good friend of his.  I tell you, Arthur, that sort of
+squeamishness don't get you anywhere.  Nawsir.  You gotta go the whole
+hog or you'll wind up in the calaboose.  You bet I ain't for any of
+them half-way plans.  It's kill a bull every time, or I don't shoot.
+Tip O'Gorman must go."
+
+"Lessee what Sam Larder and Crafty say," the district attorney offered
+uneasily.
+
+"No, not them, either of 'em," Rafe declared firmly.  "They're friends
+of Tip's."
+
+"You tell 'em just like you told me," suggested the other.  "Maybe you
+could persuade 'em."
+
+Rafe shook a decided head.  "Not a chance.  I know them.  They're soft
+and bull-headed where Tip's concerned.  They think he's hell on the
+Wabash, you know that.  Those three stand together always.  No, Arthur,
+if we shove this deal through, we gotta do it alone."
+
+But the district attorney remained dubious.  "It's too big an order."
+
+"Not by a jugful it ain't.  Gimme the bottle."
+
+Rafe poured out a stiff four fingers.  He drank it slowly.  Then he had
+another.  His eyes began to gleam redly.  Suddenly he stood up and
+struck the table with his fist.
+
+"I'll show 'em," he exclaimed.  "Tip needn't think he can gimme orders!
+Won't let you ship cows if you get your leg over the pole again, says
+O'Gorman, Larder and Craft.  Just as if I'd done something out of the
+way instead of tryin' to put one more polecat out of the world.  I'll
+show 'em!  Say, Arthur, whatsa matter with buckin' Larder and Craft
+after we put Tip out of business?"
+
+"Wait till we do," replied the district attorney, who foresaw many
+difficulties in the proposed operation.  "And if you ask me, I don't
+know how we're going to do it."
+
+Rafe Tuckleton scratched a tousled head.  "Jonesy might shoot him
+cleaning' his gun," he proffered.
+
+"Why don't you do it yourself?"
+
+Rafe showed the requisite amount of contempt for such a foolish
+question.  "It's more'n possible Tip might start cleanin' his own gun
+about that time.  And I _could_ spare Jonesy if I had to."
+
+"Jonesy might not want to take the chance.  You haven't thought of
+that, have you?"
+
+Rafe, by way of reply, took another drink.  When he set the bottle
+down, the district attorney picked it up, held it against the daylight,
+then looked reproachfully at his friend and put the bottle away in the
+cupboard.
+
+"Tell you what we can do," said Rafe.  "We can have Simon do it."
+
+"Simon Reelfoot?"
+
+"Who else.  Sure.  Why not?"
+
+"You're crazy.  Simon may be a fool, but he has more sense than that."
+
+"Simon drinks a skinful sometimes.  Ever see him when he gets that way?
+He acts very rowdy.  Yeah.  I'm almost certain if, when Simon was under
+the influence thataway, he was told that Tip had found out about his
+share in the Walton killing and was making threats against him, that
+Friend Simon would just naturally hop out and fill Tip full of holes."
+
+"But I thought you were saving Simon for Wingo?  The sheriff's more
+important than Tip just now."
+
+It was evident that the district attorney was becoming more and more
+worried at the prospect of giving Tip his quietus.
+
+"We'll have to figure out something else for Wingo," said Rafe.  Then
+he brought his open palm down on his knee with a crack like a pistol
+shot.  The district attorney jumped in his chair.  "I got it!" cried
+Rafe.  "I got it!  It just came to me when you said 'Wingo.'  We'll get
+the three of 'em at one lick."
+
+"I knew I didn't put that bottle away soon enough."
+
+"Rats.  My head's clear as a bell--two bells, by Gawd!  Listen.  We'll
+get Simon and that foreman of his drunk.  We'll sick the pair of 'em on
+Tip O'Gorman.  They'll put the kibosh on Tip, and the word will be
+passed for the sheriff.  He will go to make the arrest and they'll plug
+him.  Being drunk, they'll be desperate and won't care what they do."
+
+"Suppose the deputies go with Bill?"
+
+"We'll have to fix it so they won't.  Oh, it'll be natural this time.
+We'll wait till they're taking somebody over to Hillsville, or gone to
+make an arrest or something."
+
+"But the sheriff may swear in a posse to help chase 'em."
+
+"There won't be any chase.  For a chase you gotta have horses, and
+we'll take away their horses first thing.  No, it's a cinch Bill Wingo
+will go to arrest 'em by his lonesome.  He's that kind."
+
+"And we took him for a mark," was the district attorney's bitter remark.
+
+"I didn't," lied Rafe.  "I always knowed what he was."
+
+The district attorney did not contradict this statement.  Nothing was
+to be gained by a fight with Rafe Tuckleton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+THE BEST-LAID PLANS
+
+March had come in a-roaring.  Almanac-wise it was passing out
+a-bleating.  Except in the high places the snow was going fast.  The
+frost was coming out of the ground, making it necessary for the
+Hillsville stage to employ eight horses instead of six.  The gray geese
+were flying northward.  Here and there on the southern flanks of the
+lean hills the grass showed bravely green.  That uncomfortable person,
+Dan Slike, was well enough to stand his trial.  Spring was in the air,
+but winter still held sway in the heart of Billy Wingo.  He had not
+been able to make up his difference with Hazel Walton, or rather she
+had not made up her difference with him.  Manlike, or mulelike,
+whichever you prefer, Billy Wingo was stubbornly determined that the
+girl should make the first move.  True, he had seen her.  It was also
+true that he had gone out of his way to see her.  Always his reception
+had been friendly, but not the least cordial.  Obviously she had not
+forgiven him his outburst.
+
+Whenever he thought on what he was pleased to consider his
+ill-treatment at her hands, he was prone to rail at the foolishness of
+women.  He did not stop to reflect that there was another side to the
+shield.  Certainly not.  The woman was clearly and wholly in the wrong.
+Adam, I believe, was the first man to express this opinion.  His sons
+have been following in his footsteps ever since.
+
+Came a night of heavy rain and wind.  Billy Wingo, a lamp on the table
+at his elbow, was reading a Denver newspaper.  A sudden gust drove a
+spatter of rain across the windows.  There was a soft thump followed by
+a sliding sound against the outside door.  Some one uttered in a
+woman's voice a muffled wail.
+
+Billy went at once to the door and lifted the latch.  The wind pushed
+it back against him and flung a spray of wet into his face.  There was
+something lying on the doorstep and sill, something that moved a
+little.  Billy let the door fly open.  The something was apparently a
+woman in distress.  Billy bent down, endeavoring to slip his hands
+under her shoulders.  But the woman was heavy and her clothing was very
+wet and slippery.  Billy bent a little lower and--Smash!
+
+
+"He's coming out of it," a voice was saying.  "I saw his eyelids
+flicker."
+
+"You hit him a mite too hard," declared another voice.  "Y'oughta used
+a club instead of that wagon wrench."
+
+"I didn't know how hard his head was," offered a third voice, "and we
+can't afford to take chances.  You know that.  Anybody, he's coming
+along all right, so what's the odds?"
+
+"He's ruined that pillow," complained the first voice.  "And I know
+he's bled on through the sheets into the mattress.  Spoil the mattress,
+that will.  Cake the feathers all up.  Make 'em nubbly."
+
+"Don't be so dainty, Sam," laughed the second voice.  "You're so
+all-fired fat what's a rough mattress to you?  Sleep on the floor, and
+you wouldn't know the difference."
+
+Billy kept his eyes shut, although he was now completely conscious.
+His head ached like forty.  Seemed as if the whole top had come off and
+dozens of little devils were inside hammering like mad.  He believed he
+knew the owners of those three voices.  Sam Larder, Felix Craft and Tip
+O'Gorman.  He opened his eyes.  Yes, he was right.  There they were,
+the three of them.  But it was daylight, and a day of sunshine too.
+And the last thing he remembered was a night of wind and rain.
+
+Tip gave back his look with a smile.  Sam Larder and Felix Craft did
+not smile.  Their faces were serious.
+
+"Glad to see you're coming round," said Tip O'Gorman.  "Here, let me
+fix that bandage.  Looks as if it might be slipping.  How you
+feel--pretty good?"
+
+"Pretty good--considering," replied Bill.
+
+"That's fine, fine.  Want a li'l something to eat?"
+
+"Rather have a drink."
+
+The cool water revived him like wine.  He lay back on the pillows
+greatly refreshed.  He thought his head ached a little less, perhaps.
+
+"Where am I and how did I get here?"
+
+"You're in my house," said Sam Larder.  "You were--uh--brought here."
+
+"After the roof feel on me?" said Billy, fingering the bandage round
+his head.
+
+"Well, you see," said Tip, in some embarrassment, "we knew you wouldn't
+have accepted our invitation unless you were knocked silly first.  But
+I--I planned the whole thing, Bill--I didn't intend to keep you
+senseless as long as this.  It's a matter of ten hours since you were
+hit.  I didn't know but what maybe we were due to lose you, after all."
+
+"That would have been a pity," said Billy.
+
+"Wouldn't it?  Yeah.  Don't blame me for that crack, though.  I told
+Crafty not to use anything made of iron.  But I'm afraid he used his
+own judgment."
+
+"I always do," said Felix Craft.
+
+"Who was the woman?" inquired Billy.
+
+"I was the woman," replied Craft demurely.
+
+"That was one on me.  But I'm still wonderin'.  You fellers went to a
+lot of trouble to carry me clear out here.  I suppose it's too much to
+hope you were seen doing it."
+
+"I don't guess we were seen," said Tip.  "We kind of took care not to
+be.
+
+"How long do you count on boardin' me, Sam?"
+
+"Just a li'l while," was the reply.
+
+"No longer than is necessary," slipped in Tip, with emphasis on the
+last word.
+
+"Necessary, huh.  _Necessary_.  I suppose you fellers think you'll be
+able to get Dan Slike off by kidnappin' me.  You forget there's Riley
+Tyler."
+
+"We know there's Riley Tyler," said Tip, "like we know Riley and
+Shotgun went to Hillsville yesterday and won't be back for three-four
+days.  And about Dan Slike we don't care three whoops in hell.  To tell
+you the truth, Bill, I'm surprised you don't know us better than that.
+_We_ three didn't have any hand in that Walton business."
+
+"I didn't really think you did," said Billy frankly, "but knowing how
+you and Tuckleton----"
+
+"No, no, Bill," interrupted Tip hastily, "don't go fussin' about Rafe.
+That's a cat with another tail entirely.  Your business right now this
+minute is with us.  Our business is with you.  Here we are.  Here's
+you."
+
+But Billy was apparently paying no further attention to Tip's words.
+He was looking at the ceiling.  He was smiling.  He chuckled.
+
+"Do you know," he said, glancing sidewise at Tip, "when I was a kid, I
+often wondered how it would feel to be kidnapped.  I had a idea it
+would be romantic sort of.  But it ain't, not a mite.  I feel like I'd
+been on a tear--head, y'understand, and mouth all furry and _thirsty_!
+Where's that pitcher?  Oh, I can sit up all right."
+
+He swung up to a sitting position with a lurch.  "Here's how," he said,
+reaching for the pitcher.
+
+He drank his fill and again lay down, supporting his head on a bent
+elbow.
+
+"Crafty," he said severely, "why for are you monkeying with that gun?"
+
+"I thought I had it hidden behind the table," replied Craft,
+shamefacedly depositing a six-shooter on the table in front of him.
+
+He folded his arms behind the gun, but Billy noticed that the fingers
+of his right hand were touching the wood of the butt.
+
+"The truth is," said Tip, "that we intend to watch you pretty closely.
+But you haven't any kick coming.  You ain't gagged or hogtied even."
+
+"Seeing that Sam's house is a mile out of town and a good eight hundred
+yards west of the Hillsville trail, gaggin' me and tying me up are
+hardly necessary.  Sam, that water sure gave me a appetite.  I feel
+considerable better.  Suppose now you send along the chambermaid with
+several eggs, more or less, let 'em lay, and two-three-four slices of
+nice ham, and some fried potatoes, and bread and butter, and a li'l jam
+if you have it--if not, I'll take what you've got handy and some
+coffee, black, with sugar.  Better have her bring a full pot of coffee.
+And Samuel, my own dear boyhood friend, will you send along the
+golden-haired chambermaid?"
+
+"That's the way," approved Tip, smiling, as Sam Larder slumped
+kitchenward.  "Make a joke of it.  No sense in taking it to heart."
+
+"Tip," said Bill, "I always knew you were an old scoundrel."
+
+Tip looked hurt.  "The scoundrel perhaps, and only _perhaps_, mind you,
+but I deny the age.  I'm only a short fifty."
+
+"Plenty of time for you to be hung yet," admitted Bill.  "Felix, old
+settler, that gun of yours is pointing right at me.  Is it easy on the
+trigger?"
+
+"Mighty easy," said Felix Craft, altering slightly the angle of the
+weapon's barrel.
+
+Billy hitched himself up to a sitting position.  By means of the bed's
+two pillows he made himself comfortable against the wall.
+
+"You spoke of some business," he said.  "Le's hear it."
+
+Tip cleared his throat.  "It ain't much.  All we want is for you to
+leave us alone."
+
+"Seems to me you asked me something like that before," mused Billy.
+
+"And your answer was unsatisfactory."
+
+"What kind of an answer did you expect?"
+
+"We expected you'd be a sensible man, the sort of feller who wouldn't
+throw down his friends."
+
+"You said that before, too."
+
+Tip nodded.  "We still think maybe you can be brought to see our side
+of it."
+
+"We don't want to do anything we'd all be sorry for," Felix Craft
+nipped in significantly.
+
+"Hear the clanking chains," said Billy.  "The man's threatening me, I
+do believe."
+
+Craft returned his stare woodenly.
+
+"You see," Tip remarked, "we expect to do a li'l business this year."
+
+"Do you think this will be a good year for business?"  Billy cocked a
+questioning eyebrow.
+
+"We hope so, we hope so," pronounced Tip.  "I'll be open with you,
+Bill.  If you keep on nosing into our affairs the way you've started
+in, we'll lose money.  Couldn't help but lose it.  You didn't take
+office till the first of January and business won't be done in any
+volume till well into the year----"
+
+"When the ground is hard," interrupted Billy, "and the volume of
+business won't be apt to leave telltale tracks.  I get the innards of
+your meaning."
+
+"Exactly.  So you see how absolutely necessary it is for us to be sure
+that you won't horn into any of our li'l deals."
+
+"We intend to be sure," declared Craft.
+
+"Tip," said Billy, "that man is threatening me again.  You stop him.
+He makes me nervous.  Sometimes I almost think he means it."
+
+"I'm afraid he does mean it," said Tip.  "I--we don't want to do you
+any harm, Bill, physically or otherwise.  You understand, that, don't
+you?"
+
+"Seein' that you keep on tellin' me so over and over, I'll try and
+believe it.  But what I want to know is if you decide finally to do me
+harm, physically or otherwise, what kind of harm you'll do.  Will you
+drop me over the cliff on a dark and moonlight night and dash my
+quiverin' body to death on the cruel rocks below, or will you slip a
+li'l wolf poison into my morning coffee, or will you just cut my throat
+or what?  I'd like to know.  Honest, I would.  My curiosity is standin'
+on its hind legs."
+
+"It's no joke," Tip told him seriously.
+
+"Of course it ain't.  Who said it was.  Not me.  I'm serious as lead in
+your lung.  Likewise I'm scared to death.  If I was standin' up you'd
+hear my knees clacking together.  Not to disappoint you I'll shake the
+bed.  There!  How's that?"
+
+He grinned at them disarmingly.  They did not return the grin.
+
+"Might as well tell him now," suggested Craft.
+
+Tip nodded.  "I was going to.  Bill, you left your office in Golden Bar
+last night."  He paused, looking up at the ceiling.
+
+"You needn't try to make me think you're making it up as you go along,"
+Billy fleered with a wink.  "I know better.  Flap along, flap along."
+
+"You took your rifle with you and both your guns," resumed Tip.  "You
+went to the stable and saddled your red-and-white pinto and rode out of
+town."
+
+"Right down Main Street, I suppose, where everybody could see me?"
+
+"Nothing so coarse as that.  You were careful to strike the shelter of
+the cottonwoods that grow so close to the rear of your corral."
+
+Bill's eyes widened with well-feigned enjoyment.  He was reasonably
+sure he knew what was coming.  "I'll bet somebody saw me, alla same."
+
+"Several people saw you, saw you so plainly that they could swear to
+your identity on the witness stand."
+
+Billy leaned forward interestedly.  "They _could_, but would they?"
+
+"All five of 'em would."
+
+"Five, huh?  Don't you think that's a good many folks to have on hand
+so providentially, a night like last night?  Raining and blowing for
+Gawd's sake, remember?  You don't want to override this thing--whatever
+it is."
+
+Felix Craft laughed sardonically.  "We won't.  Don't you worry any
+about that, Bill.  We've thought it out pretty average careful."
+
+"That's good.  I'd be sorry to see you fellers make any mistakes.
+Go'n, Tippy, old settler.  You've got to where me and my gallant steed
+are a-skulking in the underbrush with half the town watching us like
+lynxes.  What did I do next?"
+
+"You haven't done it yet.  And whether you do it or not all depends on
+yourself.  If you stay stubborn, then this afternoon you'll hold up the
+Hillsville stage."
+
+"Don't lemme forget myself too much.  Will I wear a mask?"
+
+"Naturally--and your horse will be seen, your red-and-white pinto that
+everybody knows.  It's something like the trick you worked on Driver
+and Slike.  We listened very careful to your testimony at the hearing.
+We're grateful to you for the idea, Bill."
+
+Bill tossed away all credit with a wave of his hand.  "Oh, you clever
+fellers would have thought of something just as good.  Trust you.
+Next."
+
+"Everybody on the stage will be able to swear to your clothes and your
+horse and your guns.  One of your guns has a brass guard.  That gun
+especially will be remembered."
+
+"You do think of everything," Bill said in admiration.  "But does it
+sound natural that I'd be using my horse, especially such a
+conspicuous-lookin' horse as that red-and-white pinto, right where
+everybody in the stage could see him?  Even if I am crazy enough to
+hold up the stage, you've gotta give me credit for a li'l sense."
+
+"I said there wouldn't be any coarse work," averred Tip.  "Your horse
+will be tied in a li'l patch of woods put of sight of the stage, but
+just about the time you're lining the passengers up on the trail, your
+horse will bust out of the li'l patch of woods and show himself plain
+for everybody to take a look at."
+
+"Somebody will have to drive him out.  Suppose _he's_ seen, too?"
+
+Tip shook a lazy head.  "Not him.  He won't be seen.  It will all look
+mighty natural like an accident.  Somethin' scared the horse, that's
+all."
+
+"After I've robbed the stage what do I do?"
+
+"There you have me," confessed Tip.  "I don't know what you'll do.  You
+might ride away and keep going for several weeks.  That would be the
+sensible thing to do."
+
+"Or I can ride back to Golden Bar and be arrested by my own deputies
+for stage robbery.  I don't suppose anybody would believe it if I said
+I was kidnapped."
+
+Tip smiled slightly.  "They might.  You never can tell what people
+would believe."
+
+Billy drew his knees up to the level of his chin and hugged them.
+
+"No," he drawled, "too fishy.  Folks don't kidnap folks nowadays--only
+in books.  Shucks, I'll bet you fellers were counting on just that
+particular snag in human nature.  Looks like you've got me, don't it?"
+
+Tip nodded his head.  "Looks like it."
+
+"You've only got yourself to blame," said Felix Craft, studying the gun
+on the table so handy to his fingers.
+
+"True," acquiesced Billy.  "I've only got myself to blame.  So what
+care I for poverty or precious stones?  Look here, fellow citizens, who
+is going to take my part in this stage hold-up?"
+
+"I will," said Craft modestly.  "I rode your pinto out of town last
+night, and I think I made a good impression.  Yeah, I'm sure I did.
+And I have more than a sneaking idea I can get away with the hold-up."
+
+"Don't doubt it," said Billy.  "Don't doubt it for a minute.  You've
+got nerve enough, I know that, and we're about of a size.  I--uh--I
+_thought_ there was something familiar about that vest you're wearing.
+And are those my other pants you have on?  The table hides 'em so I
+can't tell for sure."
+
+"They are your other pants, and your coat and hat are hanging on a hook
+in the kitchen.  I had to put your spurs on my boots though.  Yours
+were too small."
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry," mourned Billy, genuine concern in his tone.  "If I'd
+only known--  However, suppose some one in the stage puts a hole in
+your face right over the eye, Felix.  Have you thought of that?"
+
+Craft nodded.  "We have to take some chances."
+
+"That's so.  You've got a sporting spirit after all, Crafty.  You'd
+think running a gambling house so long would have taken it out of you,
+sort of.  Might be your ranch has saved you.  And suppose I don't feel
+like having you risk your valuable life, Crafty, what then?"
+
+"Then the deal can be arranged," Tip answered for Craft.  "Give us your
+word Bill, and you can walk out that door and ride back to Golden Bar
+right after breakfast.  Right now, if you don't want to wait."
+
+Billy looked incredulous.  "You mean to tell me, Tip, that you'd take
+my bare word?"
+
+"You're whistling we would," Tip declared heartily.  "Everybody knows
+your word is good."
+
+"I've never broken it yet, but don't you see, once broken, what good is
+it?"
+
+"But if you give it, you wouldn't break it.  We know you."
+
+"But if I give my word to you to do this thing, I will have broken
+it--to the territory.  When I took office I made oath to obey and
+uphold the laws.  I guess maybe you forgot that."
+
+Tip looked a trifle dashed.  "Well--" he began.
+
+"You see," interrupted Billy, "If I broke my word to the territory, I'd
+break it to you likely.  Anyway, what guarantee have you that I
+wouldn't?"
+
+"Looks like there was only one trail out," Craft said briefly.
+
+"Gimme something to eat first," Billy implored, rubbing his empty
+stomach.
+
+"We'll do that much for you," said Tip.  "And while you're eatin' you
+think it over.  There's a lot to be said for what we want you to do.
+Think how easy it is, Bill.  Just go a li'l slow is all we want.  And
+think what you get by it--complete freedom otherwise and that ten
+thousand a year easy money we spoke of a while back.  Ten thousand
+ain't to be sneezed at these days.  I dunno where you'd make it any
+easier."
+
+"Neither do I," Billy admitted frankly.
+
+"You don't want to go to jail now, do you, Bill?" wheedled Tip.
+
+"Sure not," was the prompt answer.
+
+"Of course you don't.  And if you decide to accept our offer, Bill, the
+secret will be left behind right in this room.  No one will ever know
+anything about it.  To your friends you will be one of the straightest
+sheriffs Crocker County ever had.  Oh, I know what you're thinking of.
+You're afraid of what Hazel Walton might think.  But----"
+
+"Let's leave her out of this," Bill struck in sharply.
+
+"All right," acquiesced Tip, with a slight cough, "we will.  Alla same,
+Bill, who's to ever know what you did?"
+
+"I'd know for one," Billy observed simply.  "And suppose I tell
+somebody?  You know I never could keep a secret."
+
+"I told you how it would be, Tip," remarked Craft.  "He's too damn
+honest for any use."
+
+Billy nodded his gratitude.  "Felix, I thank you.  At least you are a
+friend of mine."
+
+"You forget me," said the disappointed Tip.  "If it hadn't been for the
+ground-and-lofty talking done by yours truly, you, William, would have
+already gone where the good Indians go.  I can tell you, Felix and Sam
+are downright disgruntled with you."
+
+"Felix, I take it all back," grieved Billy.  "At the first convenient
+opportunity I shall drop a li'l arsenic in your coffee or a li'l lead
+pill in your system.  I dunno which yet.  And that goes for you too,
+Sam."
+
+"What's that?" queried Sam, entering with a large platter of ham, eggs
+and potatoes and setting it down on the table.  When Bill had
+explained, he smiled grimly.  "Yep," said Sam Larder.  "You've been a
+thorn in our well-known side for some time.  Trimming you off the
+parent stem would do you--and us--a heap of good."
+
+"I see," remarked Billy, sliding from the bed and hooking up a chair to
+the table, "I see that the patient is not yet out of danger.  But the
+doctors have not completely despaired of his life.  How about it, Tip?
+You haven't given me up yet, have you?"
+
+"Bill," said Tip irritably, "you're a fool."
+
+"But not a damn fool," returned Bill with his mouth full.  "You'll have
+to admit there is a method in my madness."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+OBSCURING THE ISSUE
+
+"Well," said Felix Craft, attempting a pleasantry, "how do I look?"
+
+"You look," said Billy, following a meticulous survey of his
+questioner's attire, "you look like Mr. Felix Craft, our genial gambler
+and non-resident ranch owner."
+
+"Shucks, I was hoping I'd look like you.  I'd sure enjoy making a good
+appearance.  Maybe the mask will make a difference."
+
+"Mask won't disguise your voice any."
+
+"I'll talk like I had a cold.  Oh, I won't have any trouble making
+folks think it's you."
+
+Felix Craft spoke with tremendous confidence.  More than the occasion
+warranted, thought Billy Wingo.
+
+"Why don't you wear my star?" suggested Bill.  "Then folks would sure
+think it was me."
+
+"Too raw, and you know it.  Even you wouldn't do a fool thing like
+that."
+
+"Thanks for the compliment," Billy said humbly.  "Suppose now you get
+plugged, Felix?"
+
+"I won't get plugged.  Not me," declared Craft, pulling the six-shooter
+with the brass trigger guard and making sure that the hammer rested on
+an empty chamber.
+
+"What makes you think you won't be plugged?" persisted Billy.
+
+Craft darted a quick look at his questioner.  "Because I know I won't.
+I'll have the drop on 'em, don't you see?  Nobody will dare cut down on
+me."
+
+"How do you know they won't?"
+
+"I'm sure, that's all."
+
+"What makes you so sure?"
+
+"Because I am, that's why!" was the snappish reply.  Then in a
+pleasanter tone Craft continued, "Because, Bill, I've figured out my
+chances carefully.  Not once in a thousand times do stage passengers
+resist a road agent."
+
+"How about the Wells-Fargo guard?"
+
+"He ain't riding this trip."
+
+"How do you know he ain't?"
+
+"Now don't you worry how we know, Bill.  We know, and you can bet on
+that.  It's like I told you, we've figured this thing out to the last
+li'l detail.  We----"
+
+"You bet we have," cut in Tip quickly.  "For the last time, Bill,
+hadn't you better change your mind?"
+
+"I couldn't change it for the last time till I'd changed it at least
+two other times, Tip," Billy drawled, one-half his brain busy trying to
+fathom why Tip should have interrupted Craft so brusquely.  Tip never
+did anything without reason.  Never.  And why was Craft so unnaturally
+sure that he could hold up the stage without being shot?  Unnaturally,
+exactly.  Because Felix Craft was one not given to explaining anything
+he did.  Yet in this instance he had taken the trouble to explain at
+some length.  Why?
+
+Billy tilted back on the rear legs of his chair, cocked his heels up on
+the table and stared at the ceiling.
+
+"Well, how about it?" Tip demanded impatiently.  "You going to be
+sensible?"
+
+Billy waved a hand for silence and then sang in a whining bobtail bass:
+
+  "Barney Bodkin broke his nose:
+    Want of money makes us sad;
+  Without feet we can't have toes;
+    Crazy folks are always mad;
+  A nickel candle's very small;
+    Many fiddlers can't play jigs;
+  One that's dumb can never bawl;
+    Pickled pork is made of pigs.
+
+
+"Ain't that a nice song?" Billy broke off, glancing round him for
+praise.  "Lot of truth in that song, too.  Especially that part about
+crazy folks.  They always are mad--like you and Felix, Tip, and our fat
+friend, Mr. Samuel Larder.  Why all the delay, Felix?  If you really
+are gonna to be a bold bad man, go'n and be one.  Don't dally round
+here any longer.  Suppose you miss the stage?  You'd be disappointed.
+So would I.  Because I don't want anything to prevent you from having a
+fair crack at it.  I'd like you to have every chance--but I forgot, you
+ain't taking any chances, are you?  This is a sure thing."
+
+Billy, through half-shut eyes, was watching the men he was talking to.
+He was watching Sam Larder especially.  For Sam was not a good poker
+player.  Never had been.  His plump features were too expressive.  And
+now the open-faced Sam was looking at Billy with a slightly worried
+expression.  Furthermore, the worry was tinged with some astonishment.
+At least, so it seemed to Billy.  Again why?
+
+Here were three men, each of whom within five minutes had done that
+which was not wholly warranted by the apparent facts.  He again had
+cropped up and out those unnatural circumstances so ably dwelt upon by
+Mr. William Noy.  As has been said, the law abhors such things and
+seeks a remedy.  There is always a remedy; and investigation, patient
+and thorough, will always find it.  Billy rather prided himself on
+being a patient and thorough investigator.
+
+Nevertheless he did not fail to realize that he was in a tight hole.
+He felt the pinch already.  So he smiled at the three men his sunniest
+smile.
+
+"Looks like a wild night on the canal," he said calmly.  "I expect the
+mules are pinning back their ears.  Yeah.  Going, Crafty?  Well, be
+good and--oh, say, Crafty, ain't Jerry Fern the stage driver this trip?"
+
+"I don't know," was the short reply.
+
+"But you knew everything else," complained Billy, making a mental note
+of another unnatural circumstance.  "Seems like you'd oughta know this,
+too."
+
+"Well, I don't," Craft tossed back over his shoulder, as he flung out
+of the house.
+
+The door slammed.  Billy looked at Sam Larder and grinned.  "If this is
+Jerry Fern's trip, and I'm most sure it is, Felix will be out of luck.
+Jerry is one stage driver who will always give a bandit a battle."
+
+"Oh, I guess Crafty will get the drop on him all right," Sam Larder
+averred easily,--too easily by half.
+
+"I can see," said Billy with strange placidity, "I can see that I've
+got to get out of here."
+
+Both Sam and Tip laughed,--Tip heartily, Sam with a false note.
+
+"Well, anyway," resumed Billy, "I've got my choice of hitting the trail
+or being arrested."
+
+Tip shook his head.  "You haven't any choice--none."
+
+"Huh?" Surprisedly.
+
+"Yeah.  You see, we talked it over again while you were asleep a while
+back, and we decided if you couldn't see our way of it and be sensible
+like we want, that we'd better just put you where you won't be mislaid.
+Givin' you your choice of ridin' away or bein' arrested like I said at
+first would be a bad move.  If you chose to hit the trail--  You're a
+sport with ideas, Bill, and you might think up one to put the kybosh on
+us.  But if you're in jail, your ideas won't help you much.  See?"
+
+"I see I ain't gonna get a chance for my alley a-tall.  Who'll arrest
+me--my own deputies?"
+
+"No, we'll do that.  Here's the story: Your horse gave out and Sam
+caught you trying to rustle a pony out of his corral.  Sam threw down
+on you, held you up and when we, Sam, Crafty and I, y'understand
+searched you, we found on you a couple of pocketbooks and Jerry Fern's
+watch.  See?"
+
+"I see, all right.  I see you haven't been quite open with our friend
+Mr. Craft."
+
+"How do you make that out?"
+
+Billy hunched his shoulders.  He was observing the marked unease that
+spread upon the countenance of Sam Larder.  Tip was forced to repeat
+his question.
+
+Billy gazed at him vacantly.  "Huh?  How--uh--oh, you want to know how,
+do you?  Is that it?  Yeah.  Well, I'll tell you.  Here you knew alla
+time that Jerry Fern was going to drive the stage this trip and yet you
+didn't tell Crafty.  He didn't know who was the driver when I asked
+him, remember?  You should have told him, Tip.  Skin game not to."
+
+Tip laughed.  Was the laughter forced?  Billy thought it sounded as if
+it were.  But he couldn't be sure.  Not with Tip O'Gorman.  For Tip was
+a good poker player.  Still----
+
+Billy wagged a forefinger at Tip.  "Why didn't you tell Crafty, you
+careless child?"
+
+"Crafty knew, all right," Tip stated.  "He was just joking with you, I
+guess."
+
+"I guess so too," drawled Billy Wingo.  "I guess so too."
+
+He stood up and started to walk casually toward the door.
+
+"That will be about far enough," said Tip.
+
+Billy's hands fell away from the latch.  "If that gun goes off, it'll
+make a fine mess on the floor."
+
+"You come back and sit on the bed again," directed Tip, the six-shooter
+trained unwaveringly on the captive's abdomen.  "Of course," he added,
+"you might try the windows.  But even if I didn't drill you three times
+where you live while you were doing it, you can't wiggle through those
+windows.  Your shoulders are too broad and the sashes are too narrow.
+That's why we picked this room.  Only one in the house with small
+windows."
+
+"I'd noticed that," said Billy, returning to the bed.  "How about a
+drink, Tip?  I'm thirsty."
+
+"Sam will get you a drink," said Tip.
+
+Billy smiled.  "Why not you?  Can't you trust me with Sam?  Think I'll
+corrupt his morals or something?"
+
+"There's no telling what you'll do, Bill, and as I may have told you
+once or twice we can't afford to take any chances."
+
+"When am I going to be arrested for rustling one of Sam's horses?"
+
+"Soon after Crafty gets here."
+
+Billy's face assumed a peevish expression.  "Say, look here, Tip, I
+don't just cotton to the idea of havin' Sam the one to throw down on me
+and hold me up.  I've got my pride, such as it is, and I'd hate for
+folks to go round blatting that a slow-pulling sport like Sam Larder
+held me up.  Can't you make it yourself, Tip?  You've got a reputation.
+I dunno that I'd feel so bad about it if it was you."
+
+"Shucks, Bill, you're too sensitive.  I'm afraid we'll have to let the
+scheme go through as it lays.  I don't believe in changing any part of
+a plan once I've started to carry it out."
+
+"There's something in that," admitted Billy.  "I'm a li'l superstitious
+that way myself.  Ain't Sam taking a goshawful time to that drink?
+Maybe you better step out and look for him."
+
+Tip grinned.  "I hear him comin' now."
+
+"Sam," said Billy, when the owner of the house appeared with the drink,
+"Sam, how about a li'l hot something to eat?  I know it's only the
+shank of the afternoon, but I'm hungry and I probably have a long hard
+night ahead of me."
+
+"You have, all right," concurred Sam.  "All your own fault, too.  But I
+expect you know what's best."
+
+Sam eased his fat self into a chair and began to construct a cigarette.
+
+Billy elevated his eyebrows.  "Say.  I thought I asked you for
+something to eat?"
+
+Sam ran his tongue along the side of the cigarette.  "I heard you, but
+I don't cook a thing till supper.  That's flat.  I been in and out of
+that kitchen all day, and I've got enough, you bet you."
+
+"You don't have to cook anythin' yourself.  Let your cook do it."
+
+"I let him go to town for the day."
+
+"I don't s'pose you could persuade one of your boys to throw a li'l
+bite together for me, now, could you?"
+
+Sam shook a decided head.  "I couldn't, Bill.  There ain't a boy on the
+place.  I sent them all down on the Wagonjack to fence off a quicksand."
+
+Billy closed his eyes to conceal the satisfaction in their depths.  Not
+a man on the place!  Which was just what he had been working to find
+out.  But the odds were still two to one, and an armed two to a
+weaponless one at that.  When Craft returned, they would be three to
+one, provided Billy still was a prisoner.
+
+He surveyed his captors through drop-lidded eyes.  Sam Larder was
+looking out of the window.  But Tip was on the alert, even as he had
+been from the beginning.  And Billy knew well that Tip would not
+hesitate to shoot.  Most decidedly the future did not look bright and
+shining.  But Billy's was a confident nature.
+
+"What's that?" queried Tip.
+
+"What do--oh, that!  Simon says 'thumbs up,' you mean?  It doesn't mean
+anythin' serious, Tip.  Just another way of saying, 'Faint heart never
+won a bet in its life' and 'It's always darkest 'round midnight.'
+Don't mind if I take a snooze, do you, Tippy, old boy?"
+
+Billy rolled over on his stomach, rammed his head into the pillow and
+completely relaxed his body, but, although his breathing soon became
+deceptively regular, he was far from being asleep.  He was thinking as
+purposefully as ever he had in his life.  He had to escape.  _He had
+to_!  To permit his enemies to do this thing was intolerable.  There
+was a way out.  Every strait, no matter how close and awkward it may
+be, has its way out.
+
+He built many plans while he lay there.  But there was a flaw in each
+and every one of them.  His brain was still feverishly busy when Felix
+Craft returned about the middle of the afternoon.
+
+As the door opened and Craft entered, Billy sat up.  "Have a nice
+time?" he drawled.
+
+"Went through like clockwork," replied Craft, slumping into a chair
+beside the table.
+
+"Not even a li'l teeny-weeny hole in you anywhere?" Billy demanded
+hopefully.  "Hell, I shore had a better opinion of Jerry Fern than
+that."
+
+"Jerry didn't do any fightin' to-day," said Felix.  "Handed over his
+watch like a major."
+
+"Yeah, Tip said you'd take his watch.  Funny you didn't know Jerry Fern
+was driving this trip when I asked you.  Tip knew."
+
+"Oh, I knew all right," Craft said carelessly.  "Lord A'mighty, I'm
+hungry.  My stomach is sticking to my backbone closer than a postage
+stamp to a letter.  I ain't had a thing to eat since breakfast.  Got
+any more eggs and ham, Sam?"
+
+"If you want anything to eat, you can cook it yourself," said Sam.
+"It's like I told Bill here, I ain't goin' into that kitchen till
+suppertime."
+
+"That's always the way," grumbled Craft, kicking his chair back.  "Here
+I ride from hell to breakfast and back--and I wanna say again that
+having that hold-up fifteen miles from here was too much of a good
+thing.  Just as well have had it two or three miles away.  It wouldn't
+have made a bit of difference, not a smidgin, by Gawd."
+
+"You know, Felix," defended Tip, "that we had it fifteen miles away so
+the give-out horse of Bill's would look more natural."
+
+"Damn his give-out horse," snarled Craft, moving stiffly toward the
+hall leading to the kitchen.  "I wish it had give out before I was
+born."
+
+"So you found out how rough-gaited the pinto was, did you, Felix?"
+Billy observed sweetly.  "Do you know, I had an idea you would.  Yeah.
+You don't ride enough, that's whatsa matter.  Stick too close behind
+your faro box, you do.  Y'oughta try the open air and the range more.
+Tell you, Felix, I'll gamble you'll do more ridin' and less card
+playin' in the next sixty days than you ever did in any two months of
+your life before.  In round numbers I'll bet you ride more than six
+hundred miles in the next two months.  Go you a hundred even.  The bet
+payable in Golden Bar sixty days--say any time after the first day of
+June."
+
+"Humor him, Crafty," suggested Tip, glad of the diversion.  "Sometimes
+they turn real violent."
+
+"Make it five hundred even," said Craft, who was nothing if not
+commercial.
+
+Billy smiled pityingly.  "You poor feller!  But you've asked for it.
+Five hundred she is.  It'll have to be a finger bet, because I haven't
+a cent with me."
+
+"Your word's good," said Craft and went on his way.
+
+"How about you fellers?" Billy pursued brightly.  "Any chance of my
+turning a honest penny?  I'll go you both the same as Crafty.  I
+suppose my word's good."
+
+"Better than gold," declared Tip, "but I don't see how you're going to
+check up on anybody's riding."
+
+Billy waved a complacent hand.  "That's the least of my troubles.  How
+about it?  You fellers want to bet?  No?  Aw right, my loss is your
+gain.  Tippy, I wonder if you'd mind opening the door and hollering to
+Felix to fry me up a mess of eggs while he's at it?  Tell him to let
+'em lay.  That's the way I like 'em.  I thank you.  Tip, you've made a
+mistake."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Having that hold-up fifteen miles away and then having me arrested
+here so close to Golden Bar.  You poor flap, is it reasonable to
+suppose I'd hold up the Hillsville stage and then come scamperin' right
+home, especially when I knew my horse had been seen?  You'll find the
+judge and jury lookin' cross-eyed at that li'l bit.  Yeah, flaw in your
+title, Tippy.  Y'oughta be more careful."
+
+"Bill's right," said Sam Larder unexpectedly.  "I always thought
+fifteen miles away was too far, and I know the jury will think it's
+funny he came right back to Golden Bar.  That don't look natural.
+Nawsir."
+
+"Blah!" snorted Tip.  "You never thought anything about it till Bill
+pointed it out to you, and at that, he's wrong.  And anyway, he ain't
+arrested yet.  We can always rub out Bill if we feel like it.  This is
+one county that has plenty of good places to leave a man--places where
+he won't be found for years and years, and not then, judging by the way
+the coyotes scatter a feller's bones.  Have you thought of that, Bill?
+You'd better.  So far I've been dead against making you hard to find,
+but if you keep on trying to show me where I'm wrong, maybe I'll accept
+your view of the case."
+
+This was plain speaking.  Billy accepted it at its face value.  Tip was
+good-hearted enough.  He had proved it.  But he was desperate.  He had
+proved that, too.
+
+Billy smiled engagingly at Tip.  "Shucks, I was only talking to you for
+your own good," he said in an injured tone.  "And here you go and get
+all het up.  You make me more tired than a day's work."
+
+"We may make you tireder," was the grim return.
+
+When Felix Craft brought the eggs, he drew up at one side of the table
+and Billy at the other.  The platter of eggs was between them.  Tip
+looked on from his seat near the fireplace.  Sam lounged comfortably in
+his chair.
+
+Billy looked with a dissatisfied air upon the eggs.  "Ain't there any
+bread, Felix?  One thing I like is to sort of smush a piece of bread
+round my eggs till it gets all gooey and good.  A li'l butter on the
+bread wouldn't hurt neither."
+
+So Felix made another trip to the kitchen.  When he returned with the
+bread and butter, Billy discovered that the pepper had been overlooked.
+
+"For Gawd's sake use salt on 'em!" implored Felix.  "I never use
+pepper, I don't.  Salt is just as good.  Healthier, too."
+
+"But I don't like salt," protested Billy.  "I've got no manner of use
+for it.  I want pepper, I do."
+
+"Use salt," mumbled Craft, stoking busily.
+
+Billy pushed right back from the table and refused to be comforted.  "I
+want some pepper!  Whatsa matter with you jiggers--tryin' to starve me
+to death?  Sam, you lazy lump of slumgullion, get me some pepper, will
+you?"
+
+"No, I won't.  I'm too comfortable and you're too finicky."
+
+Bill glanced across at Tip.  "You going to refuse me too, Tip, old
+citizen?"
+
+"No," said Tip with a weary air, "I suppose not."
+
+He arose and betook himself to the kitchen.  Returning with a large
+old-fashioned tin pepper pot he thumped it down upon the table in front
+of the captive.  "There y'are.  Now, stop your squalling."
+
+"Thank you, Tippy, I will.  Yeah."
+
+Billy scraped up to the table as Tip turned away.  "What's the matter
+with this pepper pot, anyway?"
+
+Tip turned to look.  Billy picked up the pepper pot slowly and stared
+hard at it.  Felix Craft craned his neck.
+
+"I don't see anything the matter with it," said Craft.
+
+"Don't you?" murmured Billy, his fingers busy with the removable top.
+"Look here."
+
+Sam Larder did not move, but both Tip and Craft obeyed.  In fact, they
+obeyed with such good will that the handful of pepper that Billy
+instantly swept into their faces dusted up their nostrils as well as
+into their eyes.
+
+In throwing the pepper Billy had employed his left hand.  This left
+hand had not completed the motion before Billy was reaching for the
+platter of eggs with his right hand.
+
+It was unfortunate for Sam Larder that he was a slow-going gentleman.
+The platter struck him edgewise over the eye when his six-shooter had
+barely cleared the holster.  The six-shooter thudded to the floor.  Sam
+and his chair went over backward and lay together in a tangle amid the
+fragments of broken platter and the remains of several eggs.  On the
+way down some of the eggs painted Sam's countenance and part of his
+shirt a bright yellow.  But Sam made no attempt to rise and scrape
+himself off.  He was unconscious.
+
+Billy, arriving in Sam's immediate neighborhood a split second after
+Sam struck the floor, scooped up the fallen six-shooter and wheeled
+back to face his other two enemies.  But they were too occupied with
+their very real misery to be an immediate menace.  Felix Craft was
+sitting on the floor, clawing at his eyes and swearing continuously.
+Tip, coughing and sneezing, was not swearing.  Perhaps he had not
+sufficient breath.  At any rate, he was on his feet, arms spread wide,
+feeling his way along the wall toward the door giving into the hall.
+
+Billy cat-footed up behind Tip and snatched away his six-shooter.  Tip
+spun round at the touch, but Billy dodged away from the clutching hands.
+
+Bang! a revolver bullet cut a button from his vest and tucked into the
+wall at his elbow.  Billy's sudden movement had saved his life.  He
+leaped back another two yards to get out of the smoke and crouched,
+balancing his tense body on the balls of his feet.
+
+He saw beyond the table Felix Craft with a gun in each hand.  The
+gambler's face, despite the tears that overflowed his eyes and ran down
+his cheeks, was fairly murderous.
+
+"Tip!  Where are you?  Don't you move, Bill," Craft was saying, the
+barrels of his two guns weaving to and fro uncertainly.  "Get away from
+that door, Bill.  Don't you try and get away.  I can see you."
+
+Billy leaned forward, picked up a fork from his set-out on the table
+and flung it across the room.  It fell with a clatter.  Craft fired at
+the sound.  The next instant Billy kicked him under the chin and
+flattened him out.
+
+"First time I ever saw a feller shoot by ear," observed Billy, calmly
+divesting Craft of his gun belt and exchanging Sam's six-shooter for
+his own gun with the brass-trigger guard.  "He did pretty good,
+considering.  Tip, don't you try to bluff me, like Crafty, that you can
+see.  Hey! do you want to be the third senseless man in this room?"
+
+Tip answered the question by halting his groping way toward the
+speaker.  He stood still, his body swaying, his muscular fingers locked
+in the palms of his hands.  Billy stooped over the senseless Craft and
+whipped off his neckerchief.
+
+"Put your hands behind you, Tip," he directed.
+
+"Damfi will!" Tip declared.
+
+"I don't want to whang you over the head, Tip, but I'll have to if you
+won't be good.  Stick 'em behind you."
+
+Tip hesitated, then suddenly he thrust his hands behind him.  Billy
+slipped around him, laid his six-shooter on a chair seat and drew the
+handkerchief beneath Tip's crossed wrists.  The next instant Tip had
+whirled about, Tip's knees were between his legs and Tip's long arms
+were wrapped round him in an under-hold.
+
+Tip was essaying the wrestling chip Cumberland men call the swinging
+hype.  It is a crack chip and when well done is disastrous to an
+opponent.  But it must be well done--the right arm under, hyping with
+the right leg and striking outside with the left.  Fortunately for
+Bill, Tip, although his right arm was under in a strong hold, had made
+the mistake of sticking his left knee between Bill's legs.  He struck
+outside with his right leg and missed.  With the right arm under, he
+had not the leverage he should have had.
+
+Billy, fighting for his life, dropped his arms--back-heeled Tip and ran
+over him.  Thump!  The wrestlers, Tip underneath, landed full upon the
+senseless back of Felix Craft.  Tip freed a hand, writhed his body
+sidewise and struck viciously at Billy's unprotected stomach.  He
+struck too low and the blow glanced off Billy's hipbone.  Billy,
+striking in turn, drove a smashing right against the point of Tip's
+chin.  Tip merely grunted and struck again at Billy's stomach.  Billy
+parried the blow with his left and brought up his knee with the
+laudable intention of kicking Tip in the abdomen.
+
+Blinded though he was, Tip apparently sensed what was impending, for he
+crowded his body against Billy and struck outside with all his might.
+In an instant Tip was on top and Billy underneath.  The older man
+jammed both thumbs into Billy's windpipe and wrenched himself astride
+Billy's body.  The strangling Billy spread wide his legs, hunched up
+his knees, planted both feet against Tip's ribs and straightened his
+legs with a jerk.  Tip's hands were torn loose from Billy's throat and
+Tip himself crashed backward against the wall.
+
+Billy scrambled to his feet and without the slightest hesitation
+clipped Tip over the head with the barrel of his six-shooter.  Tip
+remained where he was.  Billy stood over him, pistol poised, till he
+made sure he was senseless.  Then he took pains to make fast the trio's
+respective arms and legs with strips torn from a nightgown belonging to
+Sam.  He likewise removed his spurs from Craft's heels to his own.
+
+This being done, he stripped Tip and Sam of their gun belts, gathered
+up all the guns and ran out into the kitchen.  Here, on the floor,
+Craft had thrown his saddle, bridle and saddle blanket.  Bill added the
+lot to his burden and sped out to the corral.  The pinto was there,
+looking very tired.  Bill hastily unstrapped his rope and dropped the
+loop over a rangy-bodied chestnut with good legs and a mule stripe.
+This animal he bridled and saddled, left it standing and ran back to
+Sam's storeroom for another set of horse equipment.  It was his
+laudable intention to pack the unconscious Felix into town and jail him
+for the stage-coach robbery.  It was a bold plan, but Billy always
+rather favored the bold plan.  The plan had not occurred to him till
+almost the instant of throwing the pepper so he had had no time to
+thoroughly mature it, but it seemed to contain more elements of success
+than any other because it would forestall his enemies' scheme so
+neatly.  With Craft in jail and wearing the clothing worn by the
+robber, to which clothing the complaisant Jerry Fern and his passengers
+would undoubtedly be prepared to swear, it would be hard indeed, if
+Bill could not fasten the robbery on him, Craft.
+
+He swore bitterly as he pulled taut the cinch strap of the second
+horse.  Fastening the robbery on Craft was one thing, obtaining his
+indictment and conviction were decidedly two others.  What though Judge
+Donelson would do his best to see justice done, the doing of said
+justice would rest in the laps of twelve men, each and every one of
+them the opposite of good and true.  But at least he, Billy Wingo,
+would not be the victim of an outrageous conspiracy.  There was that
+much gained.
+
+He led the two horses to the kitchen door and went within to fetch out
+Felix Craft.
+
+It must have been his good angel who caused him to look through the
+front window.  He looked and saw a cloud of horsemen scouring toward
+the ranch house.  Sam's field glasses were on the shelf above the
+window.  He opened the window, snatched up the glasses and focussed
+them on the approaching riders.  He immediately recognized, to his
+great disgust, half a dozen of Sam Larder's punchers.  Obviously they
+had completed the fencing-off of the quicksand sooner than expected.
+
+"This," said Billy, dropping the glasses and leaving the room at speed,
+"is no place for me."
+
+At the first sight of the riders he had abandoned the plan of taking
+Felix Craft to town.  He would be hard put to escape himself.  A
+burdened led horse was an impossibility, even if he had had time to
+carry out Craft and tie him to the saddle.  The punchers would be at
+the ranch house in another sixty seconds, and if they should discover
+him with their bound and unconscious employer and two of his friends,
+they would shoot first and ask questions later.  Any one would,--under
+the circumstances.
+
+Billy topped his mount, struck in the spurs and fled.  The other horse
+he perforce left standing.
+
+As he flashed past the corner of the building, one of Larder's punchers
+raised a yell.  Some well-meaning fool fired.  Zung-g! the bullet
+buzzed overhead.  Smack!  Zung-g!  Smack!  Several bits of lead either
+ripped past his ears or tucked into the posts of the corral he was
+skirting.  It was borne in upon him that the Larder employees were
+mistaking him for a horse thief, or some one worse.
+
+He leaned over his saddle horn and began to ride.  From the Larder
+corral to a clump of trees on the edge of a draw was a long hundred
+yards.  As Billy galloped in among the trees he glanced over his
+shoulder.  The corral concealed the horsemen.  He pulled up at the edge
+of the draw, slid down the bank in a shower of stones and dirt, turned
+sharp to the left at the bottom and tore ahead.  A mile farther on he
+looked back.  No one was in sight yet.
+
+"Ropin' themselves fresh horses," was his muttered verdict.  "Damitall,
+running away was about the worst thing I could have done, after all!
+But what else was there to do, I'd like to know?  If I'd stayed I'd
+have been plugged for a holdup and now I'm a heap likely to be lynched
+for a horse thief and a hold-up both."
+
+He knew what he might expect from the brisk Larder outfit after Sam had
+given it his careful version of the stage robbery.
+
+"And that goes double for the rest of the county," he said to himself,
+staring ahead over the flattened ears of his racing horse.  "It looks
+like a cold day for Billy Wingo.  I'll have to do some almighty tall
+hustling, that's a cinch."
+
+Two miles and a half from the clump of trees at the back of Larder's
+corral he turned his horse and scuffled up the right-hand bank of the
+draw.  At the top he looked back.  He could see the clump of trees
+quite plainly and below it, in the bottom of the draw, were several
+black beads.  He counted four beads.  No doubt the remaining beads were
+spreading out to right and left to head him off.
+
+"Thank Gawd for the mule stripe," he muttered piously, trotting onward.
+"We'll diddle 'em yet, old-timer."
+
+Old-timer cocked an ear.  His muscles were moving rhythmically, his
+long free stride was steady and collected.  His breathing, while
+audible, showed no catchiness or other sign of distress.  He was good
+for many miles yet, this chestnut with the mule stripe.
+
+"Alla same, I've got to have another horse," Billy decided.  "The
+quicker this feller gets back on the Larder range the better."
+
+He didn't quite know how to get another horse.  When he came in town to
+assume the duties of his office he brought with him from his ranch two
+horses besides the red-and-white pinto.  His remaining horses he had
+turned out into the hills, upon whose tops, when the snow flew, they
+could grub up a living without too much difficulty.  These hills lay
+sixty miles away beyond the Tuckleton range, and every horse on them
+would be carrying a grass belly.
+
+"Not one of 'em fit for hard riding right off the reel," he told
+himself, and cursed a little.  "Looks like Sam Prescott was my one best
+bet."
+
+He came to a stream and rode in it till almost sunset when he left it,
+dismounted beside a tall cottonwood and shinned to the top.  To his
+earnest satisfaction he saw, hopelessly distant and following utterly
+wrong lines, the tiny black beads that were his pursuers.
+
+"And that's that," said Billy Wingo, rustling groundward rapidly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+WHAT HAZEL THOUGHT
+
+Nate Samson, weighing sugar for Hazel Walton, looked at her sidewise.
+"Heard the news, Hazel?"
+
+She removed her gaze from the flyspecked window and stared abstractedly
+at Nate.  "What news?"
+
+Nate swelled his chest with satisfaction.  Some people enjoy being the
+bearers of evil tidings.  Besides, Nate had stopped going to see Hazel.
+Somehow he had been made to feel that his visits were not the bright
+spots in her drab existence that he had considered them to be.  There
+was more than a little malice in Nate's make-up.  And the news----
+
+"Somebody killed Tip O'Gorman in his own house last night."
+
+Nate's hand pushed the sliding weight several notches along the scale
+beam.  Red Herring, the town marshal, slouching with seeming
+aimlessness against a showcase at the other end of the counter,
+covertly watched the girl.
+
+"Somebody killed Tip O'Gorman in his own house last night," said Nate.
+
+Hazel wondered why Nate's eyes never left her face.  "Tip O'Gorman!  He
+was one of Uncle Tom's friends.  Who did it?"
+
+Nate's eyes were fairly devouring her.  The man looked positively
+pleased.  "They don't know yet.  But--"  He paused.
+
+She waited.  What was he goggling and boggling at?  "Well?"
+
+"They found Bill Wingo's quirt on the floor beside the body and right
+inside the door a snakeskin hat-band the whole town knows belongs to
+Bill."
+
+Hazel's cheeks began to glow.  "That doesn't prove anything," she
+declared in a level voice.  "Bill owns three quirts to my knowledge,
+and he hasn't worn that snake hatband since last July.  It began to
+stretch then and was always working up off the crown, and he couldn't
+tighten it without ruining the skin, so he stopped wearing it."
+
+"It worked off the crown once too often last night," offered Nate.
+
+Hazel's black eyes were glittering through slitted eyelids.  Really,
+Nate Samson should have been warned.
+
+"You think Bill did it?" asked Hazel Walton.
+
+Nate nodded.  "So does everybody else."
+
+This was not strictly true.  Billy Wingo had several warm friends.
+
+"At any rate," Nate pursued with relish, "there's a warrant out for
+Bill."
+
+"Another warrant!"  Hazel's hand moved imperceptibly nearer a
+broad-bladed cheese-knife that lay on the counter.
+
+"Another warrant.  You bet another warrant.  That makes three counts
+he's wanted on--stage robbery, rustling that chestnut horse of Sam
+Larder's and now this murder.  I always said Bill Wingo was too good to
+be true."
+
+Hazel Walton made no further remark.  She reached for the cheese-knife.
+Nate Samson ducked under the counter.  The cheese-knife whirred within
+an inch of his prickling scalp and stuck quivering in the edge of a
+shelf.
+
+"Liar!" announced Hazel in a loud, unsympathetic tone.  "I'm only sorry
+I haven't a gun with me.  Talking like that about a man you're not fit
+to say hello to.  Here, I don't want any of this stuff!  You can keep
+it."
+
+So saying, she toppled over her whole pile of wrapped purchases and
+marched out of the store.  The marshal followed her to the door.  He
+returned to his post at the counter a minute later.
+
+"It's all right, Nate," he said.  "She's gone over to the other store."
+
+Nate Samson emerged slowly.  His pouchy cheeks were pale with fear.
+There was a dew of perspiration on his forehead.
+
+"She--she threw a knife at me," said Nate Samson.
+
+"It's stuck in the shelf behind you."  Thus the marshal with
+indifference.
+
+"That's assault with a deadly weapon," averred Nate, freeing the deadly
+weapon and putting it carefully out of reach of other possibly petulant
+customers.  "Why didn't you arrest her, Red?"
+
+"She missed you, Nate.  She'd have had to cut you some before I could
+arrest her.  'Threaten or Inflict a wound,' the statutes say, and she
+didn't do either.  No."
+
+"But she might have," grumbled the discomforted Nate.  "If I hadn't
+dodged, she'd have split my head open."
+
+"That's so," the marshal assented with relish.  "Do you know, Nate, I'm
+glad it happened.  I dunno that I'd have thought of it if I hadn't seen
+her buzz that knife at you."
+
+"Thought of what?" fretted Nate, stopping to gather up the parcels that
+had cascaded over his head to the floor.  "What you talking about,
+anyway?"
+
+The marshal settled himself to elucidate.  "I know that Bill had cut
+you out with Hazel and----"
+
+"No such thing," Nate contradicted sharply, with a reddening cheek.
+"No such thing.  You got it all wrong, Red.  I stopped going to see
+Hazel because it was so far and all.  I--uh--I got tired ridin' all
+that distance."
+
+"All right," the marshal gave in pacifically, "you stopped goin' to see
+her because it was so far from town.  Bill started going to see her,
+and he went to see her right smart for a spell."
+
+"He didn't go any more than that good-for-nothing flibberty-gibbet of a
+Riley Tyler or any other of half a dozen chaps," declared Nate.
+
+"Aw right, aw right, have it your own way for Gawd's sake!  If you
+don't shut up, I won't tell you what I think!"
+
+"I'll tell you what I think!  I think I'm a idjit to let you stop
+around my store alla time and fill your fat stomach to the neck with my
+prunes and dried peaches and sweet crackers, It would be bad enough if
+you took the salt fellers, but not you.  Oh, no, not a-tall.  Mr.
+Herring has to have sweet ones!"
+
+"I like them best," Mr. Herring said matter-of-factly.  "Lessee, where
+was I?  Oh, yeah, you had gotten wore to a frazzle by the distance to
+the Walton ranch, and Bill had started goin' in that direction,
+himself.  Then this winter sometime he stopped goin' to see Hazel,
+didn't he?"
+
+"She got tired of him--naturally."
+
+"You dunno what happened.  Neither do I know.  But that they had a
+fight is as good a guess as any, and Love's young dream went bust.  We
+all thought so, didn't we, and while we were trailin' Bill we didn't
+take Hazel into consideration a-tall.  But what happens to-day when you
+run down Bill to her face.  She slings a knife at you so prompt and
+free you almost lost four fifths of your looks.  She said things too,
+and all going to show that they've made it up and she's in love again
+with Bill.  Well then, if she's in love with Bill, he's either coming
+to see her off and on or else she knows where he is."
+
+"Not necessarily.  It don't follow a-tall."
+
+"You've soured on the girl, that's all the matter with you.  I tell
+you, Nate, if a girl as pretty as Hazel Walton is in love with a
+feller, do you think for a minute he wouldn't come to see her
+sometimes, or anyway let her know where he is?  Why, you poor flap,
+he'd be a wooden man if he didn't do one or both of those things.  And
+Bill Wingo ain't anybody's wooden man.  Not that boy.  He's an
+upstandin' citizen with all his brains and legs and arms and fingers
+and feet, and that's the kind of hairpin he is."
+
+"All that's a heap interesting, but let's hear the point of the
+joke--if there is one."
+
+"The point is that if a gent was to watch Hazel Walton and her
+traipsings to and fro, by and by he'd get news of Bill Wingo.  And I'm
+a great li'l watcher myself--especially when there's two thousand
+dollars reward, like there is for Bill.  It's worth some trouble.  Tell
+you, Nate, I'm glad I dropped in here this morning."
+
+"You're marshal," pointed out Nate.  "You can't leave town."
+
+"I ain't supposed to work all night--only day-times and part of the
+evening.  It's a cinch Bill won't make any social calls in daylight and
+it's a cinch the distance from town to Walton's won't tire me out like
+it has you."
+
+"Putting it that way," said Nate, suddenly perceiving an opportunity to
+make a little easy money, "putting it that way, maybe I'll go too."
+
+"It ain't necessary," protested the marshal, alarmed at the bare
+thought of dividing a profit.  "I can manage it myself."
+
+"I'll help you, though."
+
+"Look here, whose scheme is this, huh?"
+
+"You may have thought of it," conceded Nate, "but she was my girl
+first, and I got as much right to go out there again and see her as you
+have, and I got as much right to that two thousand dollars as you have."
+
+The marshal swore frankly.  "I'll never tell you anything again.
+Taking advantage of a feller this way.  I thought you were my friend."
+
+"I am.  We'll go out together, huh?"
+
+"We will not," contradicted the marshal.  "So you can just as well stop
+stretching your mouth about it."
+
+"Is that so?  Is _that_ so?"
+
+"Yes, that's so.  This is my private party, and you wanna keep paws
+off."
+
+"Aw, go sit on yourself!"
+
+"Remember what I told you," the marshal said in part and took his
+departure.
+
+
+Arrived home, Hazel unhitched and unharnessed, turned the team into the
+corral and carried her purchases into the kitchen and dumped them on
+the table.  She hung up her man's hat on one of the hooks that held the
+Winchester, and fluffed the hair about her temples by the aid of the
+mirror that hung below the Terry clock her uncle had brought West with
+him.  She had always liked the Terry clock,--from the cheerful painted
+pumpkins and grapes that graced the patterned top to the peculiar
+throbbing ring it gave on striking the hour, she liked it.
+
+And on a day the old clock was destined to repay that liking full
+measure, pressed down and running over.
+
+While she was fixing her hair, the clock struck three.
+
+Silently she unwrapped her bundles and stored away the contents in
+crock and box and drawer.  A tidy person, Hazel.  Then, because she was
+still in a temper with Nate Samson, she changed her dress, donned a
+pair of overalls and began to scrub the kitchen floor.
+
+"Liar!" she said aloud, scraping a vigorous brush under the dresser.
+"Liar!  I hope your old store burns up!"
+
+So occupied was she with her thoughts and her work that she failed to
+hear the approach of a rider.
+
+"'Lo, Hazel," was the rider's greeting delivered across the doorsill.
+
+Hazel's brush stopped swishing to and fro.
+
+"Hello, Sally Jane," she said smilingly, supporting herself on one arm
+and pushing back the hair that had fallen over her hot face.  "Put your
+horse in the corral and come on in."
+
+"I tied him to the wagon," said Sally Jane.
+
+Out of respect for the wet floor she jigged on her heels across to a
+chair and seated herself, hooking her heels in a rung.  Sally Jane
+looked at Hazel with speculation in her eyes.
+
+"You look mad, dear," Sally Jane said.
+
+"I am," declared Hazel, and began to sizzle anew.  "Just listen," she
+continued, hopping up to seat herself on the table, "to what I heard in
+town this morning.  Nate told me--"
+
+"----there now," she concluded.  "What do you think of that for a
+put-up job?  Why, it's not even clever."
+
+"No," agreed Sally Jane.  "Too many articles belonging to Bill.  Either
+the quirt or the hatband, but not both.  I'd like to know how they got
+hold of them."
+
+"They?"
+
+"Or he.  It may have been one man, and it may have been more than one.
+You can't tell.  Tip had enemies--several.  But I'm afraid the gang
+won't take that into consideration,--much.  All they'll be able to see
+is the quirt and the hatband.  And on top of what's happened already!
+Confound it, Bill shouldn't have disappeared this way.  All his friends
+know he didn't--couldn't have either held up the stage or really
+rustled Sam Larder's precious horse, which, by the way, was found mud
+to the ears near Sam's corral this morning.  Fact, Dad told me.  But
+why didn't Bill stay and face the music?  That's what I'd like to know.
+He should have known he'd only hurt himself by running off this way.
+That's where he made one big mistake."
+
+At which Hazel jumped right off the table.  Her black eyes snapped.
+"He didn't make any mistake!" she cried.  "He did just right!  I know
+he did.  If he ran--went away--he had a good reason and you can't tell
+me different, Sally Jane Prescott!"
+
+The older girl threw out a hand in mock alarm.  "There, there, honey,
+calm down.  I didn't mean anything against your precious Bill.  Not a
+thing."
+
+"He's not my precious Bill," denied Hazel with vigor.  "He's just a
+good fuf-friend."
+
+Sally Jane looked at her shrewdly.  "What makes you think your--friend
+didn't make a mistake in going away?"
+
+"Because he couldn't make a mistake if he tried.  That's why."  Oh, the
+defiance in the voice of Hazel.
+
+"Heavens above, child!  Men are only human beings and human beings make
+mistakes.  Bill's a man, and he's liable to make mistakes like any
+other one of them."
+
+"Not Bill," Hazel contradicted flatly.  "He--he's different.  He----"
+
+Alarums and excursions without--the gallop of several horses, shouts of
+men, the jingle and stamp of riders dismounting at the door.  Entered
+then Felix Craft and Sam Larder with drawn guns, in their rear the
+district attorney, likewise with weapon displayed.
+
+"Whose horse is that?" Craft demanded, fixing Hazel with a baleful eye.
+
+"If you mean the one tied to the wagon," replied Hazel, "it belongs to
+Sally Jane Prescott."
+
+"What of it?" demanded Sally Jane, appraising the trio with a cool
+glance.
+
+"Visitors in my kitchen take off their hats," reminded Hazel severely.
+
+The three men sheepishly removed their hats and sheathed their firearms.
+
+"That's better," said Hazel.  "You don't know how silly you looked,
+rushing in here brandishing your guns that way.  I was quite frightened
+for a minute."  Here she giggled and winked at Sally Jane.
+
+"We thought maybe Bill Wingo was here," said Craft.
+
+"And what made you think Bill Wingo was here?" asked Hazel.
+
+"That horse outside," he replied, watching her shrewdly.  "Do you mind
+if I search the house?"
+
+"I certain do mind!" cried Hazel.  "You dare search this house!  Just
+you try it!"
+
+"I'll bet the man's here," struck in the district attorney, pushing to
+the front.  "Good thing we surrounded the house first.  If you've got
+Bill Wingo hidden anywhere, you give him up, do you hear, Hazel?"
+
+"Miss Walton to you, do you hear, Rale?"
+
+He eyed her a moment venomously.
+
+"Gettin' particular, ain't you?" he sneered.  "Any one would think--"
+His tongue ceased suddenly to wag as she dipped the floor brush in the
+dirty water of the bucket and drew back her arm.
+
+"Yes?" prompted Hazel, her eyes beginning to glitter with a dangerous
+light.
+
+"Nothing," capitulated the district attorney and tried to smile.  "I
+was thinking of a joke I heard last night, Miss Walton."
+
+"That's better," approved Hazel.
+
+"Look here," said the district attorney, "if Bill Wingo ain't here,
+what did you go to town for to-day and buy all those supplies?"
+
+Genuine astonishment showed on Hazel's countenance.  "Those supplies
+were my regular supplies.  Don't you suppose I buy something to eat
+once in a while?"
+
+"Queer you should have come in and got that stuff the day after Tip
+O'Gorman was murdered."
+
+"We figure," said Sam Larder, "that Bill Wingo will have to eat right
+along, and that unless he's left the country, it's natural he'll get
+his supplies from his friends, and we know that you drove in town and
+bought supplies this morning."
+
+"Well, I've told you who I bought 'em for," snapped Hazel.  "Anything
+else?"
+
+"There is," said the district attorney smoothly.  "We're going to
+search the house."
+
+"You won't take my word that Bill Wingo isn't here?" demanded Hazel.
+
+"In a matter like this we can't," replied the district attorney.
+
+"One moment," murmured Hazel, stepping back.
+
+The next instant she had jerked her Winchester off the hooks and cocked
+the hammer.  "Now," she resumed, holding the weapon level with her
+belt, "now go ahead and search the house."
+
+The district attorney, with a haste that was ludicrous, slid behind the
+fat bulk of Sam Larder.  Even Felix Craft smiled.
+
+"She's bluffing," declared the district attorney.  "I'll go out and get
+the marshal."
+
+He departed hurriedly, to return almost immediately with Red Herring.
+The latter, sheepish as to the face and with shambling legs, advanced
+into the room.  The district attorney pointed dramatically at Hazel.
+
+"Arrest her," he directed.
+
+"Huh?" remarked the marshal, eyeing Hazel's artillery.
+
+"Arrest her, I said.  To threaten with a deadly weapon is a statutory
+offense."
+
+"Well, I dunno," balked the marshal.
+
+"Go on and arrest her.  I'll back you up."
+
+"Will you?"  Absolutely no enthusiasm on the part of the marshal.
+
+"G'on!  What are you waiting for?" barked the exasperated district
+attorney.
+
+"I'm waiting for her to put up her gun," was the truthful reply.
+
+"What you afraid of?  She won't shoot.  She's only bluffing, I tell
+you."
+
+"You arrest her then.  I ain't none sure I got a right to.  I'm only
+supposed to make arrests in town.  You better get one of the deputies
+to arrest her, Arthur, I--I'd rather you would."
+
+The marshal oozed outdoors.  The district attorney said something.
+
+"No more of that," Sam Larder enjoined him.  "You stop your cussin',
+you hear.  There's ladies present."
+
+"Where?" the district attorney demanded, staring about him insolently.
+
+"My father will ask you what you mean by that," said Sally Jane.
+
+"I didn't mean you," mumbled the angry man, perceiving that he had gone
+a little too far.  "I--I was a li'l hasty, I guess.  No offense,
+ladies, I hope."
+
+He achieved a clumsy bow and again faced Hazel.  "Now, look here, you
+can't go on acting this way, you know.  You're only hurting your own
+case.  Be reasonable, be reasonable."
+
+"And let you poke all through my house!" she snapped him up.  "Not
+much.  I don't want any trouble, but I'll have to shoot the first man
+that goes beyond this room."
+
+"Told you you'd get her all stirred up," said Sam Larder.
+
+"We didn't want you to come along anyway, Rale," contributed Felix
+Craft.  "You're too buffle-headed for any human use.  Y'oughta take
+things more easy with the girl.  If you'd left it to us, everything
+would have been all right."
+
+"I suppose busting in with your guns pulled is one way of taking it
+easy."
+
+"I notice you had yours out," supplied Felix.
+
+"I thought the man might be here, same as you," defended the district
+attorney.
+
+"Which is why you let us go first," sneered Sam.
+
+"When you're quite through bickering among yourselves--" drawled Hazel.
+
+"I wish you'd point that rifle somewhere else," the district attorney
+remarked uneasily.
+
+"It's all right where it is," was the instant return.
+
+"I could arrest you, you know, if I wanted to," he pointed out.
+
+"I heard you say something like that to the marshal," nodded Hazel.
+
+The district attorney stared a moment.
+
+"Huh!" he muttered finally and strode to the door.  "Hey, Red!" he
+called.  "Come here a minute, will you?"
+
+"Now I ain't gonna arrest her for you and that's flat!" announced a
+sulky voice without.
+
+"Nobody's asking you to.  Come in, man, come in."
+
+The marshal sidled in, stumbling in his efforts to keep one eye on the
+district attorney and the other on Hazel's Winchester.
+
+"You were in Nate Samson's store this morning, weren't you, Red?"  It
+was more of a statement than a question.
+
+The marshal immediately gave the district attorney the full benefit of
+both eyes.  "Huh?"
+
+"You were there when this girl, Miss Walton, made some purchases,
+weren't you?"
+
+"Yeah," admitted the marshal.
+
+"When Nate told her of the murder and the warrant sworn out again Bill
+Wingo, what did she do?"
+
+"Why--" stuttered the marshal.
+
+"She flew into a rage, didn't she?  She threw a knife at Nate, didn't
+she?"
+
+"Who told you all this?" the marshal wished to know.
+
+"Nate told me."
+
+"Damn Nate, that's all I got to say," pronounced the marshal, disgusted
+at the duplicity of a former friend.  "I was wonderin' where you got
+the notion so sudden of coming out here.  Damn that--  Excuse me, Miss,
+for cussin'.  What's that you want to know, Rale?  Yes, I was there and
+she slung a knife at Nate.  With any luck she'd had hit him and serve
+him right, the flat-tongued snitch."
+
+"There now," exclaimed the triumphant district attorney, "you hear
+that, Miss Walton?  You drove into town the morning after the murder.
+When you are told of the murder and the warrant, you fly into a passion
+and try to kill the inoffensive storekeeper who told you the news.  Not
+content with this, you throw what you've already bought at the
+storekeeper and make your purchases at the other store.  I have learned
+that among the purchases were twelve boxes of .45-90 rifle cartridges
+and six boxes of .45 caliber Colt cartridges.  I have reason to believe
+that these cartridges are not intended for your personal use.  In fact,
+I am positive you bought them for the murderer, William H. Wingo."
+
+The marshal glanced quickly at the district attorney.  He himself had
+not been aware of the ammunition item.  The marshal inwardly cursed the
+district attorney and Nate Samson.
+
+"Well," boomed the district attorney, when Hazel did not instantly
+speak, "what have you to say?"
+
+"Plenty," said she then.  "I bought those cartridges for my personal
+use.  This Winchester is a .45-90 and my six-shooter is a .45.  I guess
+I've got a right to buy ammunition now and then if I like."
+
+"Rats!" snarled the district attorney, stiff in his conceit.  "What
+does a girl want with two hundred and forty rifle cartridges and three
+hundred revolver cartridges?  Those revolver cartridges especially?
+You won't have use for 'em in ten years.  You bought them for Bill
+Wingo.  You can't fool me!  You know where he is, you know you do, and
+I know you do, and I intend to put you in jail as a suspicious
+character until you tell us where he is."
+
+"What a filthy animal you are, anyway, Rale!  I didn't know such things
+as you lived!"  Thus Sally Jane, her upper lip fairly, curling with
+disgust.
+
+"When I get back to Golden Bar, Miss Walton," fumed the district
+attorney, unmoved by the insult, "I intend to swear out a warrant for
+your arrest, and have it served by deputy sheriffs.  If necessary, I
+shall swear in deputies other than the two men, Shotgun Shillman and
+Riley Tyler, for the purpose of serving this warrant.  I intend to have
+the law obeyed."
+
+"She ain't busted any law that I can see," struck in Sam Larder gruffly.
+
+Neither he nor Felix Craft had intended to go as far as an actual
+arrest of the girl.  They were bad enough, in all conscience, but they
+drew the line somewhere.
+
+Felix Craft shook his head.  "No arrest, Arthur.  That don't go."
+
+"I can arrest her, I tell you," insisted the district attorney.
+
+"No," said Craft firmly.  "Miss Walton," he went on, turning to the
+girl, "we were a li'l excited when we came in here.  Seeing that horse
+outside and all, we got the idea that maybe Bill was here.  Will you
+give us your word he isn't?"
+
+"Why, certainly," she said.  "Bill isn't here, I give you my word."
+
+"Fair enough," said Craft.  "We'll be going.  Come along, Arthur, move."
+
+He and Sam hustled the district attorney out between them.  Craft
+called in the cordon of horsemen that had surrounded the ranch-house.
+
+"Crawl your horse, Arthur," ordered Craft.  "What you waiting for?"
+
+Arthur, swearing heartily, did as directed.  "I don't see why you don't
+want me to have her arrested," he said in part as they rode townward.
+"A few days in the cooler----"
+
+"No sense in it," declared Craft.  "A lot of folks in the county
+wouldn't like it either, she being a woman and a good-lookin' one
+besides.  You leave her alone."
+
+"Yeah," slipped in Sam, "wait till you get some real evidence against
+her.  Suspicion ain't anything."
+
+"It would be enough for me to arrest her all right," persisted the
+district attorney.
+
+"Blah!  You couldn't hold her a week," averred Craft, "and you know it.
+And lemme tell you, I don't believe she knows any more about Bill Wingo
+than I do.  You know they busted up this winter some time."
+
+"Changed your tune mighty sudden," sneered the district attorney.  "On
+the way out you were as sure as the rest of us we'd get some kind of a
+clue at Walton's.  Those cartridges----"
+
+"Dry up about those cartridges!" exclaimed Felix.  "You got cartridges
+on the brain."
+
+Then the wrangle became general.
+
+Hazel, standing in the doorway, watched the cavalcade disappear around
+the bend in the draw.
+
+"I guess," she said, taking a box of cartridges from the top shelf and
+snicking open the sealing with a finger nail, "I guess I'd better load
+this rifle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+THE BARE-HEADED MAN
+
+"But I rode over here especially to bring you back with me to stay a
+while, a long while, as long as you like and longer."  Thus Sally Jane,
+looking injured.
+
+Hazel shook her head.  "Can't, dear.  Honestly, I'd like nothing better
+than to go a-visiting, but I've just got to look after the ranch."
+
+Sally Jane gazed at her friend a moment in silence, then: "You don't
+really have to stay here, Hazel.  You only think you do.  You'd much
+better come over and stay with us.  You know I'd love to have you, and
+this is no place for you all alone by yourself this way.  Suppose----"
+
+"Who'd hurt me?" interrupted Hazel.  "Anyway, I'm not going to be
+driven off my own ranch by anybody.  I'm going to stay here until I
+find a buyer for the place."
+
+"But that may be a year," objected Sally Jane.
+
+"It may be several years.  Money's awfully tight just now, the
+Hillsville cashier said, the last time I was over."
+
+"I don't care, somebody--some man ought to be here.  Can't you get Ray
+back earlier than usual?"
+
+Hazel shook her head.  "I don't want to, Sally Jane.  He went east to
+Missouri to visit his folks, and I'm not going to spoil his good time.
+He'll be back in time for the spring round-up, though."
+
+"That won't be till next month," objected Sally Jane.  "Anything might
+happen in the meantime.  Land alive, just look at this afternoon!"
+
+"Well, look at it.  Not a thing happened to hurt, did it?  Lord, Sally
+Jane, men are the easiest things in the world to handle when you know
+how."
+
+"You don't give them half enough credit," said Sally Jane dryly.
+"Scratch a man and you'll catch a savage every time.  Beasts!"
+
+"Rats!" remarked Hazel, and gave her head a toss and turned her
+attention to practical things.  "_Look_ at this clean floor!  _Look_ at
+the dirt they tracked in!  Oh, the devil!  I could swear!"
+
+She fetched a fresh bucket of water and began to scrub the floor anew.
+
+"I'm going," announced Sally Jane.  "Once more, Hazel, won't you change
+your mind and visit with us for a while?"
+
+Hazel shook her head.  "I only wish I felt able to.  But you don't have
+to go yet.  Stay to supper, do.  Let the male parent get his own supper
+for a change.  It won't hurt him.  And there'll be a fine old moon
+to-night about eight."
+
+"I promised Dad French bread for to-night, or I would.  I can't
+disappoint him.  So long.  Ride over first chance you get."
+
+When Sally Jane was gone, Hazel hurried to finish the scrubbing of the
+floor.  When she had wrung out the last mop rag and hung it to dry
+behind the stove, she fed the chickens and horses, took the ax and
+bucksaw, went out to the woodpile and sawed and split a man's size jag
+of stove wood and kindling.
+
+In the red glory of the sunset she returned to the house with her arms
+piled high with wood.  She made sufficient trips to fill the woodbox,
+then started a fire in the stove, put on the coffeepot and ground up
+enough coffee for four cupfuls.  She liked coffee, did Hazel Walton.
+
+Bacon and potatoes were sputtering in their respective pans on the
+stove before it was so dark that she was forced to light the lamp.
+
+She had slipped back the chimney into the clamps and was waiting for it
+to heat so that she could turn up the wick when the faintest of creaks
+at the door made her look up.
+
+She did not move, just stood there staring stupidly at the bareheaded
+man that blocked the open doorway.  For the bareheaded man was Dan
+Slike, his harsh face rendered even less prepossessing than usual by a
+week's stubble of beard.  A six-shooter was in Dan Slike's hand, and
+the barrel was pointing at her breast.
+
+"Don't go makin' any move toward that rifle on the hooks back of you,"
+said Dan Slike, slipping into the room and closing the door behind him.
+"If you do, I'll have to beef you.  I don't wanna hurt you--I ain't in
+the habit of hurting women, but by Gawd, if it comes to me or you, why
+it'll just naturally have to be you.  Dish up that grub a-frying there
+on the stove.  I'm hungry.  Get a move on."
+
+At that she turned in a flash and reached for the Winchester.  She had
+it barely off the hooks when Dan Slike was beside her.  With his left
+hand he seized the gun barrel and shoved it upward.  And as he did so,
+he smote her across the top of the head with his pistol barrel.
+
+A rocketing sheaf of sparks danced before her eyes and her knees gave
+way.  She sank to the floor in a dazed heap.  He dragged the Winchester
+from her failing grasp as she fell.
+
+He began to work the lever of the rifle with expert rapidity.  A
+twinkling stream of cartridges twirled against his chest and fell to
+the floor.  Carefully he gathered all the cartridges and dropped them
+into the side pocket of his coat.  The unloaded rifle he leaned against
+the door jamb.
+
+Hazel slowly raised her body to a sitting position.  She clung to a leg
+of the table for support.  She passed a hand very tenderly across the
+top of her head.  She felt a little nauseated.
+
+Dan Slike, watching her with hard, bright eyes, strode to the stove and
+poured himself out a cup of coffee.  He spaded in a spoonful of sugar
+and stirred the mixture meditatively.  But he did not cease to watch
+her.
+
+"You'll be all right in about ten minutes," he said calmly.  "I didn't
+hit you so awful hard.  I didn't go to.  Gawd, no!  I figure always to
+be as gentle with a woman as I can.  No sense in bein' rougher than you
+got to be, I say."
+
+He drank the coffee slowly, with evident enjoyment.
+
+"Nothing like coffee when your cork's pulled," he rambled on, sloshing
+round the last of the coffee in the bottom of the cup.  "It beats
+whisky, but now that I've had the coffee I don't care if I do.  Got a
+bottle tucked away somewhere, li'l girl?"
+
+She was still unable to speak.  Her mouth had an odd, cottony feeling.
+She shook her head in reply to his question.
+
+"Is that so?" he said in the chatty tone he had been using.  "I guess
+maybe you're mistaken."
+
+He set the cup down on the table, reached down and twisted his fingers
+into her hair.  With a yank that brought the tears springing to her
+eyes, he said:
+
+"About that bottle now--ain't you a mite mistaken?  What's the matter?
+Cat got your tongue?"
+
+Again he pulled her hair, pulled it till the tears ran down her cheeks,
+and she moaned and cried in purest agony.
+
+"C'mon!" directed Dan Slike.  "Quit your bluffin', you triflin' hussy!
+You ain't hurt a-tall.  And I can't stay here all night while you sit
+on the floor and beller.  Stand up on your two legs and bring me that
+bottle.  And no monkey business either.  Say, have you got a
+six-shooter?  Answer me, have you?"
+
+"No!  No!  I haven't!  I haven't another gun."  She told him this lie
+in such a heart-breaking tone that he was constrained to believe her.
+
+"I'll have to take your word for it," he grumbled.  "But you remember,
+girl, the first false move you make with a knife or anything else, I'll
+blow you apart.  Damn you, get up!"
+
+With which he gave her hair such a terrific twist that the exquisite
+pain expelled all her initial fear of him, and she leaped at him like a
+wildcat, her nails curving at his eyes.
+
+Dan Slike dodged backward, set himself and swung his right fist without
+mercy.  He was no boxer.  The accurate placing of blows was beyond him.
+So it was that the swing intended for her jaw landed on her cheekbone,
+a much less vulnerable spot.  Nevertheless the smash was enough to send
+her spinning sidewise over a chair and piled her sicker and dizzier
+than before in a corner of the room.
+
+She lay still and panted.
+
+"You see how it is," he pointed out.  "You ain't gainin' a thing by
+fighting me.  Might as well be sensible first as last.  But lemme tell
+you if you keep on a-fussin' at me thisaway, I'll sure have to be rough
+with you."
+
+He sat down on the edge of the table and rolled a cigarette.  Lighting
+it he drew in a slow luxurious lungful.
+
+"One thing I gotta say for your sheriff," he observed behind a barrier
+of smoke, "he gimme plenty of tobacco while I was his guest.  I can't
+say but he took right good care of me--for a sheriff."
+
+His incarceration having deprived Dan Slike of conversational
+opportunities, he was now experiencing the natural reaction.  He was
+talking too much.
+
+"Fed me well too," he resumed.  "Oh, I ain't complainin'.  I--Hell,
+your grub's beginnin' to burn.  I'll just move those frypans back.
+Feelin' any better, girl?"
+
+He came and stood over her, hands on hips, and looked down at her
+grimly.  She shrank away, her wide eyes fixed upon him in fright and
+loathing.
+
+It was evident that he found his survey of her satisfactory, for he
+kicked her in the side.  Not hard.  Simply as an earnest of what lay in
+store for her in case she chose to continue contumacious.  "Get up," he
+commanded.
+
+The nausea and most of the dizzy feeling had evaporated.  She was
+perfectly able to get up, but it was intolerable that she should do the
+bidding of her uncle's murderer.  She continued to lie still.
+
+"Get up!" he repeated, and kicked her again--harder.
+
+She got up, gasping, a hand at her side.  She felt as though one of her
+ribs was broken.  His long fingers fastened on the tender flesh of her
+shoulder.  He shoved her across the room.  She brought up against the
+stove.  Instinctively she thrust out a hand to save herself.  Her bare
+palm smacked down upon the hottest stove lid.
+
+She sprang back with a choked cry and clapped the burned hand to her
+mouth.
+
+Dan Slike laughed merrily--for him.  "Serve you right.  You're too damn
+pernickety, anyway.  Aw, whatcha blubberin' about, cry-baby?  Dontcha
+know enough to put some bakin' soda on the burn and tie a rag round it?
+Ain't you got any brains a-tall?  Pick up that kettle!  Just pick it
+up!"
+
+Her unburned hand fell away from the kettle.  She had seen the
+six-shooter flash out at his last words.  She knew now that this man
+meant what he said.  He would kill her, even as he had killed her uncle.
+
+With a shudder that began at her knees and ended at the nape of her
+neck she went to the cupboard and took out a carton of baking soda.
+
+"Here," he said roughly, when he saw that she was making a poor job at
+bandaging, "here, you can't tie that one-handed.  Lemme."
+
+He bandaged the hand, made fast the bandage with a too-tight knot.  He
+obviously lingered over the business, deriving pleasure from her state
+of terror.
+
+It has been shown that Hazel was not lacking in courage.  Indeed, she
+had more than the average woman's share of it.  But this man staggered
+her mentally.  She did not know what he would do next and was in a
+panic accordingly.
+
+"Scared stiff," he remarked, as he twirled her about and headed her
+toward the stove.  "You don't like me a-tall, do you?  Nemmine.  Lessee
+how your grub tastes."
+
+She had set the table for herself before he came in.  He sat down at
+her place, his eyes bright upon her.  Fumblingly she filled a plate
+with bacon and fried potatoes.  She brought him another cup of coffee
+and placed the condensed milk and the sugar within his reach.
+
+"Spoon," he said shortly.
+
+She took the one from the cup he had just drunk from and handed it to
+him.  He caught her wrist.  The spoon fell with a clatter.
+
+"You're so scared of me, you can't hardly breathe," he said calmly.  "I
+don't like li'l girls to be scared of me, so you can just get you
+another plate and cup and saucer and sit down there on the other side
+of the table and eat your supper with me."
+
+To eat supper with her uncle's murderer!  Here was a grotesque jape of
+fate.  It was unthinkable.  Absolutely.  The man divined something of
+what was passing in her mind.
+
+"All in the line of business, li'l girl," he said, with a backward jerk
+of his head toward the front room where he had killed her uncle.  "I
+didn't have a thing against him--personally."
+
+"There were dishes here on the table," she babbled hysterically.  "They
+found them here after--after--showing how he'd fed you first, and----"
+
+"Sure he fed me," he interrupted.  "I was hungry, hungrier than I am
+now.  Alla same, you gotta eat supper with me.  I want you to, and I
+always get what I want."
+
+He twisted her wrist to emphasize his wish.  She uttered a little moan.
+"Don't!  Oh, don't hurt me any more!  I'll do what you want."
+
+Beaten, body and soul, she went to the cupboard and got herself plate
+and cup and saucer, knife and fork and spoon.  Her six-shooter was in
+the next room, hanging in a holster on the wall.  A loaded shotgun
+stood at the head of her bed.  But it is doubtful that even if the
+weapon had been within short reach, she would have dared attempt to use
+either.  Dan Slike had scared her too much.
+
+She sat down opposite the man and tried to eat.  It required every atom
+of will power to induce her throat muscles to permit her to swallow.
+Dan Slike watched her with savage satisfaction.  He found the situation
+intensely amusing.  To murder her uncle and later eat a meal with the
+niece.  What a joke!
+
+"I haven't forgotten about that bottle," he remarked suddenly, pushing
+back his chair.  "You thought it had slipped my mind, I guess, didn't
+you?  I always have a drink after meals, or my victuals don't set good."
+
+Without a word she went to the cupboard and brought back a bottle of
+whisky.  He took it from her and held it up against the lamplight.
+
+"This is only half full," he said severely.  "You got another round
+somewhere?"
+
+It was fright and not the lie that made her stammer.  "Nun-no."
+
+Oddly enough, he saw fit to believe her.  Perhaps it was because he had
+just eaten and was at bodily ease with the world.  She stood before
+him, arms limp, eyes on the floor.  He drew the cork from the bottle
+and took a long pull.
+
+"Good whisky," he vouchsafed between the third and fourth drags.  "I'll
+take what's left with me--if you don't mind."
+
+He was going then!  Her poor terrified heart beat with a trifle more
+spirit.  She looked up.  Their eyes met.
+
+"Don't look so happy!" he snarled.  "Maybe I'll take you with me!"
+
+He eyed her discomfiture with a sinister look.  He uttered a short bark
+of a laugh.  "Dontcha fret.  I ain't got time to fuss with any female.
+Not that I would, even if I had time, so don't go flatterin' yourself
+any.  Women ain't in my line.  You're all a squalling bunch of Gawd's
+mistakes, every last one of you, and you can stick a pin in that.
+Women?  Phutt!"
+
+So saying, Dan Slike turned his head slightly and spat accurately
+through the open draft into the stove.  An engaging gentleman, Mr.
+Slike!
+
+"I saw two mules and a horse in the corral when I came by," he resumed,
+dandling the whisky bottle on his knee.  "Looks like a good
+horse--better than the one I left up in the timber.  I'll ride your
+horse and lead the other.  Where do you keep your saddle and bridle?
+In the shed, huh?  Aw right, you can show me when we go out.  Listen, I
+expect to-morrow some time you'll have a few gents a-callin' on you.
+Yeah, to-morrow.  It'll likely take those Golden Bar citizens till
+about then to pick up my trail.  You needn't to look too hopeful.
+Those jiggers don't know they're alive.  I saw 'em scatterin' off
+hell-bent the wrong way before I ever started this way, you bet.  Why,
+hells bells, I even topped a horse behind a corral with the woman right
+in the house gettin' supper, and she never knowed it.  Tell you, girl,
+I'm slick.  And if I didn't have more sense in the tip of my finger
+than all those fellers and their li'l tin sheriff and his li'l tin
+deputies, I'd be a heap ashamed of myself.  Say--about that sheriff; I
+heard folks talkin' in the street this afternoon and they said the
+sheriff had skedaddled because he'd murdered a sport named O'Gorman.  A
+fi-ine sheriff he is, to slop around turnin' tricks like that.  A
+fi-ine sheriff, and you can tell him I said so."
+
+He drove in the cork with the heel of his hand and slipped the bottle
+into a side pocket of his coat.  Standing up, he tapped her smartly on
+the shoulder.  "Get me that hat over there on the hook.  I left town in
+such a hurry I clean forgot to fetch mine along."
+
+Silently she brought the hat.
+
+"Why do you women always wear hats too big for you?" he grumbled, after
+trying it on.  "I couldn't keep this thing on my head."
+
+She had brought an Omaha newspaper from town that day.  It lay
+outspread on the table.  He tore off a half page, plaited it neatly and
+stuffed the thickened strip in behind the sweatband of the hat.
+
+"It will fit me now," he said briskly, pulling on the hat.  "Gimme
+those cantenas and saddle pockets hanging on the wall."
+
+She obeyed stumblingly.  Into the cantenas, from her store of
+provisions, he packed bacon, coffee, a sack of flour a third full, a
+tin can full of salt, another can filled with matches, a salt pack full
+of sugar, several cans of tomatoes and peaches, a frying-pan and a
+small can of lard.  In the saddle pockets he stowed away the twelve
+boxes of rifle cartridges, the six boxes of revolver cartridges and a
+knife, fork and spoon.  The long-bladed butcher knife he nonchalantly
+slipped down his boot-leg.
+
+"I'll tie the coffee pot on the saddle," he said, buckling the billet
+of a cantena flap.  "It's too wet to go in here.  Can't take a chance
+on spoiling my flour.  C'mon, le's go find the saddle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+THE PERSISTENT SUITOR
+
+"You see," said Dan Slike, as he topped his mount, "I ain't really been
+hard on you.  I didn't ask you for a nickel.  I only took what I
+needed.  And if you hadn't fought me like you did, I wouldn't have laid
+a finger on you.  Think of that and be happy."
+
+He whirled the horse and rode away toward the lower ground behind the
+house, the coffeepot clacking rhythmically against the barrel of the
+Winchester Hazel had vainly hoped he would forget to take with him.
+
+Hazel remained standing beside the corral gate.  Suddenly she was
+conscious of a great weariness.  She was as one who has traveled a
+day's journey without food.  Her arms and legs were leaden.  Her head
+ached, her body ached, her spirit ached.
+
+With dragging steps she returned to the house.  From the cupboard she
+brought forth the bottle of whisky she had lied to save and poured a
+stiff four fingers into a teacup.  She drank off the liquor in three
+gulps.  But she was so spent that, other than a fit of coughing, there
+was no effect.
+
+The lamp was burning low and fitfully, filling the kitchen with a smell
+of burning wicking.  She had forgotten to refill it that morning.  She
+put away the whisky bottle, turned out the lamp and filled it by the
+faint light from an opened draft-chink.  But in reaching for the
+chimney, she knocked it to the floor and broke it.
+
+Apathetically, every movement mechanical, she found another chimney and
+adjusted it in the clamps.  A smell of burned hair suddenly filled her
+nostrils.  A lock of hair had fallen against the lamp chimney.  She put
+her hand to her head.  Her hair was in a slovenly tangle over one ear.
+She did it up any way and skewered it fast with a few pins.
+
+Crunch!  The remains of the lamp chimney crackled under foot.  She
+brought out the dustpan and brushed and swept up the pieces.  She
+carried the broken glass out to the trash pile.  When she returned to
+the kitchen, there was a man standing in the middle of the room.
+
+Nothing had the power to surprise her now.  She would not have been
+amazed had the devil himself popped into the room.  The man turned at
+her entry.  He was Rafe Tuckleton.  He glowered down at her.  She shut
+the door and put away the dustpan and brush behind the wood-box.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked lifelessly.
+
+"Who's been here?" he demanded, pointing an accusing finger at the
+table.  "Two plates, two cups, two saucers--who you been entertaining?"
+
+Entertaining!  Good Lord!  Hazel sat down on the wood-box and laughed
+hysterically.
+
+He was around the table and confronting her in three strides.  "Who's
+been here?" he kept at her.
+
+"Dan Slike," she said with a spasmodic giggle.
+
+"You're a liar," he told her promptly.  "Dan Slike didn't come this
+way.  He--he went another way.  There's a posse on his trail now.
+You've had Bill Wingo here, that's whatsamatter."
+
+"I haven't," she denied, wagging her head at him.  "Dan Slike was here,
+I tell you."
+
+"The hell he was.  You must think I'm a fool.  Bill Wingo's been here,
+I tell you.  Think I don't know, huh, you deceivin' hussy!  Trying to
+make small of me, carryin' on with other men, huh?"
+
+She said nothing.  It is doubtful if she heard him, for all his roaring
+voice and gesturing fists.  Billy Wingo!  _Her_ Billy--once.  He had
+loved her too--once.  What a queer, queer world it was.  Everybody and
+everything at cross-purposes.  Yet there was a reason for it all.  Must
+be.  Even a reason for Rafe.  She looked up at Rafe.  He was glaring
+down at her with a most villainous expression on his lean features.
+
+"How long has Bill Wingo been gone?" he demanded.
+
+"It wasn't Bill," she insisted doggedly.  "It was Dan Slike, and he's
+been gone maybe half an hour."
+
+"Say, whatsa use of lyin' to me?  You're an odd number, by all
+accounts, but you ain't so odd you could sit here and eat and drink and
+carry on with your uncle's murderer.  You can't tell me _that_."
+
+She was regarding him with curious eyes.  "I thought you always said
+Dan Slike didn't kill my uncle?"
+
+"Well--uh--you see, everybody else seems to think he did.
+And--ah--maybe I was wrong.  Anyway, say I was.  For all I know to the
+contrary, he did kill your uncle.  What's fairer than that, I'd like to
+know?  You think he killed Tom Walton, don't you?"
+
+She continued to stare at Rafe.  "I know he did."
+
+"Then how do you expect me to believe you ate supper with him?  You're
+foolish.  You had Bill Wingo here, and we'll settle this Wingo business
+right now.  You see, don't you, how you can never marry the feller?
+This Tip O'Gorman murder has queered him round here for keeps.  Sooner
+or later he'll hang for it.  You'd look fine wouldn't you, the widow of
+a----"
+
+"Don't say it," she cut him short.  "Billy Wingo is no murderer.  He
+fights fair, which is more than I can say for you.  However, you can
+set your mind at rest.  I'm not likely to marry Billy Wingo, or anybody
+else."
+
+"Then what do you care whether I call him a murderer or not, if you
+don't love him?" he probed.  "I thought a while back you had taken my
+advice and busted it off with Bill, but now after hearin' what you
+tried to do to Nate Samson, and all that ammunition and grub you bought
+to-day, the day after Tip was killed, why I began to think maybe you
+was startin' in to play the Jack again.  I told you last fall I was
+gonna have you myself.  You ain't forgot it, have you?"
+
+His eyes, savage and mean, held hers steadily.  "I come over here,
+to-night to get you.  I'm taking you back with me to-night to my ranch.
+To-morrow you can marry me or not.  It'll be just as you say."
+
+"You're taking me to your ranch!" she gasped.  "_Me?_"
+
+He nodded.  "You, nobody else."
+
+She laughed harshly without a note of hysteria.  "You're two hundred
+years behind the times.  Men don't carry off their women any more."
+
+"Here's one that will," he told her.  "You're going with me,
+y'understand.  And you needn't stop to wash your face or change into
+petticoats either.  I'm not letting you out of my sight.  If you wanna
+take any extra duds along, you can wrap 'em up.  What's the answer--you
+going willing or will I have to tie you up in a bundle?"
+
+"You idiot, even your friends wouldn't stand you turning such a trick
+as this!  I'll bet you couldn't get your own men to help you.  That's
+why you had to come alone."
+
+His suddenly bloating features gave evidence that her shot had told.
+Bending down, he shook her shoulder roughly.  And now for the first
+time she smelt his breath.  It was rank with the raw odor of whisky.
+So that was what had given him the wild idea of carrying her off by
+force.  The man was drunk.  Sober, he was bad enough.  Drunk, he was
+capable of anything.
+
+She reached stoveward for the lid lifter.  Rafe seized her wrist and
+jerked her sidewise.
+
+"None of that!" he snarled.  "Gonna get your clothes or not?"
+
+"I'll get them," she said calmly.  "Let go of my wrist."
+
+If she could win into the next room where the six-shooter was hanging
+on the wall, it might be possible to--but he did not release her wrist.
+
+"I'll go with you," he told her with a leer.  "You're too slippery a
+customer to trust alone."
+
+As he turned with her, the lamplight fell full on his face, and she saw
+that his eyes were bloodshot!  He also saw something that had hitherto
+escaped his notice.  He saw the whisky bottle on the shelf in the
+cupboard.  She had neglected to close the cupboard door.
+
+"I'll have a short drink first," he said, and dragged her to the
+cupboard.
+
+He was holding her left-handed.  She was on the wrong side to reach his
+gun.  Nevertheless she swung her body in front of him and snatched
+wildly at the pistol butt.
+
+He did not divine her intention but thought she was trying to keep him
+away from the whisky.  The result was the same, for he wrenched her
+back with a twist that started the tears in her eyes.
+
+Holding the bottle in one hand, he drew the cork with his teeth, spat
+it out and applied his lips to the bottle neck.  He swallowed long and
+generously.  Hazel saw his Adam's apple slide up and down a dozen
+times.  At such a rate the man would be a fiend in no time.
+
+"Let me get my clothes," she begged.
+
+Anything to get him away from the liquor.  But Rafe was not so easily
+separated from his old friend.
+
+"Wait a minute," he said peevishly, lowering the bottle and fixing her
+with his bloodshot gaze.  "Don't be in such a hurry.  Here, have one
+yourself."
+
+He thrust the bottle toward her.  She took it from him, held it to her
+mouth and then the bottle seemed to slip from her fingers.  She
+snatched at it, juggled it a split second and--the bottle smashed in
+bits on a corner of the stove.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried, quite as if she had not contrived the
+catastrophe on purpose.
+
+"I'll make you sorrier!" Rafe exclaimed and without more ado cast both
+arms around her.
+
+He was striving to kiss her and she, face crushed against his rough
+shirt, fought him like the primeval female every woman becomes in like
+circumstances.  Her right hand clawed upward at his face.  Her left
+arm, doubled between their two bodies, she strove to work free so that
+she could grab his gun.
+
+Rafe received three distinct clawings that considerably altered the
+appearance of one side of his face, before he was able to confine those
+active fingers.
+
+"Here!" he bawled in a fury.  "I'll fix you!"
+
+He tried to seize her by the throat and his thumb slipped by mistake
+into her mouth.  She promptly clamped down hard on the thumb.  With a
+yell, Rafe released his grip on her body and worked a thumb and ring
+finger into her cheeks in a frantic effort to force open her locked
+jaws.
+
+Suddenly she opened her mouth.  Rafe sprang back a yard, shaking a
+bleeding thumb and swearing, and as he sprang she dragged the
+six-shooter from his holster.
+
+Her palm swept down to cock the gun.  But Rafe was as quick to see his
+danger as Dan Slike had been.  He made a long arm as he hurled himself
+at her and knocked the barrel to one side at the moment of the shot.
+Before she could fire again, he had torn the weapon from her grasp and
+flung it across the room.
+
+"You tried to murder me!" he panted.  "You tried to murder me!"
+
+She dived headlong beneath his arm, but he caught the slack of her
+overalls as she went by and dragged her to a standstill.  She
+immediately butted him in the stomach with her head.  He stumbled back
+but caught her arm.  Her head flashed down and her teeth fastened on
+his wrist.  Again he broke the grip of her teeth by the application of
+ring finger and thumb to her cheeks, and then he reached purposefully
+for her throat and began to strangle her in dead earnest.
+
+She kicked and thrashed about like a wild thing in a trap,--as indeed
+she was.  Her nails scratched desperately at his arms.  She might as
+well have been petting him.  Tighter and tighter became the choking
+grasp of those long fingers.  She could not breathe.  Her temples were
+bursting.  Her head felt like a balloon.  With her last flare-up of
+failing strength, she kicked him on the knee-cap.
+
+He jumped back against the wall, dragging her with him, and began to
+shake her as a dog does a rat.  And then the old Terry clock did that
+for which it surely must have been originally made.  For, as his
+shoulders struck the wall, his head knocked away the support of the
+bracket that held the clock.  Involuntarily he ducked his head.  It was
+the worst thing he could have done, giving, as it did, the clock an
+extra foot to fall.  It fell.  One corner struck him fairly on the
+temple and knocked him cold as a wedge.
+
+When Hazel's reeling senses had reestablished their equilibrium, she
+found herself on the floor, lying across the inert legs of Rafe
+Tuckleton.  She raised herself on her two arms and looked at him.  He
+was breathing very lightly.  It occurred to her that it would not worry
+her overmuch if he breathed not at all.
+
+She dragged herself on hands and knees to where he had thrown his
+six-shooter.  She picked it up and threw out the cylinder.  Evidently
+Rafe was accustomed to carry his hammer on an empty chamber, for there
+were four cartridges and a spent shell in the cylinder.  She ejected
+the spent shell, crawled back to the senseless Rafe and plucked two
+cartridges from his belt.
+
+She loaded those two empty chambers and cocked the gun.  Then she
+pulled herself up into a chair at the table, and leaning across the
+cloth, trained the six-shooter on Rafe's stomach.
+
+And as she sat there watching a senseless man through the gunsights, it
+suddenly seemed to her that she was not one person, but two,--herself
+and a stranger.  And the Hazel Walton that had gone through the
+evening's adventures was the stranger.  She herself apparently stood at
+one side observing.  But she saw the room and its contents with new
+eyes, the eyes of the stranger.  It was a most amazing feeling, and she
+was oddly frightened while it lasted.
+
+Slowly the feeling passed as her muscles renewed their strength, and
+her jangled nerves steadied and quieted.  She came back to herself with
+a jerk as Rafe Tuckleton stirred and put his hand to his head.  She saw
+the hand come away covered with blood.  That side of Rafe's head being
+in the shadow she had not previously noted that it had sustained a
+shrewd cut.
+
+Rafe groaned a little.  He rolled over and sat up, his chin sagging
+forward on his chest.  He moved his head and looked at her vacantly.
+The blood ran down his cheek and dripped slowly off his chin.
+
+The light of reason glared of a sudden in Rafe's eyes.  She could see
+that he was absorbing the situation from every angle.
+
+"I'll give you five minutes to pull yourself together and get out," she
+announced clearly.  "If you're still here by the time I've counted
+three hundred I'll begin to shoot."
+
+Rafe started to go by the time she reached sixty.  With the six-shooter
+pointing at the small of his back, her finger on the trigger, step by
+step she drove him out of the house to where he had left his horse.
+
+Hazel watched him ride away and after a little become at one with the
+moonlit landscape.  She walked back to the house.  She felt that she
+was taking enormous strides.  In reality she was stepping short and
+staggering badly.  She went into the kitchen.  She closed the door,
+dropped the bar into place and fell into the nearest chair.
+
+"My God!" she said aloud, "I wonder what will happen next?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+A DISCOVERY
+
+"I tell you I ain't satisfied," nagged the district attorney.
+
+"Say something new," growled that amiable person, Felix Craft.
+
+"If you fellers weren't blinded by a pretty face, you'd see it like I
+do."
+
+"The girl said those cartridges were for her own personal use," pointed
+out Sam Larder, scratching a plump ear.  "I believe that girl."
+
+"You can't believe any girl most of the time," denied the district
+attorney.
+
+"And where a girl's feller is concerned, you can't believe her any of
+the time.  Sam, can't you understand a girl will lie just for the fun
+of it, if she hasn't any other reason.  It's female nature to act that
+way.  You've got to take it into consideration and make allowances
+accordingly, when dealing with a woman.  You can't trust 'em, damn 'em,
+one li'l short inch."
+
+Sam grinned at Felix.  "Ain't he got a pleasant nature."
+
+"Milk of human kindness has curdled in him complete," declared Felix.
+
+"Never you mind about any milk of human kindness.  I ain't got a
+smidgin of it with a girl like Hazel Walton, the lying hussy."
+
+"Do you know, Arthur," said Sam solemnly, "I don't believe you like
+that lady."
+
+"I don't," admitted the district attorney, and wondered why both men
+laughed.
+
+"Be a Scotchman," advised Sam Larder, "and give her the benefit of the
+doubt."
+
+"I'd like to give her a good swift week or two in jail," snarled the
+district attorney.  "That would bring her to her senses.  That would
+make her talk."
+
+"Well, you can't do it," said Felix, weary of the argument.  "So why
+waste your breath?"
+
+"Tell you what I can do," said the district attorney, brightening with
+hope.  "I can go out to Walton's and question her some more."
+
+"Good Gawd, ain't you had enough ridin' for one day?" said Sam.
+
+"I'm good for a li'l bit more."
+
+Felix laughed.  "I had to laugh to-day.  First time you ever went out
+with a posse, I guess.  Guess they must have thought you were crazy."
+
+"I know damwell Shotgun and Riley Tyler thought so," declared Sam.
+"They kept a-looking at you almighty hard."
+
+The district attorney nodded.  "They're a suspicious pair, those two.
+I'll give you fellers credit.  If it hadn't been for you, I'd never
+have been able to bluff it through!  I don't think anybody suspects
+anything out of the way."
+
+"Only that you're a damfool, Arthur.  And they don't suspect that.
+They're absolutely sure of it."
+
+"Alla same," said Felix, "it's a good thing Sam Prescott wasn't along.
+It would have been just like him to make out those tracks we followed
+were a day old instead of one hour."
+
+"I was worried some," admitted the district attorney, "when Shotgun
+Shillman said they were too old to be the marks of Dan Slike's horse."
+
+"That didn't bother me," declared Felix.  "I knew it would be all right
+if we could contradict him fast enough and loud enough before anybody
+else could agree with him.  Folks are like sheep thataway.  They'll
+most always believe the boys makin' the most noise.  No, Shotgun didn't
+bother me any.  What made me feel like scratching my head was where the
+tracks crossed the stage trail.  There were the hoof-marks and
+wheeltracks of the stage overlying the horse-tracks we were following.
+I drew a long breath when I had 'em blotted out, you can gamble on
+that."
+
+"Was that why you rode ahead and twisted your horse round and round on
+the trail so funny?"
+
+"Sure that was why.  Why else do you suppose?"
+
+"I never thought of the stage passing," said the district attorney.
+
+"No, you wouldn't, of course not.  I don't see, Arthur, when you made
+those tracks so careful in the first place you couldn't have kept off
+the stage trail.  It wasn't necessary, and it mighty near put the
+kibosh on the whole deal."
+
+"I wanted to end the trail in the west fork of the Wagonjack," defended
+the district attorney.  "It seemed like a good place."
+
+"It was--only for the stage trail being in the way," said Felix warmly.
+"If that infernal Wildcat Simms had come up half-a-minute earlier he'd
+seen how those horse tracks lay, same as I did.  Oh, lovely!  Wouldn't
+it have been a joke?"
+
+"Well, it ended all right, anyway," offered the district attorney
+pacifically.
+
+"I didn't like to have that Slike jigger get off that-away," grumbled
+Sam Larder.  "I'd like to see him hung, the lousy murderer!  I wish we
+could have worked it some other way."
+
+"There wasn't any other way," the district attorney hastened to assure
+him.  "We couldn't risk having Slike tried.  He'd have snitched on Rafe
+Tuckleton, sure as fate.  It was the only thing for us to do, and you
+know it."
+
+Sam nodded.  "I know, but----"  He left the sentence unfinished.
+
+"Now that we've got Dan out of the way," the district attorney pattered
+on, "we've got to glom onto Bill Wingo, and the sooner the quicker.
+Me, I'm going out to Walton's to-night and question Hazel some more.
+You boys don't have to go, you know.  I can get hold of somebody, I
+guess."
+
+"We'll go," said Sam Larder decidedly.  "I ain't a heap attracted by
+your methods with the ladies, and I intend to see the girl gets a
+square deal."
+
+"Me too," chimed in Felix Craft.
+
+The district attorney was none too well pleased and showed it.  "I'll
+get two other jiggers then," he grumbled.
+
+"Why not another posse?" suggested the sarcastic Mr. Larder.  "Us three
+might not be able to handle her by ourselves."
+
+"Suppose Bill Wingo is there, then what?  We took a big bunch before
+and----"
+
+"And got damwell laughed at by the whole town for our trouble," snapped
+Sam.  "Serves us right.  Wild goose chase, anyway, and to-night will be
+another.  C'mon, if you're goin'."
+
+The moon was high in the heavens when the three men came to the mouth
+of the draw leading to the Walton ranch.  A quarter-mile up this draw
+they came upon a man standing beside a horse.  This man they surrounded
+immediately.  He proved to be the town marshal, Red Herring, engaged in
+the prosaic business of tightening a slipped cinch.
+
+"What are you doing here," demanded the district attorney.
+
+"Same thing you're doing," the marshal returned sulkily.
+
+"It ain't necessary for you to be watching the Walton ranch," said the
+crotchety district attorney.
+
+"I got as much right to the reward as the next one, I guess," flared
+the marshal.  "If I wanna watch the ranch, I guess I got a right to do
+that too.  You don't want to cherish any idea that you own the earth
+and me too, Artie Rale!"
+
+"Well, you can ride along with us if you want to," condescended the
+district attorney.
+
+"Thanks," said the marshal, with sarcasm, "I kind of thought I would,
+anyway."
+
+Two hundred yards short of the bend in the draw that concealed the
+ranchhouse from view the district attorney's horse which was leading,
+snorted at something that lay across his path, and shied with great
+vigor, coming within a red hair of throwing the district attorney off
+on his ear.
+
+The district attorney swore and jerked the animal back.  Then he
+dismounted hurriedly and ran forward to view at close range the object
+that had startled the horse.
+
+The three others pulled up and followed his example.
+
+"My Gawd!" shrilled the district attorney.  "It's Rafe Tuckleton!"
+
+It was indeed Rafe Tuckleton.  There he lay on his back, his legs and
+arms spread-eagled abroad, his body displaying the flattened appearance
+a corpse assumes for the first few hours after death.  Rafe's throat
+had been slit from ear to ear.  His head was cut open and lay in a pool
+of blood.  His face was scored with scratches.  There was blood on his
+coat and vest and shirt, they found on examination.  The district
+attorney ripped open the shirt and found four distinct stab wounds in
+the region of Rafe's heart.  From one of these wounds protruded the
+broken end of a broad-bladed knife.
+
+"Pull it out," urged Sam Larder, with a slight shudder, his fat face so
+white that it showed green in the moonlight.
+
+"I can't," said the district attorney.  "Jammed in between his ribs, I
+guess.  That's what busted her.  See if you can find the handle, Red."
+
+"There it is," pointed out the marshal.  "Right by his elbow."
+
+"Oh, yeah," said the district attorney, picking up the knife handle.
+From force of habit he fitted the broken part of the knife remaining
+attached to the handle to the part protruding from the wound.  Of
+course they fitted perfectly.
+
+The marshal ran his hand along Rafe's naked waist.  Then he lifted one
+of Rafe's arms and let it go.  The arm snapped stiffly back into
+position.
+
+"Been dead about two hours," proffered the marshal.
+
+"About that," agreed Felix.  "What you lookin' at, Arthur?"
+
+"This," replied the district attorney, holding up the handle of the
+butcher knife.
+
+With his fingers he traced two initials on the wood.  The initials were
+T.W.
+
+"You can't tell me," said the district attorney belligerently, "that
+this butcher knife didn't come from the Walton ranch."
+
+Sam Larder stated his belief at once.  "She couldn't have done it,
+Arthur.  Why Rafe's carved up like an issue steer.  She----"
+
+"She's a woman," interrupted the district attorney.  "And a woman will
+do anything when her dander is up.  And we know what this particular
+woman will do when she's mad.  Didn't she try to split open Nate
+Samson's head when he was hardly more than joking with her?  Didn't she
+throw down on us with a rifle without any excuse a-tall?  I tell you
+this Hazel Walton is a murderess, and I'm going to see her hung."
+
+"Are you?" said Felix Craft.  "Seems to me you've overlooked a bet.
+Didn't we run across Red Herring at the end of the draw?"
+
+"Now look here, Craft," cried the marshal.  "You can't hook this
+killing up with me!  I can prove I was in Golden Bar an hour ago.  I
+can get people to swear I was."
+
+The district attorney nodded.  "Red's innocent of this, all right.  He
+couldn't have done it.  It wouldn't be reasonable.  He always was
+friendly with Rafe, and this was a grudge killing.  It couldn't have
+been robbery, because nothing of Rafe's was stolen; watch, money, it's
+all here.  It's Hazel Walton, and you can stick a pin in that.  C'mon,
+let's go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S NIGHTMARE
+
+Behind the corral of Guerilla Melody, at the tip end of Golden Bar,
+Main Street, a small spring bubbled to life amid rocks.  It was the
+custom of Guerilla Melody to slip out to this spring for a long cool
+drink of fresh water each night before going to bed.
+
+On the night of the first of April, Guerilla, having spent a short but
+profitable poker evening with several friends in a saloon, reached the
+spring at eleven o'clock.
+
+"I thought you were never coming," announced a peevish voice from the
+black shadow of a large rock.  "I've been waiting here since nine
+o'clock."
+
+"You talk much louder, Bill," said Guerilla calmly, "and you'll wait
+here a while longer--say about twenty years longer or fifteen, if the
+judge feels good-natured.  Man alive, ain't you got _any_ sense?"
+
+"I was lonesome," Billy excused himself.  "I've got to talk to
+somebody.  And anyway, a feller hardly ever gets more'n ten years for a
+hold-up where nobody's killed."
+
+"But where somebody is killed the penalty is worth considerin',"
+pointed out Guerilla Melody.  "And Tip O'Gorman was found yesterday
+morning lying on the floor of his front room dead as Julius Caesar, with
+your quirt beside him, and your snakeskin hatband inside the door."
+
+"Tip killed!  Tip!"
+
+"Yes, Tip, and on account of the quirt and the hatband there's a
+warrant issued for you for the murder, and two posses are out looking
+for you."
+
+"I saw them," said Billy placidly.  "I thought it was on account of the
+stage hold-up.  And they think I downed Tip?"
+
+"Half the town's sure you did, and half is sure you didn't, and the
+other half is straddlin' the fence."
+
+"That makes three halves," Billy said dryly.  "Golden Bar must have
+considerably increased in population since I left."
+
+"You know what I mean," snapped Guerilla, irritated at what he chose to
+consider callous flippancy on the part of his friend.  "And Tip ain't
+the only one cashed.  Rafe Tuckleton passed out last night."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Throat cut, head cut, and three knife cuts through his heart.  Hazel
+Walton is in jail charged with the job."
+
+Billy Wingo stiffened where he sat.  Hazel Walton in jail!  For an
+instant he couldn't realize it.  His fingers closed on Guerilla's
+forearm.
+
+Guerilla jerked away the arm.  "You don't need to cut my arm in two,"
+he remonstrated, tenderly fingering the member in question.  "I didn't
+have nothing to do with it.  Lord A'mighty, Bill, I'll bet you squeezed
+a muscle out of place."
+
+"My mistake," apologized Billy.  "I forgot myself for a minute."
+
+"Then I don't want to be around when you remember yourself.  I----"
+
+"What evidence is there against Hazel?" Billy cut in sharply.
+
+"In the first place there's the knife that killed Rafe," said Guerilla,
+seating himself beside his friend in the shadow of the rock.  "Butcher
+knife with T.W. on the handle that Hazel admitted was hers when they
+showed it to her.  But she said Dan Slike had taken the knife--stuck it
+in his boot when he left.  Then there was Rafe's own gun which Hazel
+had lying on her kitchen table, showing he'd been there.  She admitted
+that too, but said he'd attacked her, and she'd managed to get hold of
+his gun after the clock fell on him, and drive him out."
+
+"Rafe attacked her, huh?  And she drove him out?"  Billy leaned back
+against the rock in order to steady his shaking body.  When he spoke,
+he found some difficulty in keeping his voice down.  "_He attacked her
+and she drove him out_!  Then what in hell is she arrested
+for--defending herself?"
+
+"Now, listen, Bill, you know me.  I believe anything that girl says, no
+matter what.  But there are some other people harder to convince.  The
+district attorney, and he's got a good many others stringing their
+chips with his, says how this story of Rafe's attacking her ain't true.
+That Rafe wouldn't hurt her on a bet, because he liked her too much.
+And to back that up, here's Rafe's foreman, Jonesy, steps up and swears
+Rafe told him he was going to see Hazel last night and ask her to marry
+him.  Hazel says Rafe was drunk when he came to see her, and Jonesy
+says he wasn't.  So there's that."
+
+"Weren't there any tracks round Rafe's body to show----"
+
+"You know yourself there was a li'l freeze last night and the ground
+stiffened up some, and I guess the district attorney and the three
+others who found Rafe were so flustered they walked all over the ground
+round Rafe and wiped out every sign there was."
+
+"Who was with the district attorney?"
+
+Guerilla told him and resumed the thread of his discourse.  "When the
+district attorney and the other witnesses examined the Walton premises,
+they found plenty of evidence that there'd been a fight, and they found
+a lot of supplies gone, cartridges, grub and such, Hazel had bought in
+town the morning before."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Billy when Guerilla paused.
+
+"Lemme get my breath," Guerilla begged indignantly.  "The whole
+business is so tangled and mixed up it's hard to tell it straight.  No,
+it ain't all.  The district attorney says those supplies were bought
+for you and they were taken by you.  Hazel's ridin' horse, the one used
+to be her uncle's, that's gone too--with you."
+
+"If Rale thinks I was at Hazel's, it's reasonable to assume I might
+have had a hand in killin' Rafe my own self.  That goes double for Dan
+Slike, seeing he had the knife last."
+
+"It's reasonable all right enough, but then you and Dan Slike ain't
+noways available, and Hazel is right handy.  Rale admits you might have
+done it, and he keeps yawpin' the evidence is strong against Hazel, and
+he would be false to his oath of office if he didn't put her in jail."
+
+"False to his oath of office!  Rale!"
+
+"Yeah, ain't it a joke?" contemptuously.
+
+"But how did Slike get hold of the butcher knife, that's what I want to
+know?  He didn't have it on him when I arrested him last January."
+
+"That's the damndest part of the whole deal, Bill.  Hazel says Dan
+Slike came to her place before Rafe did, and it was him took the
+supplies and her horse and her hat and that very same butcher knife
+which gave Rafe his come-uppance.  Slike beat her almost senseless too,
+she said."
+
+Billy Wingo looked up at the stars.  His lips moved.  But no sound
+issued.  After a moment he said, in an oddly dead tone of voice, "How
+did Slike escape?"
+
+"Far as anybody can tell, he made him a key somehow and unlocked the
+jail door and walked out.  Anyway, Riley Tyler found the door open
+yesterday afternoon and Dan's cell empty.  And the district attorney
+lost a horse and saddle."
+
+"The district attorney, huh?"
+
+"The district attorney."
+
+"It was to some people's interests to have Dan Slike escape," Billy
+said musingly.
+
+"You bet it was, and I'm gamblin' somebody let him out all right,
+but--well, I dunno.  Anyway, Rale, he led the posse that trailed Slike,
+him and Felix Craft.  Nobody could have been more energetic than those
+two."
+
+"If they were so energetic and there was any kind of a trail, which
+there should have been, because it was a warm afternoon, it's queer
+they didn't run up on Slike at Hazel's."
+
+"That's the funny part of it.  The trail led in the opposite direction
+toward Jacksboro.  The posse followed it clear to the West Fork of the
+Wagonjack, where they lost it on the rocky ground on the other side."
+
+"Slike might have doubled back."
+
+Guerilla Melody shook his head.  "Not without gettin' caught--if he
+rode to the West Fork first.  Besides, Hazel says he came to her house
+a li'l after sunset, and he escaped, near as we can figure out, between
+three and four.  So you see he'd never have had time to make it to
+Walton's from the West Fork by sunset."
+
+"Did Hazel say how long he stayed?"
+
+"About an hour."
+
+"An hour!  Then Slike knew he wasn't being followed.  He never went to
+the West Fork a-tall."
+
+Guerilla nodded a grave head.  "I never was sure he did, especially
+after Shotgun Shillman told me when he got back that the tracks they
+followed to the West Fork looked a damsight older than they had a right
+to, always supposin' they were made that afternoon.  Oh, you can't
+blame Shotgun, Bill, or Riley either.  The district attorney was in
+charge of the posse, and him and Felix and the rest of his friends said
+it was the wind a-blowing so hard made the tracks look old.  And there
+was a tearin' breeze, worse luck."
+
+"Do you know somethin', Guerilla?  It wouldn't surprise me a whole lot
+to find out the district attorney his own self made that trail to the
+Wagonjack."
+
+"It would surprise me if you _found it out_.  You ain't catchin' him so
+easy.  Not that feller."
+
+"Leave it to me.  And he provided Slike with the horse too.  You'll
+see."
+
+"I'm sure hoping I do.  I'd like nothing better than to see Art Rale
+stretching the kinks out of a new rope."
+
+"Stranger things have happened.  I guess I'd better go see the district
+attorney."
+
+Guerilla Melody chuckled as one does at a pleasantry.
+
+"I mean it," pronounced Billy.  "He needs a li'l straight talk, and
+he's going to get it prompt and soon.  Luckily he likes fresh air."
+
+"Fresh air?" puzzled Guerilla.
+
+"Leaves his window partly open at night," explained Billy.  "Which
+being so, I'll be out of luck if I can't creep in and give him the
+surprise of his life."
+
+"He may not have gone to sleep yet.  I'll find out."
+
+Before Billy could stay him, Guerilla was gone.  Fifteen minutes later
+he returned.
+
+"He's abed, snoring like a circular saw working on a knotty log,"
+Guerilla informed him.  "But there's a light in the kitchen."
+
+"That means his housekeeper's up--probably settin' bread for to-morrow.
+Ain't she quite a friend of yours, Guerilla?"
+
+The darkness veiled Guerilla's blush.  "I see her now and then."
+
+"Then go see her now," urged Billy.  "It's kind of late for an evening
+call, but you can tell her some kind of a lie.  If she likes you,
+she'll believe it.  You go see her and keep her in the kitchen for the
+next thirty minutes.  Then meet me here."
+
+The district attorney, lying on the broad of his back in bed, suddenly
+snored his way into a nightmare.  He dreamed that he was in the woods,
+that he had lain down upon an inviting bank and that a ninety-foot pine
+had fallen upon his chest, to the prejudice of his breathing.  He
+squirmed and wriggled but the tree was immovable.  It was slowly
+crushing the walls of his chest.  The district attorney gasped--awoke,
+and discovered to his horror that his bad dream was partly true.  There
+was something roosting on his chest.  If not a tree, it was at least
+confoundedly heavy.  Furthermore, adding as it were to the interest of
+the occasion, a something chilly and hard was rooting into the angle of
+his chin and neck.
+
+The something on his chest spoke in a carefully restrained whisper.
+"Keep very quiet."
+
+The district attorney would have shivered had he been able to move that
+much.  He knew that voice.  It belonged to Billy Wingo.
+
+"You shouldn't have left your window open," pointed out Billy.  "Your
+insane love for fresh air will be the death of you yet."
+
+The district attorney did nothing but gasp faintly.
+
+"Would it be more comfortable if I sat on your stomach instead?" asked
+the oppressor prodding the other man in the throat with his gun muzzle.
+
+"I--I--cuc-can't breathe!" the district attorney choked out.
+
+"Just a minute," said Billy, feeling beneath the pillows, but finding
+no weapon, he slid from the district attorney's chest to the side of
+the bed.  "You didn't expect to see me so soon, did you, Arthur?"
+
+"No," was the truthful reply, "I didn't."
+
+"I was counting on that.  I hear you arrested Miss Walton."
+
+"I--er--I had to," explained the district attorney, beginning to feel
+that, in the matter of Miss Walton, he had perhaps been a trifle hasty.
+
+"Fool mistake.  You didn't have any evidence against her a-tall."
+
+"But--" began the district attorney.
+
+Billy cut him short.  "No evidence a-tall.  Not a smidgin.  No.  You
+were too previous, Arthur, with your duty and your oath of office.
+Damn your duty, damn your oath of office.  I've got a sneaking idea,
+old settler, that you are cluttering up the face of the earth.  Be
+reasonable now, don't you think so yourself?"
+
+But this was more than the district attorney was willing to admit.
+"I'll tell you what I think," he grunted.  "I think if Hazel Walton
+didn't kill Rafe Tuckleton then you did."
+
+"About _Miss_ Walton there ain't any ifs, nary an if.  She didn't do
+it.  There is a reasonable doubt that I did, several reasonable doubts,
+in fact.  Anyway, Arthur, try keeping your suspicions to yourself to
+oblige me, will you?  Lord knows one murder and a stage hold-up are
+enough crimes to be charged with at one time."
+
+"You thought you were very clever," sneered the district attorney,
+"getting that girl to pack your supplies out from town for you.  Didn't
+have nerve enough to do it yourself.  Had to hide behind a woman's
+skirts and get her in trouble, didn't you?"
+
+"You mean about the horse and cartridges and grub that Slike took from
+Walton's?"
+
+"I mean about the horse and cartridges and grub that you took from
+Walton's.  Slike had nothing to do with that.  Slike didn't go to
+Walton's.  He went north to the West Fork, where we lost his trail."
+
+"You're sure of this?"
+
+"Sure?  Of course I'm sure.  Didn't I trail him to the river myself.
+Didn't--  Say, where'd you get your information?"
+
+"A li'l bird told me.  But he asked me not to mention his name.  Sorry."
+
+The district stared helplessly into the shadowy features of the man at
+his bedside.  The moonlight shone in at the open window through which
+Billy had entered.  The rays touched a corner of the bed, turning the
+bedpost to shiny ebony and the counterpane to dull silver.  The
+district attorney could hear the murmur of his housekeeper's voice in
+the kitchen.  Some man then, was in the kitchen with her.  Lord! if he
+dared yell for help!
+
+As though sensing what was passing in the mind of the district
+attorney, Billy jabbed the gunsight up under the man's chin.  "Don't
+gamble with me, Arthur.  Think how your friends would miss you."
+
+But Arthur had already decided against doing any gambling.  "What do
+you want?" he whispered.
+
+"I've been hoping you'd ask me that.  It gives me an opening and shows
+you're willing to be reasonable.  Yeah.  Arthur, I want you to set Miss
+Walton free."
+
+"You go to hell," was the sharp return.
+
+"You don't understand," said Billy, in his lightsome whisper.  "You're
+thinking because I'm talking to you so bright and merry that I don't
+mean what I say.  Listen--" the whisper lost its airness and became a
+ruthless, snarling growl--"listen to me.  Because of what you've done
+to her, it's all I can do to keep from strangling the breath out of you
+here and now.  If I talked to you the way I feel like talking to you,
+I'd lose my temper and you'd lose your life.  I'm trying to hang on to
+both--for now.  Don't make it any harder for me than you have to."  He
+paused.  "About Miss Walton," he continued in his former tone.  "I'll
+give you your choice.  Let her go, and I won't down you by Sunday
+night."
+
+"Huh?"
+
+"Sunday night.  If she isn't out of jail and the warrant against her
+withdrawn by noon to-morrow, I give you my word that I'll down you on
+or before midnight Sunday.  And I have a habit of keeping my promises."
+
+The district attorney knew this to be true.  But he was a wriggler by
+nature.  "I--" he began.
+
+"You can do it," interrupted Billy.  "You have the power."
+
+"I can't," denied the wretched man in the bed, now more than ever aware
+that he had made a mistake in arresting Hazel, yet not at all clear in
+his mind how to set matters right without being ridiculed into
+political extinction.  Yet if he didn't set matters right, he would
+lose his life.  Metaphorically speaking, he eased himself down between
+the horns of the dilemma and considered.  "I can't," he repeated after
+a moment of silence.  "I can't let her go after arresting her.  Judge
+Donelson wouldn't understand it.  The Governor would remove me from
+office."
+
+"You're a liar.  Judge Donelson would understand it all right if you
+explained it carefully.  So would the Governor.  They are human beings,
+even if you aren't."
+
+"Well," bumbled the district attorney, "maybe I _could_ manage it.  But
+look here, what's the use of me letting her go?  You couldn't run away
+with her.  _You'd_ be caught, sure as fate, and then where would you
+be?"
+
+"I don't intend to run away with her or without her.  Only a fool runs
+away.  A man of sense stays comfortably in the background waiting for
+the cat to jump."
+
+"You ran away," pointed out the district attorney.
+
+"Not at all.  I'm staying comfortably in the background, waiting for
+the cat to jump."
+
+"But--"  The district attorney stopped abruptly at the word.
+
+Billy Wingo smiled.  The district attorney saw his white teeth gleam in
+the darkness.  "But you can't understand if I stayed in the vicinity
+why I haven't been caught," he completed the sentence for the other
+man.  "I realize your posses have been very active."
+
+"Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler are in league with you!  They led the
+posses astray on purpose.  I'll get their hides for this!"
+
+Billy quieted the district attorney with a gesture that drove the man's
+head almost through the pillow.
+
+"There goes your snap judgment again," complained Billy.  "Shotgun and
+Riley are doing their duty.  They've done their damndest to catch me.
+You hurt my feelings when you hint that I may be tampering with them.
+You don't really think I have, do you, Arthur?  Both Shotgun and Riley
+are straight as strings, aren't they, Arthur?"
+
+The gun muzzle pressed ever so gently upon Arthur's Adam's apple.
+"They are," he apologized.  "Both of 'em."
+
+"And you'll free the girl to-night?"
+
+"To-night?  Why not to-morrow?"
+
+"To-night.  I don't like her having to sleep in that calaboose.  You
+let her out and tell Shotgun Shillman to take her to Sam Prescott's
+right away--right away, to-night, y'understand?"
+
+"All right," capitulated the district attorney.  "I'll do it if I lose
+my job.  But you needn't go swarmin' off with any idea that you'll
+cheat the gallows.  You'll swing, my bold boy, for that O'Gorman
+murder.  There's nothing you can do to me that will fix up that
+business for you--not if you were to kill me here and now.  Judge
+Donelson wouldn't allow me to withdraw that warrant, even I wanted to.
+The evidence is too strong."
+
+"So you really think I downed Tip?" Billy asked curiously.
+
+"I know it."
+
+"And held up the stage?  Unofficially, Arthur, are you holding that
+against me, too?"
+
+"You held up the stage.  Jerry Fern saw your horse.  So did all the
+passengers.  Your clothes were identified, too.  Jerry told the
+passengers to pay particular attention to your clothes and the brass
+guard on your gun and be able to describe 'em later.  They did, and
+everbody in town recognized 'em.  Oh, we've got you."
+
+"So clever of you--and cleverer of Jerry Fern.  He told the passengers
+to remember what I wore, did he?"
+
+"Naturally," said the district attorney hastily.  "It was the obvious
+thing to do."
+
+Billy nodded.  "Of course it was.  Bright man, Jerry.  Tell you,
+Arthur, suppose I bring back Dan Slike, would that help me in--my
+trouble?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"You want Dan Slike caught, don't you?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Liar," Billy said to himself.  Aloud he remarked.  "You've come
+around, I see.  You really believe now that Dan Slike killed Tom Walton
+and Judge Driver?"
+
+"Certainly, he killed them," avowed the district attorney.  "And when
+he's caught we'll hang him."
+
+"That's the proper spirit, Arthur.  I have a theory that, since it
+seems certain that Dan Slike didn't go to Walton's after he escaped, he
+went north to the Medicine Mountains."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You followed his trail north to where the West Fork swings due west
+and there you lost it, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, then, it's certain Slike didn't follow the Fork down.  That
+would bring him to the country east of here, and Tom Read County is no
+place for a murderer.  Now, what he did was ride the rocky ground along
+the Fork till it swung north again, when he'd either swing north with
+it straight for the Medicine Mountains, or else ride a li'l west of
+north and hit the Medicines away to the westward of Jacksboro.  And in
+the Medicines you might as well look for a needle in a bale of hay.
+He'll lie low there for a spell, probably during spring and summer.
+You may depend on it, that's what he's done."
+
+"I believe you're right," agreed the district attorney, striving to
+inject a note of excitement in his whisper.  "I'll have a posse riding
+that way to-morrow."
+
+"Not a posse.  Too many men in a posse.  He'd be able to keep out of
+their way, Slike's no ordinary murderer, Rale.  Remember that.  He's a
+killer from Killersville, and he probable knows more about keeping out
+of sight than a grizzly bear.  But one man would have a chance to get
+him.  He wouldn't be expecting one man, do you see?"
+
+"I don't see what you're driving at."
+
+"I mean I'll make a bargain with you, Rale.  I'll trade you Slike for
+myself.  You will prosecute these cases against me, if I'm caught.  It
+lies with you whether I get a chance for my alley or not."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You could fail to take advantage of points as they come up.  You
+could.  You're clever enough, Gawd knows.  Now, in the O'Gorman deal
+I'd plead not guilty.  I killed Tip in self-defense, see?  Well, you
+could let me prove I did mighty easy.  Same with the hold-up.  I'll get
+me a clever lawyer who'd take advantage of some flaw in the indictment.
+You would draw up that indictment.  I don't believe we could risk flaws
+in both indictments, could we?"
+
+The district attorney could hardly believe his wicked ears.  It simply
+was not possible that Bill Wingo could be such a simpleton as to
+believe that.  "Flaws in both indictments would be a li'l too raw,"
+said the district attorney, almost suffocating in the effort to
+dissemble his glee.
+
+"Yes, well, all right.  In the O'Gorman murder trial, you'll let me
+prove my case, and in the other you'll stick in a flaw.  The Tuckleton
+case you can't do a thing with.  There's not enough evidence, so you'll
+have to let it drop.  What do you think of the proposition, Dan Slike
+for Bill Wingo?  You can make a record with Dan Slike too.  He hasn't a
+friend in the county.  Another thing.  That last bribe of yours I
+mentioned a while ago.  I'll throw in what I know about that for good
+measure with Slike."
+
+"But why stand your trial at all?" fenced the district attorney.  "Why
+not try to escape?"
+
+"You forget that not ten minutes ago you told me I couldn't possibly
+escape.  You were wrong, naturally.  But I don't want to escape.  If I
+did, I'd have these things hanging over me the rest of my life.  No
+matter where I went, I'd always be looking for a warrant waiting for me
+at every bend in the trail.  No, the only sensible way out is to get
+this thing over with and settled as soon as possible.  I don't want to
+leave Crocker County.  I like it here."
+
+"Oh," murmured the district attorney, believing that he knew the reason
+why Billy Wingo did not care to leave the county.  It was a good and
+sufficient reason, and he expected to release it from jail that very
+night.
+
+"But you'd have to get supplies from time to time," he said leadingly.
+"Your description is in every town by now."
+
+"I'll only go to Jacksboro when I have to buy anything," explained
+Billy, "and as it happens, I never was there but once and that was five
+years ago.  If I let my beard and hair grow, who'd know me?  It would
+take somebody from Golden Bar to recognize my voice, and I'll take care
+to keep out of the way of anybody from Golden Bar.  Oh, it'll be safe
+enough.  I'll make my camp somewhere on Coldstream Creek and work all
+through the Medicines from there.  I'll get Dan and bring him back.
+How about it now--willing to make it easy for me at the trial?"
+
+The district attorney could hardly control his voice.  At last the
+devil had delivered his enemy into his hands.  Now he could pay him
+back for kicking him out into the snow.  You bet he could.  "I'll do as
+you suggest," he said, "and drop the Tuckleton case in so far as you
+and Miss Walton are concerned, and I'll let you win on the other two
+counts--provided you bring back Dan Slike."
+
+"Fair enough.  In the meantime I want a free hand.  You'll have to call
+off the posses that are out after me.  You can do that without exciting
+suspicion.  Look how long they've been out."
+
+"I'll manage it," declared the district attorney.  "You think the
+Coldstream is a good place to camp?"
+
+"Sure it is.  I've been there before."
+
+"Don't risk going to any other town than Jacksboro."
+
+"I won't," said Billy.  "Be sure of that.  Well, I guess I'd better be
+draggin' it.  You'll be wanting to let Miss Walton out.  By the way,
+don't forget that I'm not leaving the neighborhood till I hear that
+Miss Walton is safe at Prescott's and the warrant against her
+withdrawn.  Just bear that in mind, Arthur."
+
+"I will," Arthur said warmly.  "Shall I suggest to Miss Walton that a
+letter would be sure to reach you at Jacksboro--under an assumed name,
+of course?"
+
+"It would be hardly worth while," replied Billy.  "Unless I catch Dan
+Slike sooner, I don't expect to be in Jacksboro under a month.  Yeah, a
+month, anyway."
+
+"A month, huh?  Here's wishing you luck."
+
+Billy failed to observe the brazenly outstretched hand.  "Thanks," he
+drawled.  "So long."
+
+But in spite of the agreement it was noticeable that he kept the
+district attorney covered till his bootsoles touched the ground beneath
+the window.
+
+"Are you crazy?" demanded Guerilla Melody when he had heard all, or
+thought he had, rather.  "You don't actually sure-enough trust him, do
+you?"
+
+"Certainly not," Billy replied calmly, flicking the ash from his
+cigarette.  "Certainly I don't trust him.  That's why I told him what I
+did."
+
+Guerilla Melody screwed a forefinger into the side of his head.
+"Wheels, wheels, wheels, hear 'em buzz."
+
+"You don't understand, Guerilla.  You're all right lots of ways, and
+I'm your friend, and don't let anybody tell you different, but you
+haven't any brains, not a brain."
+
+"Now, look here," began indignant Guerilla, "if you----"
+
+"Shut up and listen," Billy cut him short.  "I ain't going to the
+Medicine Mountains a-tall."
+
+"Where _are_ you going?"
+
+"South--after Dan Slike.  Don't you see, this fool district attorney
+won't think of skirmishing after me _south_ of Golden Bar.  But I'll
+bet he'll have posses combin' the Medicines within seven days.  And if
+I haven't read him wrong, he'll have a warrant for the Tuckleton murder
+issued for me, too."
+
+Guerilla nodded a grave head.  "With Miss Walton out of it, he'll have
+to cinch it on to somebody else.  But I don't see yet how finding Dan
+Slike, always supposin' you do find him, is going to help you any.
+You'll still have to stand your own trial.  And you ain't thinkin' that
+Arthur Rale----"
+
+"Oh, angels ever bright and fair!  The man doesn't see it yet!  I
+intend to bring in the murderer of Tip O'Gorman and the man who held up
+the stage, too, while I'm at it.  In words of one syllable _that_ is my
+plan."
+
+The expression on the face of Guerilla Melody was one of awe diluted
+with doubt.  "All by your lonesome?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Maybe I'd better go with you?" offered Guerilla.
+
+"No," said Bill decidedly, "I'd rather you were here in Golden Bar.
+Then you can tell me the news now and then.  Outside of you and Shotgun
+and Riley, there ain't a soul in town I can trust, and for official
+reasons I can't go near the deputies.  So I guess you're elected,
+Guerilla."
+
+"Aw right," said his friend.  "You're the doctor.  Have another drink?"
+
+"Not to-night.  Look at the time.  Here we've been gassin' a solid
+hour.  I didn't have any business coming into your house anyway.  Never
+can tell who might walk in on us."
+
+"You better wait till I find out from Riley if Rale kept his word about
+Hazel Walton."
+
+"I won't have to wait here for that.  When you come back from talking
+to Riley, if everything is O.K. and Hazel has started with Shotgun for
+Prescott's, you set a lamp on your kitchen table and open and close
+your kitchen door four times.  If Rale hasn't moved, open your kitchen
+door and stand in the door-way for half a minute.  I'll be watchin'
+from the ridge--  Huh?  Sure, I've got field glasses.  Borrowed a pair
+from Sam Prescott same time I borrowed a horse.  So long, Guerilla!"
+
+Guerilla Melody blocked off the light of the lamp with his hat while
+Billy opened the door and vanished into outer darkness.
+
+Twenty minutes later, Billy, sitting his horse on the crest of the
+aforementioned ridge, saw a rectangle of light at the tip end of town,
+show and go out four distinct times.  He clucked to his horse and moved
+quartering down the slope in the direction of the Hillsville trail.
+His goal was Prescott's, his intention to obtain from Hazel a detailed
+account of what had happened at the ranch the night of the Tuckleton
+murder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+THE HUNCH
+
+The time was an evening in the first week in May; the place was the
+Arkansas Saloon in Willow Bend, Redstone County, the man was Billy
+Wingo, wearing a sevenweeks' beard and an air of preoccupation.  He was
+draped against the bar, making rings on the bar top with the wet bottom
+of his whisky glass.
+
+The weather was unseasonably warm, and the big double-burner reflector
+lamps in the saloon raised the bar-room temperature at least fifteen
+degrees.  Billy felt the salty moisture running down into his eyes.  He
+pushed back his hat and with a fillip of his fingers slatted off the
+perspiration.
+
+He did not see a man at the other end of the bar look up at his sudden
+movement.  Nor, when he departed after his second glass, did he know
+that the other man was following until he had passed out into the
+street.  Then, with that sixth sense men who carry their lives in their
+holsters so frequently develop, he knew it.  Hence, quite naturally,
+instead of going directly to the hotel hitching-rail where his horse
+was tied, he sauntered with apparent aimlessness round the corner of
+the saloon, along the blank side wall and round the next corner.
+
+In the darkness behind this corner, gun in hand, he waited.  The other
+man slid round the corner in his wake and ran plump into the muzzle of
+the Wingo six-shooter.
+
+"Were you looking for me?" Bill asked in a low tone.
+
+The man, having shown that he was no shorthorn by promptly throwing up
+his hands, laughed low.  "I was looking for you," he said, still
+chuckling, "but not the way you mean."
+
+"Your voice sounds familiar," said the sceptical Billy.  "Suppose you
+step over here into the light from this window.  Keep your hands up."
+
+"Glad to--both ways," agreed the man, obeying instantly.  "Satisfied
+now?"
+
+"You can put 'em down," said Billy sliding his gun back into the
+holster as soon as the light fell on the man's face.  "I thought you
+went up to Jacksboro to visit your uncle."
+
+"I did," said John Dawson.  "But I thought I'd drift back for the Cross
+T round-up.  On my way south I stopped at Golden Bar."
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+"Yeah.  I was looking for a gent name of Tuckleton.  I saw where he was
+buried."
+
+"I guess you heard something while you were there, huh?"
+
+"I heard something in Jacksboro, too.  That's why I followed you.
+Let's go where we can talk private."
+
+On a log, in the darkness, behind the dance hall, they sat down to talk
+"private."
+
+"What did you hear in Jacksboro?" Billy asked.
+
+"I heard a posse talk--six men.  I met 'em over on Coldstream Creek
+three-four times."
+
+Billy uttered a light laugh.  "I figured it would be that way."
+
+"They seemed to think you'd oughta been camping on Coldstream."
+
+"What kind of a warrant did they have?"
+
+"All kinds.  Two murders and a stage hold up."
+
+"Was one of 'em on account of Tuckleton?"
+
+"Yep.  I didn't know whether to hold it against you or not."
+
+"You needn't.  It wasn't me."
+
+Dawson grinned his appreciation.  "I'm glad.  If you had it would have
+always been between us.  I had figured on playing even-Steven with
+Tuckleton myself."
+
+"I'm looking for the man who killed him.  If I don't find him I needn't
+go back to Golden Bar."
+
+"I heard you'd been suspended from office," said Dawson bluntly.
+
+"I hadn't heard it yet, but I expected it.  Anybody else appointed?"
+
+"Shotgun Shillman, pro tem."
+
+"I almost wish it was somebody else," he said whimsically.  "Shotgun is
+a friend of mine, and energetic as a bear with a bee tree.  He'll maybe
+dump me before I do what I want."
+
+"If he's a friend of yours----" hinted Dawson.
+
+"He'd arrest his own brother, if there was a warrant issued against
+him.  He's that kind."
+
+"A conscience is a heavy load to pack," said the cynical Dawson.  "Me,
+I believe the end justifies the means.  It don't matter much what trail
+you follow, so you get there.  Can I help you any?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"I dunno--any old way.  You did me one good turn, and I'm not
+forgetting it.  Anything I got you can have any time anywhere."
+
+"Now, that's right clever of you," said Billy, somewhat embarrassed at
+the other's gratitude.  "But I don't guess you can help me any."
+
+"Try me," urged Dawson.
+
+"The man who killed Tuckleton is a man named Dan Slike, who broke out
+of jail just before he was going to be tried for another murder.  The
+only way you can help me is by telling me where he is, and I expect you
+can't do that."
+
+"Not right off the reel," admitted Dawson.  "Ain't you picked up any
+trail of this sport?"
+
+"I've cut his trail five different places, Bow Bells, Gunsight,
+Dragoon, Shadyside, and the Rafter L.  I figured he'd come here after
+leavin' the Rafter L--it's only thirty miles.  But I guess he didn't.
+Leastwise nobody seems to have noticed anybody of his description."
+
+"You haven't described him to me yet," pointed out Dawson.
+
+Billy began.  "--and maybe a black beard by now," he concluded.
+
+"Bow Bells, Gunsight, Dragoon, Shadyside and the Rafter L," repeated
+Dawson, rasping a hand across his stubbly chin.
+
+"South, y'understand, till he reached Shadyside, and then he headed
+northeast to the Rafter L.  What I'd like to know is what made him
+change direction thataway?"
+
+"He ain't in any hurry to leave the territory, that's a cinch."
+
+"Not after he left Shadyside, anyway."
+
+"Something happened there to head him."
+
+"Sure.  But whatever it was it wasn't visible to the naked eye.  Rafter
+L, the same way.  He stopped there for dinner and rode away without
+spending the night."
+
+"He may have gone to Marquis."
+
+Billy nodded.  "He may.  But Marquis is more north than east.  That's
+why I came here first.  Anyway, to-morrow morning I'm riding to
+Marquis, and if he ain't there I'll sift through the country between
+Marquis and Dorothy.  There are several ranches in between those two
+towns."
+
+"I'll go with you," announced Dawson.
+
+Billy surveyed his neighbor in surprise.  "You.  What for?"
+
+"For him--exercise--any old thing you like, that is, if it ain't a
+private party."
+
+"You can sit in if you want to," said Billy slowly, more glad to accept
+an ally than he cared to admit.  "But you've got a job."
+
+"The job can wait.  Round up's over, so it won't hurt the ranch to lose
+my valuable services for a spell.  To-morrow we go to Marquis, huh?"
+
+By mid-afternoon the following day Billy Wingo was riding into Marquis
+from one direction and Dawson was riding in from another.  As apparent
+strangers they believed they could do better work.  Before six o'clock
+Billy had judiciously canvassed every saloon in the place and had
+learned absolutely nothing.  Either Slike had not entered Marquis, or
+else he was wearing a disguise.  In the twilight, in the brush beyond
+the far-flung skirmishline of empty tin cans and bottles that surrounds
+every cow-country town, he met his friend Dawson.  The latter had
+worked the stores and the dance hall, but he had nothing to report.
+The following day Billy journeyed by the one road to Dorothy, while
+Dawson traveled by a more circuitous route that would take him past two
+ranch houses where there might be information to be picked up.  Billy
+Wingo, without pushing his horse, reached Dorothy too late for the
+regular dinner at the hotel.  Adjoining the Carnation Saloon was a
+two-by-four restaurant.  He entered the place, sat down at the
+oilcloth-covered table and gave his order to the good-looking young
+woman who was evidently cook, hasher and washer combined.
+
+In one corner of the restaurant an eight-year-old girl was squatting on
+the floor and bathing two wooden dollies in a tin wash-basin.  A small
+dog waggled in from the street, sniffed respectfully at Billy's boots,
+then hunted along a crack in the floor with his nose till he came
+within reach of the eight-year-old, who promptly seized him by his
+short tail and dragged him, ki-yiing his protests, to her bosom.
+
+"You need a bath," said the eight-year-old.  "I'll wash you."
+
+Gripping her victim firmly by one ear and his tail she plumped him
+splash into the washbasin.  To the dog's eternal credit he made no
+attempt to bite her, but he wriggled and squirmed and threw his body
+about, and ever he lamented loudly.
+
+The good-looking young woman poked her head in from the kitchen.
+"Winnie, you leave Towler be.  You know he doesn't like to be teased.
+Why don't you go on giving Emmaline and Sally Jane their baths.  There!
+Now, see what's happened--basin upset and water all over the floor.
+That's the third time to-day I've had to mop up after you."
+
+Little Winnie was a damsel of parts.  "I'm sorry, auntie.  I'll mop up.
+Towler, you git."
+
+Towler got.  Winnie began to sop up the water with a floor rag which
+she wrung out in the washbasin.
+
+"I'll finish giving you your bath, Sally Jane, soon as I get fresh
+water.  Emmaline is nice and clean, but you're a dirty, dirty girl,
+Sally Jane."
+
+Sally Jane!  There it was again.  Merely a coincidence, of course, but
+it was odd to run across this combination of proper names.  Billy began
+to take more than a passing interest in the eight-year-old.
+
+The little girl resumed her animated monologue.  "I tell you what,
+Sally Jane, if you don't keep yourself cleaner, I'm gonna go back to
+calling you Maria again."
+
+Then it was that the hunch came to Billy Wingo.
+
+"Winnie," he said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and
+wearing his most engaging smile, "Winnie, that Sally Jane dolly is sure
+one fine-looking lady."
+
+Winnie regarded him with an indulgent eye.  "She's my favorite, Sally
+Jane is."
+
+"Sally Jane is a pretty name too."
+
+"I like it."
+
+"You haven't always called her Sally Jane, have you?"
+
+"Not always.  I used to call her Mariar.  My auntie says Mariar sounds
+like a cat talking, but I liked it till I heard Sally Jane, then I
+liked Sally Jane best."
+
+"And when did you hear the name Sally Jane?"
+
+"Long, long ago."
+
+"Oh!"  Disappointment on the part of Billy Wingo.  Farewell, hunch.
+Nevertheless he essayed a forlorn hope.  "How long?"
+
+"Most a week."
+
+Most a week!  Billy had forgotten that child-time runs faster than
+grown-up time.  The hunch pricked up its little ears and began to
+return.  "Where did you hear that name?"
+
+"Man in the Carnation.  He was drunk, and he went round talking to God
+in the saloon.  I heard him through the window.  Lots of men do that.
+My Auntie says they'll frizzle when they die."
+
+"They ought to," pronounced the righteously indignant Bill.  "Did this
+man say anything, about Sally Jane?"
+
+"Lots."
+
+"In the saloon?"
+
+"At the woodpile out back.  I was making a li'l doll-house behind it,
+and he came and lay down beside the woodpile to sleep it off."
+
+Oh, the wisdom of the frontier child.
+
+"Weren't you afraid?" probed Billy.
+
+"Nah.  Why, you needn't ever be afraid of a drunk man.  They can't hurt
+you if you keep out of their way.  I've seen lots of drunk men, I have,
+in my time."
+
+Billy was somewhat overwhelmed.  "That's fine," he said lamely.  "Did
+you run away when the drunk man came out to the woodpile to sleep it
+off?"
+
+"Nah.  Ain't I said I ain't scared of drunks?  I didn't run away.  I
+stayed right there on the other side of the woodpile listening to the
+drunk man."
+
+"I thought you said he went to sleep."
+
+"He talked in his sleep," patiently explained the amazing Winnie.
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Lots."
+
+"Did he say anything about Sally Jane?"
+
+"He said he loved her."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"He said he was gonna marry Sally Jane, by Gawd, and nobody else was
+gonna do it but him."
+
+"Did he talk about any men?"
+
+"He talked about Bill."
+
+"Bill who?"
+
+"Bill Wingo."
+
+"Now, we're gettin' there.  Did he say anything particular about Bill
+Wingo?"
+
+"He said he was gonna shoot him."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For being sheriff, or something.  I don't remember that exactly."
+
+"You've remembered enough.  What kind of a looking man was this drunk?"
+
+"Oh, he was an old, old man."
+
+"Old, huh?  How old?"
+
+"Oh, about your age."
+
+Billy began to feel like Methuselah.  "What did he look like in the
+face?"
+
+The winsome Winnie looked at him critically.  "Something like you in
+the face.  Sort of scrubby-looking and dirty--except maybe his whiskers
+wasn't so long as yours."
+
+"What color were the whiskers?"
+
+"Oh, black."
+
+"Was his hair black?"
+
+"Yop, his hair was black."
+
+"Was he a li'l, short, runty feller?"
+
+"Nope, he was a big, tall feller, skinny sort of."
+
+"Did you hear his name?"
+
+"His friend called him Damn-your-soul sometimes and Jack sometimes."
+
+So Jack Murray had gathered unto himself a friend.  This was
+interesting, especially as Jack was apparently still cherishing plans
+for revenge.  If Jack and the anonymous friend were in the vicinity of
+Dorothy, it behooved a man in Billy's position to look to himself.
+
+Billy had no illusions about Jack Murray.  The man was perfectly
+capable of making another try at him from ambush.  He did not believe
+that Jack would "snitch."  Such procedure would indubitably attract too
+much public attention to Jack.  He couldn't afford that.  Not with
+three thousand dollars on his head.
+
+"Is the drunk with the black hair and whiskers around town?" he asked.
+
+"They ate dinner here yesterday."
+
+"They--oh, he and his friend?"
+
+"Yep, him and his friend."
+
+Billy got up and went to the door of the kitchen.  "Excuse me, ma'am,
+do you remember a tall, black-haired feller and a friend with him who
+ate in here yesterday noon?"
+
+Oh, yes, the good-looking girl remembered perfectly both men.  Billy
+thought that it would be as well to have a description of the friend.
+Would she describe him.  She would and did.  The description was that
+of Slike, Slike with a short beard.  The man's eyes, she said, seemed
+to bore right through her.  They gave her the creeps.
+
+Billy believed he had heard enough for the time being.
+
+After dinner Billy went up and down Main Street, scraping acquaintance
+with storekeepers, saloon keepers, the hotel proprietor and the town
+marshall.  By five o'clock he had established the fact that two ranches
+of the neighborhood, the TU and the Horseshoe were at loggerheads, and
+that the Horseshoe was hiring gunfighters; that the black-haired man
+called Jack and his friend, whose name no one knew, had been engaged in
+conversation with the Horseshoe foreman; that the following day they
+had told a bartender that they had offers of good jobs at one hundred a
+month apiece; and that finally, a wolfer had met them on the range
+riding in the direction of the Horseshoe ranch.
+
+That night Billy and Dawson disappeared from Dorothy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+THE GUNFIGHTERS
+
+Crack!  Crack!  Crack! the voices of the Winchesters drifted faintly
+down wind to the ears of Billy and Dawson.  Billy, fearful that some
+one else had seen their quarry first, swore frankly.
+
+"Cheer up," said Dawson.  "It may be just the chance we're lookin' for.
+They've stopped shootin'."
+
+Billy remained pessimistic.  He had been disappointed so often.  But it
+was the chance they were looking for, after all.
+
+Five minutes later from the edge of a flat-topped hill, they were
+looking down upon a scene that has had many counterparts in the history
+of the West.
+
+Below the flat-topped hill a wide stretch of rolling ground reached
+away to a semi-circle of low hills.  A quarter-mile out from the base
+of the hills a tiny fire smoked fitfully.  Beyond the fire lay a
+hog-tied calf.  Beyond the calf, a man sprawled behind the body of a
+pony.  He was aiming a rifle at another man ensconced below a cutbank
+bordering a small creek that meandered with many windings across the
+rolling country.  This second man was not blatantly visible.  Even with
+the glasses it was difficult to make him out.  For cottonwoods grew
+above the cutbank and the man lay in deep shadow.
+
+Between this man and the man behind the pony were three hundred yards
+of ground as flat as a floor.  Billy swept the background of the
+cutbank man with his glasses.  "There are two horses tied behind a
+windfall alongside those rocks.  Where's the other man?"
+
+"There's the other man," said Dawson, pointing toward a gap in the
+cottonwoods alongside the creek fifty yards down stream from the
+cutbank.  "What's he doing--drinking?"
+
+Billy turned his glasses on the spot indicated.  "He ain't drinking,"
+he said soberly.  "His head's under water."
+
+"I'm sure hoping he ain't Dan Slike," Dawson said matter-of-factly.
+
+"Me too.  What----"
+
+For the man behind the cutbank was climbing up among the
+cottonwoods--climbing up and walking out into plain sight of the man
+behind the pony.  Not only that, but, the rifle across the crook of his
+elbow, nursing the butt with his right hand, he began to walk directly
+toward him.  Still the man behind the pony did not fire.
+
+"He's cashed all right," Billy remarked suddenly.  "He looked so
+natural he fooled me for a minute.  Let's go down across the creek.
+We're in luck to-day."
+
+They ran down the reverse slope of the flat-topped hill, cut across the
+creek and approached the horses tied behind the windfall.
+
+"I'm afraid we'll just naturally have to kill Dan, after all," grieved
+Billy.  "He won't ever surrender.  I----"
+
+"Tell you," said Dawson, "loosen the cinches; then no matter which
+horse he tops he'll jerk himself down.  Then maybe while he's all
+tangled up with himself and the saddle----"
+
+"Catchem-alivoes ourselves," said Billy, with a hard grin, and tossed
+up the near fender of one of the saddles.
+
+When both saddles had been carefully doctored, Billy and his friend
+retired modestly behind some red willows.
+
+Soon they heard a scramble and a splash in the creek.  Dan Slike was
+coming back.  Through the screen of leaves they watched him coming
+toward them.  They heard his voice.  He was swearing a great string of
+oaths.  Billy crouched a trifle lower.  His six-shooter was out, but
+not cocked.  Dawson had followed his example.
+
+Slike jammed his Winchester into one of the empty scabbards and untied
+the bridle reins of the horses.  Holding the reins in one hand, he
+gripped a saddle horn and simultaneously stuck toe in stirrup.  Ensued
+then a mighty creak of saddle leather, a snort, a plunge, and Slike
+found himself on his back on the ground with one foot higher than his
+head.  A gun barrel appeared from nowhere and smote him smartly over
+the ear.  Oh, ye sun, moon and stars!  Total darkness.
+
+Billy sprang to the heads of the capering horses.  "Take his hat off,
+Johnny!" he cried.  "See what you find under the sweatband!"
+
+When Slike emerged into the full possession of his senses, he was the
+most disgusted man in the territory.
+
+"You gave us quite a run," Billy observed smilelessly.
+
+Slike damned everybody.  "You needn't have tied my hands too," he added.
+
+"We can't afford to take chances.  Do you feel like admitting that the
+district attorney helped you break jail?"
+
+Slike glared defiantly.  "Nothin' to say," declared Dan Slike, the
+unrepentant.
+
+"That's your privilege.  Suppose now we heave him up on his horse and
+go see what happened."
+
+They freed his feet, mounted him on the horse that was not packing the
+rifle and proceeded.  Behind the gap in the cottonwoods, fifty yards
+below the spot under the cutbank where Slike had lain, they found the
+body of the man with his face in the water.  Billy dragged out the body
+and turned it on its back.
+
+"What you cussin' for?" inquired Dawson.
+
+"This feller ain't Jack Murray," cried the perplexed Mr. Wingo.  "It's
+Skinny Shindle."
+
+"Looks like we must have missed a bet somewhere," said Dawson.
+"Plugged him plumb center, didn't he?" he added, alluding to the
+red-and-blue bullet hole squarely between the staring eyes.
+
+"I got the other sport," snarled Slike.
+
+"Where's Jack Murray?" demanded Billy.
+
+"What difference does that make?" flung back Dan Slike.
+
+It was evident that Slike was not in a confiding mood.
+
+Nobody said anything further.  They left Skinny Shindle lying beside
+the little creek and went on to where the other dead man lay beside the
+embers of the branding fire.
+
+"That's a TU horse," said Dawson, glancing at the brand on the pony's
+hip.
+
+Billy turned the dead man face upward.  He whistled.  "Here's an odd
+number, Johnny.  This feller is Simon Reelfoot's foreman.  You've heard
+me speak of that low-lived persimmon, Simon Reelfoot.  This boy is
+named Conley.  Been with Reelfoot for years.  I'd sure like to know why
+he's riding for the T.U."
+
+Came then a puncher riding on his occasions.  At sight of the three men
+and the calf and the fire, he spurred toward them.  A hundred yards
+away he suddenly pulled up and slipped to the far side of his horse.
+
+"I know him," said Dawson.  "Used to ride for Tasker once.  C'mon,
+Tommy, what you scared of?  It's me, Johnny Dawson."
+
+Tommy at once remounted and rode in to them.  "'Lo, Johnny," he said,
+with a straight mouth.  "Did that man with his arms tied kill Daley?"
+
+"Is that his name?" asked Billy, flicking his thumb toward the dead man.
+
+"Jim Daley," said Tommy.  "Did he?"
+
+"Sure, I killed him," Slike truculently answered the question.  "What
+about it?"
+
+At that instant Billy demonstrated that the hand is sometimes quicker
+than the eye.
+
+"He'll die anyway," he said mildly.  "You better let us do it."
+
+"I pass," surrendered Tommy, removing his hand from the butt of his
+six-shooter.
+
+"Daley got one before he went," said Billy, returning his six-shooter
+whence it came.  "He's back there on the bank of the creek if you want
+to look."
+
+"This is sure hard on Daley," observed Tommy, dismounting to turn loose
+the calf.  "He told me he came north for his health."
+
+"North?"
+
+"Yeah, couldn't stand the climate in Arizona, he said," amplified
+Tommy, loosening the knot.  "Git up, feller, pull your freight.  Life's
+sure funny.  I'll bet that calf's the first Daley ran our iron on.  He
+only joined the outfit last week.  Let's go see if I know the other
+feller."
+
+Since the place where the dead man lay was on their back trail, they
+went with Tommy, the TU boy.
+
+"Sure, I know him," declared Tommy, after one look at the dead face.
+"He's named Brindley--been with the Horseshoe since February."
+
+Which simple statement explained the presence of Skinny Shindle, but
+left Jack Murray completely to the imagination.  After all, decided
+Billy, Jack Murray did not matter, and promptly forgot him.  Had he
+known how important a place the slippery Mr. Murray actually held in
+the scheme of things, he, Billy Wingo, would not have been so casual.
+
+"We gotta make a heap of trail," said Dawson to Billy, when Tommy had
+departed in suspicious haste.  "That damn Tommy is going to the ranch
+for the rest of his bunch.  First thing we know we'll lose our
+prisoner."
+
+"Don't hurry on my account," said the sardonic Slike.  "If I gotta be
+hung, lemme be hung and no fuss about it.  I don't want to ride all the
+way north again."
+
+"We need you, Dan," said Billy briefly.  "No hanging goes yet a while."
+
+Forthwith they began to "make a heap of trail."  It may as well be said
+at once that they saw no further signs of Tommy or any other of the TU
+boys.
+
+Toward dawn next day the horses showed signs of tiring.  "Mine won't
+last another five miles," said Johnny Dawson.
+
+"This is as good a place as any," said Billy briefly.  "We'll stop
+here."
+
+They dismounted Slike and stripped and hobbled the horses.  Slike had
+not enjoyed the long night ride.  He was disposed to be peevish.  "I
+want a smoke," he demanded.
+
+Billy ceased pounding coffee and fixed him with a hard eye.  "You won't
+get it," he said shortly.
+
+"Helluva way to treat a prisoner," snarled Slike.  "You done better by
+me when I was in jail."
+
+"Lots of things have happened since.  But don't you fret.  I'll give
+you what you deserve in about five minutes.  I missed out on it
+yesterday, but I'll try to see you don't lose anything by the delay."
+
+"Huh?" puzzled Slike.
+
+"You remember going to Miss Walton's ranch," elaborated Billy in a
+cold, monotonous tone.  "You beat her."
+
+"Hell, nothin' to that.  I only pulled her hair a few times and slammed
+her once or twice."
+
+"You kicked her, too."
+
+"Not hard, though.  Besides, I had to.  She was stubborn.  My Gawd, you
+wouldn't begin to believe how stubborn that girl was!"
+
+Billy laid aside the rock with which he had been pounding coffee.  "I
+guess the coffee can wait better than I can."
+
+He stood up limberly and unbuckled his cartridge belt and dropped it
+beside Johnny Dawson, who was slicing bacon.  Then he crossed to Slike
+and untied the knots of the rope that bound him.  Slike stretched his
+arms and legs but made no offer to rise.  Billy nudged him in the ribs
+with the toe of his boot.
+
+"What's that for?" roared Slike, scrambling to his feet.
+
+"I'm going to give you the best licking you ever got.  You've had it
+coming a long time, and now you're going to get it."
+
+"Is that so?" sneered Slike.  "Is that so?  You expecting to do all
+this without help?"
+
+Fists doubled, Billy started for Slike.  The latter side-stepped and
+feinted Billy into a position between himself and Dawson.  Slike
+crouched.  His right hand flashed downward.  The fingers fumbled at his
+bootleg.  Billy ran in, expecting to beat Slike flat.
+
+"Look out!" cried Dawson, as Slike's hand shot up and out, accompanied
+by the vicious twinkle of steel.
+
+But Billy, coming in with the speed of a springing wildcat, slipped a
+bootsole on a rock and fell.  Slike's thrust sped past his head so
+close that Slike's knuckles brushed his ear.
+
+Billy got one foot under himself and threw up an arm in time to catch
+on the turn the wrist of Slike's knife hand.  Slike promptly changed
+hands.  But Billy caught the other wrist, not, however, before the
+knife had narrowly missed slicing the flesh on his floating ribs.
+Slike's head dipped forward and he sank his teeth in Billy's shoulder.
+Billy drove a knee into Slike's stomach and Slike unclamped his teeth
+with a gasp.  Over he went.  Billy stayed with him.
+
+Dawson, who had dropped bacon and frying-pan at the first blow, saw his
+opportunity and lunged down to wrench away Slike's knife.  Which was
+not at all to Billy's mind.
+
+"Let it alone!" gasped the warrior.  "He ain't giving me a bit o'
+trouble."
+
+The reluctant Dawson obeyed.
+
+Slike, his body writhing like that of a scotched snake, could not budge
+his pinned-down knife hand.  Inch by inch Billy dragged his own body
+forward and upward until he was resting on his knees with Slike between
+his legs.
+
+"Leggo that knife!" he directed.
+
+Slike's reaction was humanly natural.  At least, there were no hobbles
+on his tongue.
+
+"Well, all right, if you say so," Billy told him, and rejoiced to
+perceive the top of a small rock not six inches from Slike's knife hand.
+
+He forced the knife hand inward toward the rock.  Then he proceeded,
+with all his might, to batter the back of Slike's hand against the
+pointed top of the rock.  Slike's face changed at the first blow; at
+the second he involuntarily groaned; at the third his fingers unclosed.
+The knife tinkled on the rock.
+
+Billy pounced on the knife, threw it yards away and scrambled to his
+feet.  "Get up, Slike!  Stand on your feet!  Come and get it!"
+
+Whatever other thing Slike was, he was certainly no coward.  Instead he
+was a glutton for punishment.  He jerked himself to his feet and ran
+headlong into a straight-arm blow that made his nose bleed and his neck
+ache.  As has been said, Slike had no science.  Neither had Billy.  In
+which respect the fight was equal.  But Slike was only fighting for
+himself.  Billy was fighting not only for himself but to revenge
+Slike's treatment of the girl he loved.
+
+When he flattened Slike's nose, pleasure ensued--for Billy.  It was joy
+to his heart when the next blow landed on Slike's right eye and laid
+him all along the grass.  Three times Billy knocked Slike down, and
+three times the killer hopped to his feet and came back for more.  But
+after the third knockdown it was noticeable that Slike was appreciably
+slower and considerably more cautious.  His face was a sight.  One eye
+was completely closed.  His nose was broken, his lips cut and two teeth
+were missing.
+
+Slike came to a halt in front of Billy, blew a bubble of blood from his
+lips and wiped his good eye with the back of his hand.  He swayed on
+his legs.  But this display of weakness was more apparent than genuine.
+Billy, watching Slike's one good eye, was not misled thereby.  There
+was no hint of weakness in Slike's eye.  Indeed, there was strength and
+hatred a-plenty.
+
+Accordingly, when Slike suddenly lowered his head and dodged in under
+Billy's guard with the evident intention of starting another "snatch
+and wrastle," Billy was ready, very ready.  His uplifted knee met Slike
+full in the face.  Slike straightened instantly, and Billy hooked his
+right to the point of the chin.  Slike didn't need that last blow.  The
+knee blow had already given him a clean knockout.
+
+He took the ground limply and lay motionless.  Billy stood and looked
+at him and blew upon his skinned knuckles and suddenly realized that it
+was a good old world, after all.  There might be some mean citizens
+scattered here and there.  But they always got their come-uppances in
+the end.
+
+Dawson joined him.  "Sure looked like a mule had kicked in his
+dashboard.  I dunno when I ever saw a more complete job.  That face
+don't look genuine a-tall."
+
+"I'm sure ashamed of myself," muttered Billy.
+
+"Whyfor?  You did just right.  I'd have done the same in your place.
+You got no call to be ashamed."
+
+"Not for licking him.  That was all right.  But I searched him and let
+him hide out a butcher knife on me in his bootleg--_in his bootleg_."
+
+"That handle was down inside the leather.  You couldn't see it.  I
+didn't."
+
+"I should have found it alla same," fretted Billy.  "There's no excuse
+for such carelessness--none."
+
+He went across to where he had thrown the knife and picked it up.  He
+caught his breath.  On the handle of the butcher knife the letters TW
+were cut deep into the wood.
+
+When, for the second time that day, Slike recovered consciousness,
+Billy showed him the butcher knife.
+
+"How many butcher knives did you take from Walton's?" he demanded.
+
+"One," replied Slike.
+
+"And is this the one?"
+
+"Sure it is.  Why not?"
+
+"Why, hells bells!" exclaimed Billy, "then you didn't kill Rafe
+Tuckleton."
+
+"First I knew he was dead," Slike said thoughtfully.  "As a rule, I
+don't kill my customers," he added, with a grin rendered more horrible
+by his battered and bloody features.  "I can't afford to.  Maybe you
+killed him yourself.  How about it?  Aw, right!  Go to hell then!  And
+I want to say right here you tied my arms and legs too tight!  There
+ain't no feelin' in any of 'em!"
+
+Billy paid Slike no further attention.  His brain seemed to find it
+difficult to function.  "She said he only took one knife," he told
+himself stupidly and sat down to think it over.
+
+He had caught Slike.  But he was no nearer the solution of the
+Tuckleton murder than he was in the beginning.  His theory that Slike
+had killed Tuckleton was smashed to smithereens by the discovery of the
+Walton butcher knife in Slike's bootleg.  Unless Slike had taken two
+knives.  But Slike had not taken two knives.  According to Hazel's
+testimony, he had taken only one.
+
+It was then that Billy suddenly realized that he should have known
+better in the first place than to connect Slike with the murder of
+Tuckleton.  Dan Slike was too experienced a longhorn to leave
+incriminating evidence behind him if he could help it.  And if he had
+killed Tuckleton, he would at least have taken away the handle of the
+knife.  But the handle had been left beside the body for any one to
+pick up.  Manifestly, then, it had been left there with the design to
+throw suspicion upon a person other than the murderer,--for instance, a
+person intimately connected with the Walton ranch.
+
+Obviously the Tuckleton murder and the O'Gorman murder were parallel
+cases.  In both, clues had been left to manufacture circumstantial
+evidence against the wrong person.  While it did not necessarily follow
+that the same brain and hands had planned and carried out both murders,
+yet the point was worth considering.  For it was absolutely necessary
+to lay at least Tuckleton's murderer by the heels.  There were no two
+ways about that.  Because if he were not caught, it would only be a
+matter of time before Rale, by reason of his peculiar temperament,
+would recover from his fright, decide to risk the wrath to come, and
+once more turn the cold light of suspicion upon Hazel Walton.  And that
+would entail her arrest sooner or later.  Indeed, to Billy Wingo the
+future bore the appearance of a mighty boggy ford.
+
+Mechanically he began to play mumbletypeg with the butcher knife--palm
+of hand, back of hand, right fist, left fist, and had progressed as far
+as his left pinky in the movement known as off fingers of each hand
+when he sat back and stared at the knife quivering in the turf.  He
+thought he saw a gleam of light.  The very fact of the two knives, each
+a match of the other, was as obvious a contrariety as any that ever
+delighted the soul of Mr. William Noy.  Attaching to the demise of Rafe
+Tuckleton was another contrariety, several others in fact.  Billy
+checked off the various contrarieties on his fingers.  The gleam of
+light became a ray, the ray broadened to the bright light of complete
+understanding.
+
+He hugged his knees and smiled the pleasant self-satisfied smile of the
+proverbial cat that has just received the canary into its midst.  "I
+got him!  I got him where the hair is short.  It's one complete cinch."
+
+Early one morning several days later the sheriff _pro tem._ of Crocker
+County was roused by rappings on the office door.  Being an experienced
+man, Shotgun Shillman did not open the front door.  He went round the
+back way with his gun in his hand.  But his caution was needless.  For,
+on circling the house, he found no one at the front door but Dan
+Slike--a hatless Dan Slike flat on his back in the dust, tied hand and
+foot, and with a gag in his mouth.  Looped around Dan's ankles was one
+end of a lariat.  At the other end of the lariat stood Hazel Walton's
+riding horse.
+
+Later in the day Guerilla Melody called on Nate Samson, asked the
+storekeeper several apparently aimless questions and leafed through the
+cutlery pages of Nate's hardware catalogue.  Still later in the day
+Johnny Dawson rode out of Golden Bar.  Only two people besides himself
+knew that he was bound for the railroad and a telegraph line.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+CONTRARIETIES
+
+"There's a lot of this stuff I don't understand," said Guerilla Melody
+the day after Dawson's return from the railroad.  "Why did Conley go
+south?  Reelfoot and he were almighty friendly.  Got drunk together and
+everything.  And Conley ain't committed any crime round here that I
+know of."
+
+"I'm betting he did, alla same," said Billy.  "Or else why was he so
+particular to tell those TU boys he was from Arizona?  Folks don't hide
+where they come from without a reason.  We know there have been two
+murders committed here by unknown murderers.  It never occurred to me
+till you said Conley hadn't committed any crime that you know of that
+maybe--"  He left the sentence unfinished.
+
+Guerilla looked bewildered.  "What did Conley have against Tip?"
+
+"I don't know," said Billy.  "But I intend to find out."
+
+"That's the trick," chipped in Dawson.  "In cases like this it pays to
+dig into the innards of everything you don't understand.  You're almost
+sure to find out somethin'."
+
+"Maybe friend Simon can tell us somethin'," Billy said.  "Let's go.
+It'll be sunrise in two hours."
+
+Simon Reelfoot, riding the range that day, met a horseman who said he
+was strayman for the Wagonwheel outfit north of the West Fork.  Did
+Simon know where Park Valley was?  Simon knew, and gave the strayman
+minute directions.
+
+"Shucks," said the strayman, "I can't carry all that in my head.
+Here's a envelope and a pencil.  Make a li'l map like, will you?"
+
+Simon was not an adept with the pencil.  To use either it or a pen
+required the most perfect concentration and his tongue in his cheek.
+Wondering greatly at the strayman's claimed inability to remember a few
+simple landmarks, Simon took the pencil and envelope and bent over his
+saddle horn.
+
+"Here," he said, after three minutes' work, holding out the envelope,
+"This ought to fix you up."
+
+To this horror, the well-known voice of Billy Wingo at his back
+concurred readily.  "It ought to," said Billy Wingo.  "We're obliged to
+you, Simon.  Kindly clasp your hands over your hat."
+
+The envelope and pencil fell to the ground as Simon obeyed.  The
+strayman dismounted and picked them up.
+
+"You oughtn't to have given him that envelope," Billy admonished the
+strayman.  "It has the confession in it.  You got to be more careful."
+
+"I will," said the strayman humbly, and tucked the envelope into his
+pocket.
+
+Simon stirred uneasily on his saddle.  Confession!  Whose confession?
+He recalled that there had been several folded sheets of paper in the
+envelope.  Of course, Simon could not know that these sheets were
+white,--innocent of either handwriting or printing.  But Simon's
+conscience was a helpful little thing.  And Simon's mind was prone to
+jump at conclusions.
+
+"I'll just take your gun, Simon," murmured Billy.  "I don't think you'd
+do anything reckless, but you might.  Slide off easy.  That's it.  You
+look kind of bewildered, Simon.  Don't know how I got here, do you?
+Easy, like eatin' pie.  While you were hard at work with your pencil,
+Guerilla and I were tippytoeing out of that stand of timber behind us a
+ways.  You shouldn't be so trusting of strangers, feller.  _Keep your
+paws up_!  Just because I've felt you all over and haven't found an
+extra gun or knife doesn't signify you can do as you please.  You stand
+right still and steady.  Johnny, let's have that envelope.  My friend
+will watch you, Simon, while I glance over this."
+
+Billy took the envelope, fingered out the sheets of paper and unfolded
+them.  His lip moved as he solemnly looked them over.  It was apparent
+to Reelfoot that he was refreshing his memory.
+
+"Simon," Billy said, glancing up suddenly, "why did Conley go South?"
+
+Simon's leathery face assumed a richly jaundiced hue.  "I--I dunno!"
+
+"Yes, you do," Billy insisted, striking the sheets of paper with his
+fist.  "We found Conley.  He was working for the TU when he died."
+
+Simon's face went even yellower.  "I told him not to go," muttered
+Simon Reelfoot.
+
+"Conley talked before he died," said Billy.  "He told me some
+interesting things about himself--and you.  We've got you dead to
+rights, Simon."  Here Billy stuffed the sheets of paper into his
+trousers pocket and gripped Simon by the throat.  "You damned murderer,
+what did you kill him for?"
+
+At the fierce clutch of Billy's fingers, Simon's shaking legs refused
+to uphold him longer.  He fell on his knees.  "I--I didn't kill him!"
+he spluttered.  "He was dead when----"
+
+"You lie!  You killed him!  Conley said so!  You tried to throw the
+blame on me by leaving behind--"  Billy's voice trailed off into
+silence.
+
+"That was Conley's idea!" screamed the panicky Reelfoot.  "He got the
+hatband and quirt one day when nobody was in the office.  I didn't have
+anything to do with it!  Conley shot him, too!"
+
+"Conley shot him too, huh?  Then you shot Tip your own self?"
+
+"He was gonna squeal!  He was gonna get me mixed into that Walton
+murder!  They told me he was!  He--he pulled first, I tell you!  It was
+an even break!  I was drunk!  I didn't know what I was doing!  Oh, my
+Gawd!"
+
+Billy flung the groveling Simon from him.  "This ought to be enough for
+you."
+
+Guerilla wagged an admiring head as he set about securing the arms of
+the wretched Reelfoot.  "Gotta give you credit, Bill.  I never thought
+it would work."
+
+"I did," said the strayman, Johnny Dawson.  "I've seen it done before.
+Most folks are sheep when it comes to a bluff."
+
+"Don't tie him too tight, Guerilla.  Might as well ask him some more
+questions."
+
+That evening there was another prisoner in the Golden Bar calaboose.
+"If they keep on coming in like this," said Shotgun Shillman to Riley
+Tyler, "we'll have to build an addition to the jail."
+
+"The more the merrier," grinned Riley Tyler.  "Listen to that
+skunkified Reelfoot!  You'd think he was having the horrors, the way
+he's carrying on."
+
+"Did you hear what he said about leaving a lantern outside the cell all
+night, account of Tip haunting him in the dark?"
+
+Riley nodded.  "I heard.  His nerve has gone completely bust."
+
+"It's funny how he keeps insisting that Bill Wingo was with Guerilla
+and that Dawson man when they captured him.  Why, everybody knows Bill
+Wingo is far, far away."  Thus Shotgun Shillman, his tongue in his
+cheek.
+
+"Damfunny," Riley assented with a wink.  "Especially when Guerilla and
+Dawson said they hadn't seen a sign of Bill, not a sign.  You might
+almost think Simon Reelfoot was mistaken."
+
+"You might," chuckled Shotgun Shillman.  "I wonder, speaking as man to
+man, and not as sheriff _pro tem._ to his deputy, where Bill is anyway."
+
+"Probably in town this minute.  It would be just like him."
+
+"Guessin' thataway is bad business," Shotgun reproved Riley.  "Besides,
+you're mistaken.  If we thought Billy was in town, it would be our duty
+to hop out and arrest him, wouldn't it?  You bet it would.  So we don't
+think he's in town.  That is certain sure.  You wanna mix a li'l common
+sense with your job, Riley.  You're too half-baked by a jugful.  You
+keep on expressin' opinions so free and easy, and first thing you know
+folks will think we ain't so anxious to arrest Bill."
+
+"Some of 'em think so now," said the unimpressed Riley.
+
+"Ain't that the public all over!" exclaimed the justly indignant
+Shotgun.  "Tell you, an honest officer of the law is never appreciated,
+never.  Is that bottle empty, Riley?"
+
+In the meantime Billy Wingo was calmly eating his supper in the house
+of Guerilla Melody.  On Guerilla's bed Dawson was snoring the sleep of
+exhaustion.
+
+"What next?" asked Guerilla Melody, when Billy was lighting his
+after-supper cigarette.  "With Tip's murder settled and knowin' who
+killed Tuckleton----"
+
+"Certainly doesn't help us any with the stage holdup," cut in Billy.
+"Before we spring the joke in the Tuckleton deal, I've got to do a li'l
+more work on the hold-up.  Dumping Rafe's murderer won't do me a heap
+of good while I'm breaking rock for twenty years at Hillsville.  Don't
+look so glum, Guerilla.  There's a trail out.  There always is."
+
+At the tail of the woods a convivial voice in the street broke into
+boisterous song.  "Who's that?" asked Billy.
+
+"It's Jerry Fern," said Guerilla indifferently.  "He's drunk again."
+
+"Ain't it kind of new for him?  He never used to drink much."
+
+"Oh, he can't stand prosperity."
+
+"Prosperity?"
+
+"Yep.  Aunt died, left him some money.  He ain't drove for nearly a
+month."
+
+"The lucky devil.  Big legacy?"
+
+"I dunno how much.  Fair size, I guess.  Must have been for Crafty to
+lend him money to play with."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Don't get so excited," cautioned Guerilla, with a nervous glance over
+his shoulder.  "You've no idea how your voice carries.  Even if you
+don't mind being dumped, I do.  And I don't care three whoops about
+spending two or three years in jail for giving aid and comfort to----"
+
+"Shut up, for Gawd's sake!" begged Billy.  "Do you know Crafty's been
+lending money to Jerry?"
+
+"Didn't I see him with my own eyes more than once?  But----"
+
+"Say, don't you see anything else yet?"
+
+"I see you, but that ain't sayin' much."
+
+"Guerilla, if you weren't so serious you'd be funny.  But don't get
+down-hearted.  I'm as foolish as you are, every bit.  Why, when they
+had me corraled in Sam Larder's house, and Crafty blatted right out
+loud that he didn't know Jerry Fern was driving that trip and Tip and
+Sam said later that they knew Jerry was, I had the answer to the puzzle
+if I had the sense to follow it up.  Especially when it turned out
+later that Jerry, who always gives a bandit a battle, didn't even try
+to lock horns with Crafty.  But I never caught the connection till you
+said Crafty was lending money to Jerry.  Lending him money!  Do you
+think you can get Jerry Fern in here and make him drunk?"
+
+"When?" asked Guerilla, beginning to get a glimmering.
+
+"To-night.  Now.  I want to get Jerry so full he'll talk.  Tell us all
+he knows, see?"
+
+"I'll make him drunk," Guerilla said earnestly.  "And I'll make him
+talk, or there ain't a drop of virtue in Old Crow."
+
+Guerilla flipped on his hat and departed.
+
+Half an hour later Guerilla returned, bringing his sheaves with him.
+And, oh, the sheaves were merry and, oh, the sheaves were drunk.
+Guerilla himself was giving an admirable imitation of a roistering
+blade.
+
+"Meet my friend, Mister Johnny Dawson," said Guerilla, waving an
+expansive hand toward the erstwhile strayman.
+
+"Huh, h'are you, Misher Juh-johnny Duh-duh-daw-son," said Jerry Fern,
+solemnly shoving out a wavering paw and missing the mark by eighteen
+inches.  "Washer name of other tut-tut-twin?"
+
+For a bad moment Dawson feared that Billy Wingo had been foolish enough
+to come in from the other room.  Then he understood.  "His name's
+Eliphalet," he made reply, solemnly turning to the empty air on his
+right.
+
+Jerry Fern again pumphandled the empty air.  "Pup-pup-pleased meetcha,"
+he stuttered.  "Cuc-cuc-cuc-can't pup-pronounce name, but thash all
+ri'.  All li'l friends tut-together.  Wheresh bottle?  You gug-got
+bub-bub-bottle, Guh-guh-gil-Guerilla?"
+
+"Sit down," urged Guerilla, steering Jerry to anchor.  "Here's your
+bottle."
+
+Jerry Fern clasped the bottle to his bosom and sang a lusty stave.
+
+  "Rye whisky, rye whisky,
+  Rye whisky, I cry.
+  If I don't get rye whisky
+  I surely will die."
+
+
+Like the boy in the story, Jerry could sing without stuttering.  But
+when he began again to talk, his enunciation was worse than ever.
+"Buh-buh-buh-whistle for the crossing--but I ain't gug-gug-gargle gonna
+die.  Nun-nun-not me.  I gug-got rye whuh-whisky."
+
+He put the bottle to his lips and went through all the motions of
+taking a hearty pull.  "Fuf-funny," he said, holding the bottle at
+arm's length.  "Wuh-wuh whisky lul-lul-lost all its taste."
+
+"Take the cork out," suggested Guerilla.
+
+"Cuc-cuc-cork?" smiled Jerry Fern.  "I'll tut-take cuc-cork out."
+
+So saying he smashed the bottle neck against the edge of the table,
+broke it short off, and drank without ceasing till the bottle was
+empty.  He held the bottle against the light.  He pressed it to his
+ear.  He shook it.  Then he tossed it nonchalantly over his shoulder,
+laid his cheek on the table and began to snore.
+
+This would never do.  Guerilla and Dawson shook him awake.
+
+"Mush been shleep," mumbled Jerry, knuckling his eyes.  "Gimme anuzzer
+dud-drink."
+
+"Not yet," said Guerilla firmly.  "Is Felix Craft a good friend of
+yours, Jerry?"
+
+"Helluva good fuf-fuf-friend," was the instant reply.
+
+"He doesn't pay you enough," prompted the carefully drilled Dawson.
+
+"Thash whu-what I tut-told him!" cried Jerry Fern, pounding the table
+with a vehement fist.  "I ought tut-tut-to have num-more."
+
+"He's treatin' you mean," said Guerilla.  "He ain't goin' to give you
+any more money."
+
+"Yesh he wuh-will," insisted Jerry.
+
+"He told me different."  Thus Dawson.
+
+"Yesh he wuh-will.  Huh-he'll have to gimme all money I want.  Pup-put
+him in juh-juh-jail if he don't."
+
+Guerilla and Dawson looked toward the doorway giving into the other
+room.  Then they began to laugh immoderately.  "That's a good one,"
+cried Guerilla, wiping his eyes.  "You can't put Felix Craft in jail.
+He hasn't done anything wrong."
+
+"Oh, ain't he?" flared Jerry Fern with all the drunkard's irritation at
+being disbelieved. "I know more abub-bub-bout Fuf-felix Cuc-craft than
+you thuh-think.  I cuc-can muh-make Fuf-felix Cuc-craft lul-lie
+dud-down and rur-roll over."
+
+"Yes, you can."  With derision.
+
+"Yeah, I cuc-can!"
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"I know all rur-right," vaguely.
+
+This was maddening.  Billy, in the other room, yearned to take Jerry
+Fern by the scruff of his drunken neck and squeeze the truth out of him.
+
+"You don't know a thing about Felix Craft," persisted Guerilla.  "Not a
+thing."
+
+"Damn shame he don't pay you enough," chipped in Dawson.
+
+"Maybe if I went to him I could get more money for you," suggested
+Guerilla.  He waited a moment for the meaning of this to sink in before
+adding, "What will I tell him."
+
+"Tut-tell him I'll tell if he dud-don't pup-pay."
+
+This sounded promising.  "Tell what?"
+
+"Tut-tell whuh-who held up the sush-sush-stage."
+
+"Oh, that's nothing," said Guerilla.  "Felix told me all about that.
+He said you didn't help him out a-tall."
+
+Jerry Fern was instantly up in arms.  "I dud-did so," he chattered.
+"He knows bub-better.  Did-didn't he plan it all out wuh-with mum-me
+nun-nun-not to cuc-cuc-cut down on him, and didn't I tut-tell the
+pup-passengers to muh-make sure of Bub-bill's clothes and the bub-brass
+gug-gug-guard of his six-shu-shooter?  Did-didn't I?  Did-didn't I?
+Yeah, and his huh-horse and all too?  Dud-didn't I do all them
+thuh-things acc-acc-accordin' to cuc-contract?  Did-didn't I?
+Cuc-course I did.  And if Fuf-felix do-don't pay up, I'll pup-put him
+in jail."
+
+"That's right," Guerilla soothed him.  "Do anything you want with him."
+He went to the door of the other room and whispered, "Has he said
+enough, Bill?"
+
+"About," answered Billy, pushing his chair back and standing up.
+
+"But maybe he won't repeat it under oath when he's sober," worried
+Guerilla.
+
+"We won't wait that long.  We'll sic him on Felix right now.  You go
+find out where Felix is, will you, Guerilla, and--  Here, wait a shake!
+Better have Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler in on this.  Huh?  Course
+not!  Don't tell 'em I'm here.  Tell 'em----"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+JONESY'S ULTIMATUM
+
+"You can't tell me that infernal Bill Wingo ain't at the bottom of all
+this business!" snarled Felix Craft.  "Guerilla Melody and that Dawson
+friend of his didn't get Slike by themselves any more than I did.  I
+tell you flat, Bill Wingo was the boss of that job.  He was the brains,
+and you can't tell me different."
+
+"And there was a time when we thought Bill didn't have any brains," Sam
+Larder grieved bitterly.
+
+"I didn't," avowed the district attorney.  "I always knew----"
+
+"Oh, you!" interrupted Felix with a sneer.  "You know it all, you do.
+You know so much, maybe you'll explain why Reelfoot says you told him
+Tip O'Gorman was gonna tangle him up in the Walton murder and that the
+easiest way was for him to down Tip."
+
+"He says Rafe Tuckleton told him that," corrected the district attorney.
+
+"He says you did too," accused Sam Larder.  "What did you tell him a
+thing like that for?"
+
+"Reelfoot's a liar," declared the district attorney.  "I never told him
+anything of the kind.  Why should I?"
+
+"I don't know.  I'd like to find out."  The fat man's stare was bright
+with suspicion.
+
+The district attorney bristled.  "Good Lord, man, I was always friendly
+with Tip."
+
+"You were friendlier with Rafe Tuckleton," pointed out Felix, "and we
+all know Tip didn't have any use for Rafe after that Walton deal, and
+Rafe knew it."
+
+"It's just possible," put in Sam Larder, "that Rafe put Reelfoot up to
+downing Tip."
+
+"In which case," supplemented Felix, "you bein' so friendly with Rafe,
+it would be natural for you to help him."
+
+"Next thing you'll be saying I killed Tip."  Thus the district attorney
+with sarcasm.
+
+"No, because that wouldn't be true.  I know you didn't kill him.  But
+I'm not sure you aren't an accessory before and after the fact."
+
+The district attorney went pale.  But he made no attempt to go after
+his gun.  Not against Felix Craft.  Not now at any rate.  "I'll settle
+this with you later," he began.  "I----"
+
+"You'll never settle anything with anybody," Felix flung the insult
+with contempt.
+
+"We'll gain nothing by fighting among ourselves," went on the district
+attorney evenly.  "If we don't stick together, we'll hang together, and
+you can gamble on that.  If Slike talks----"
+
+"He'll implicate you and Tuckleton," Larder chipped in swiftly.  "We're
+out of _that_ proposition."
+
+"But we all aided him to escape from jail, so we are all guilty of
+felony.  If Slike should choose to blat about it--"  The district
+attorney left the remainder of the sentence to his comrades'
+imagination.
+
+"He's right," said Sam Larder suddenly.  "We've got to stick together."
+
+"All right," Felix Craft said grudgingly, "I'll wait until we're out of
+this muss before I ask you any more questions about egging Reelfoot to
+down Tip O'Gorman, Rale.  Afterward I'll get the truth out of you if I
+have to choke you to death first.  Oh, you needn't show your teeth at
+me, feller.  You won't bite."
+
+The district attorney swallowed hard.  "You'll find your suspicion is
+baseless, Felix, baseless and unjust.  I had absolutely nothing to do
+with the murder of Tip O'Gorman.  Whoever told you----"
+
+"Nobody told me anything.  I----"
+
+"Let it go for now," broke in Sam Larder.  "We've got to think of our
+skins.  And if we don't catch Bill Wingo, they'll be gone skins."
+
+"You bet they will," said the district attorney.  "That man at large is
+a menace.  He'd bushwhack any or all of us three without a moment's
+hesitation.  He's--he's capable of anything."
+
+"I know he's capable of anything," Sam Larder said with deep feeling,
+thinking of Billy's escape from the Larder ranch house.  "And I'd give
+a good deal to know he was two feet underground.  But Gawd knows we
+can't do more than we have done to catch him.  Felix and me have ridden
+ourselves bowlegged combin' the Medicines for him."
+
+"You bet we have," agreed Felix.  "There ain't a square foot of those
+mountains we don't know intimate.  Speaking personal, I've ridden--"
+He paused and looked across at Sam Larder.  "That bet was I'd ride more
+than six hundred miles in sixty days.  Remember, Sam?  And the sixty
+days ain't up yet, and I've ridden more than six hundred already."
+
+"What bet's that?" asked the district attorney chattily, anxious to
+reestablish friendly relations.  "Who you bettin' with?"
+
+"Nobody you're interested in," parried Felix Craft, it having been
+thought better to keep the district attorney in the dark regarding the
+happenings at the Larder ranch house on the day of the stage hold-up.
+
+"I'll go the limit we've covered a thousand miles," groaned Sam.  "I've
+lost thirty pounds myself.  I don't believe Bill ever went near the
+Medicines."
+
+"Oh, he went there, all right," said the district attorney.  "Take my
+word----"
+
+A pounding on the office door cut the sentence in half.
+
+"You are certainly jumpy this evening, Rale," Felix Craft said dryly.
+"Open the door.  Maybe it's our friend Bill."
+
+The district attorney obeyed with caution.  Not that he expected Billy.
+But then, he did not quite know what to expect.  That it would be
+something to trouble him he was positive.  He was not disappointed.  It
+was a trio of the Tuckleton outfit, to wit, the foreman, Jonesy, and
+two punchers, Ben Shanklin and Tim Mullin.  All three were in the worst
+of tempers.
+
+"Look here, Rale," Jonesy began without preliminary, "you've fooled
+with us long enough, and we're sick of it."
+
+"We want action," rapped out Ben Shanklin.
+
+"You can't come any of this high and mighty stuff over me," said the
+district attorney, with an eye that flickered in spite of himself.  "I
+don't know what you're talking about, but if you want anything, you'll
+have to ask for it in the right way, and maybe you'll get it and maybe
+you won't."
+
+"Is that so?" fleered Jonesy.  "We'll see about that.  What have you
+done in Rafe's case?"
+
+"We hope to land the murderer very soon.  We have several clues.
+We----"
+
+Jonesy banged his fist down on the table with a force that made the
+windows dance.  "Shut up!  You and your 'we's!'  Rafe's murderer is
+that damn niece of Walton's, and you know it.  You had her in the jug
+and you turned her loose.  The evidence was insufficient to hold her
+on, you said.  You said at that time you had evidence against Bill
+Wingo and expected to catch him soon.  You haven't caught him, and we
+want to know what the evidence against him is.  What is it?  C'mon!
+Spit it out!"
+
+"Now look here," temporized the district attorney, "I can't tell
+you----"
+
+"You bet you can't," interrupted the angry Shanklin.  "'Cause why?'
+Cause you haven't any evidence against him!  The only evidence you've
+got is against Hazel Walton, and you've got enough of that to put her
+over the jumps."
+
+"Lemme do the talkin', Ben," directed Jonesy.  "Look here, Rale, either
+you tell us what evidence you got against Bill Wingo, or you issue a
+warrant for Hazel Walton's arrest.  One or the other.  Take your
+choice."
+
+"Say, are you friends of Bill Wingo?" demanded the district attorney.
+
+"You know better than that," snapped back Jonesy.  "It's just that
+we're gonna know what's what."
+
+"But what good will it do to rearrest Hazel Walton?"
+
+"Then you haven't any evidence against Bill Wingo?" persisted Jonesy.
+
+"I didn't say that.  I----"
+
+"If you can't tell us what the evidence is, we'll take it you haven't
+any.  I knew there was some trick in it when you turned Hazel loose.
+You and your evidence against Bill Wingo!  You lousy liar, you gotta
+get up early in the morning to pile us!  You listen to me!  You issue a
+warrant for that girl's arrest immediate!"
+
+"I can't," denied the district attorney.  "I haven't the power to issue
+warrants.  No justice of the peace has yet been appointed to fill
+Driver's place, and the nearest judge is Donelson at Hillsville."
+
+"Under the law," horned in Felix Craft, suddenly choosing his side,
+"when a felony has been committed, and there is reasonable cause for
+believing that the person to be arrested has committed it, that person
+may be arrested without a warrant."
+
+"I thought you didn't want anything to happen to Hazel Walton," fleered
+the district attorney.
+
+"I don't want her hurt, that's all.  I haven't any objection to her
+being tried for the murder of Tuckleton.  But I ain't going to have you
+haze her around.  Understand?"
+
+"There y'are," said Jonesy.  "You don't need a warrant for the girl.
+All you have to do is to give your orders to Shotgun and Riley.
+They'll do the rest."
+
+"But after turning her loose thisaway--" began the thoroughly
+frightened district attorney.
+
+"You can rearrest her and have her tried on that butcher-knife
+evidence," insisted the stubborn Jonesy.  "Just going by what she says
+herself, there's enough to fix her clock twice over.  You dump her,
+Rale, and dump her quick."
+
+"Or we'll fix your clock," inserted Tim Mullin.
+
+The hapless district attorney cast his distressed gaze this way and
+that.  But every eye that met his either was unfriendly or wrathfully
+hostile.  Certainly there was no help for him in that room.  The
+district attorney shuddered.  He knew Jonesy and the rest of the
+Tuckleton outfit; knew, too, if he did not do as these men of violence
+demanded, that they would make him hard to find.  On the other hand, if
+he obeyed them, Bill Wingo would as surely kill him.  The district
+attorney shuddered again.
+
+"What you shivering about?" demanded the sarcastic Tim Mullin.
+
+The district attorney squared his afflicted shoulders and did the
+obvious,--chose the more remote of the two evils.  "I'll send Shotgun
+and Tyler to Prescott's to-morrow," he said, rose to his feet and,--the
+door flew open, and, Jerry Fern, wild-eyed with liquor, stumbled into
+the room.  The stage driver rolled straight to Felix Craft and pawed
+him.  "Fuf-felix," he babbled, "I wan' shush-shome mon-money."
+
+The furious Felix shook him off.  But Jerry Fern was nothing if not
+persistent.  He returned with bellowings.
+
+The grinning faces of Guerilla Melody, Johnny Dawson, Shotgun and Riley
+looked in through the open doorway.
+
+"Come along, Jerry," called Guerilla.  "We been hunting you all over."
+
+Jerry Fern was not in the least interested in coming along.  He had
+another and very definite end in view.  "Fuf-felix, gug-gimme shome
+mum-money!"
+
+Felix bit off a curse.  "Look here, Jerry," he said soothingly, patting
+the hysterical drunkard on the back, "you go home and sleep it off.
+You don't want to go whoppin' round this way at your age."
+
+The district attorney, Jonesy and his two punchers stared.  This was
+another Felix.  The Felix they knew would have knocked the sot down.
+
+"I wuh-wuh-wan' shush-shome mum-money," gargled Jerry, even as Billy's
+four friends pushed in through the open doorway.
+
+"You come along with me," urged Felix, gently propelling Jerry toward
+the street.
+
+Jerry braced his feet mulewise.  "I wuh-won't!  I wuh-won't!  I
+wuh-wan' mum-money you promised me."
+
+"I didn't promise you a nickel," said Felix, wrestling with his
+emotions.  "But come along, and I'll give you some money if you're hard
+up."
+
+"Huh-how much?"
+
+"Plenty.  I'll give you what you deserve."  There was cream and butter
+in the gambler's voice, but there was grisly menace in his restless
+eyes.
+
+"Gug-guve mum-me more than you gug-gave bub-before?"
+
+"Yes, yes.  C'mon!"
+
+"Wuh-want mum-money now!" yelped the contumacious Jerry, "or I'll
+pup-put you in jail!"
+
+At which Felix lost his patience and his head and gave Jerry the bum's
+rush through the doorway.  Jerry skidded across the sidewalk and slid a
+yard on his nose.  This annoyed him considerably.  He sat up,
+supporting himself on a wavering elbow and squalled, "Yuh-you
+nun-needn't thuh-think I'm gug-gonna lul-lie for you nun-no longer!  If
+you dud-don't gug-gimme plenty mum-money, I'm gug-gonna tell folks how
+yuh-you huh-held up the sush-stage yourself all dressed up in Bill
+Wingo's clothes sho you cuc-could throw the bub-blame on him!"
+
+Most certainly then the gambler would have put a bullet through Jerry
+Fern had not Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler been too quick for him.
+
+"Now, now, Felix, calm down," suggested Shotgun.
+
+"He's a liar!" foamed Felix, struggling to jerk his gun arm free.  "I
+never held up the stage!  Bill Wingo did it himself!  Ask Sam Larder!"
+
+"Was Sam there, too?" said Riley, with fresh interest.  "Here, Sam,
+wait a minute.  What's your hurry?"
+
+"Got to see a man," mumbled Sam.  "Be right back."
+
+"Stay a while," invited Riley Tyler.
+
+Sam Larder regarded the muzzle of Riley's gun.  "All right," said Sam
+Larder.
+
+"Felix," said Shotgun Shillman, "I don't _want_ to plug you."
+
+Felix Craft took the hint.
+
+Johnny Dawson went out into the street and returned with Jerry Fern,
+who had forgotten his grievance against Felix Craft and wished only to
+sleep.
+
+Shotgun Shillman looked at the district attorney.  "Rale, this sort of
+puts a crimp in the notion that Bill Wingo held up the stage."
+
+"It looks like it," admitted the district attorney, fumbling the papers
+on his desk.  "Of course, we'll have to do some more investigating
+first."
+
+"Before any investigating is done, we want Hazel Walton arrested,"
+tucked in the malevolent Jonesy.
+
+"All right!  All right!" snarled the badgered Rale.  "I'll have her
+arrested first thing in the morning."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+THE FOOL-KILLER
+
+The district attorney, having looked carefully to the fastenings of his
+windows, tucked a six shooter under his pillow and began to unlace his
+shoes.  Came a rapping at his chamber door and the voice of his
+housekeeper.
+
+"Say, Art, here's another of your infernal friends at the kitchen door.
+Says his name's Johnson."
+
+The district attorney, jumping at a conclusion, immediately reached for
+his six-shooter.  "I don't know any Johnsons.  Not around here, anyway.
+What's he look like?"
+
+"Middlin' tall, scrubby lot of black whiskers, talks sort of thick
+like."
+
+"Pebbles under his tongue, most likely.  Tell him to come into the
+kitchen, so I can get a look without him knowing."
+
+"He won't come in.  Says he wants you to come to the door your own
+self.  Says it's important."
+
+At which the district attorney was more than ever certain that the
+midnight visitor was Billy Wingo.  "You go tell him that he'll have to
+come into the kitchen before I'll talk to him.  Close the kitchen door
+most to.  I can look at him through the crack."
+
+The housekeeper departed, and the district attorney slipped off his
+shoes and tip-toed into the hall.  The housekeeper, hair in curl papers
+and wearing a wrapper, met him before he reached the kitchen door.
+
+"He says he won't come in," she told him, "and told me to tell you he
+wanted to see about a note for five thousand dollars he has in his
+pocket."
+
+"Now I know who it is," said the district attorney.  "You go to bed.
+I'll let him in."
+
+After the district attorney heard the slam and following click of his
+housekeeper's door, he went into the kitchen, turned down the flame of
+the lamp and opened the kitchen door.
+
+"That you, Rale?" inquired a muffled voice.
+
+"Yes!  Come in!  Come in!"
+
+The man in outer darkness spat out two pebbles.  "Is that damn woman
+there?" he asked in the natural tone of voice of Jack Murray.
+
+"No!  Come _in_!  I want to shut the door."
+
+Jack Murray entered quickly.
+
+"What in hell are you doing here?" demanded the district attorney, when
+he and the other were behind the closed door of the office.  "Don't you
+know----"
+
+"I wanted to see you," Jack Murray said, seating himself in the nearest
+chair.  "Ain't you glad to see me?"
+
+"Not very," the district attorney said frankly.  "If you get caught----"
+
+"I ain't gonna get caught.  The man ain't born yet to catch me.  I
+suppose you got the money for that note."
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"Why haven't you?"
+
+"I couldn't raise it."
+
+"What's the matter with you?  Ain't you got any credit left?"
+
+"Folks won't lend money unless they get security, and I haven't any
+security that hasn't already been put up."
+
+"_He_ didn't ask for security," thus Jack Murray with an indescribable
+leer.
+
+"That--was--different."
+
+"I guess it was.  Yeah.  I always had an idea you were a rich man."
+
+"A lot of people thought so," the district attorney said bitterly.  "As
+a matter of fact, I've been hard pressed for money all my life.  I've
+always had a hand in too many deals."
+
+"You were able to chip in on that reward for me without any trouble."
+
+"I knew I'd never have to pay it.  Some day, when all my different
+enterprises pan out, I'll have money, but now I haven't got any."
+
+"How about that bribe in the Jacksboro range case last fall?  Why, they
+must have paid you all of three or four thousand dollars."
+
+The district attorney shook his head.  "No, only twenty-five hundred,
+and two thousand of that went for some insurance I had to pay in
+January."
+
+"Two thousand dollars for insurance!"
+
+"That's what I said."
+
+"You're lying.  Whoever heard of two thousand dollars for insurance?"
+
+"Oh, I wasn't the only one.  Rafe had to pay the same.  And Tip a
+thousand.  Oh, never mind trying to understand it.  It's too long a
+story now."
+
+"I guess it is.  I ain't carin' much about listening to any such
+stories, anyway.  I didn't ride alla way north from Dorothy just for
+that.  I want the money for that note."
+
+"I haven't it, and you could have gotten that information by writing
+for it.  You didn't have to take the trip.  You----"
+
+"The money ain't all I come for.  I want to settle my li'l account with
+Bill Wingo."
+
+"I thought that li'l account was closed," said the district attorney,
+with the shadow of a sneer that Murray did not catch.
+
+"It won't be closed till Bill Wingo is pushin' up the grass," averred
+Jack Murray.  "This territory ain't big enough for the two of us."
+
+"If you had any sense it would be."
+
+"Meanin'?"
+
+"Meaning that Bill Wingo is a pretty cold proposition for you to
+handle."
+
+"I'm better than he ever thought of being, and don't you let anybody
+tell you different.  I'll get that ---- ---- if I have to follow him to
+hell!  Damn his soul!  If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be where I am
+now!  If it wasn't for him, I'd be sheriff of this county!  If it
+wasn't for him--  Oh, I got a-plenty reasons for putting that Wingo
+where he belongs."
+
+"Sally Jane, huh?" the district attorney supplied with malice.
+
+"I didn't say anything about Sally Jane."
+
+"I know you didn't.  But I got eyes, man.  I'll bet you like her still."
+
+"Don't you lose any sleep over who I like."
+
+"I ain't.  I only thought you might be interested in knowin' that she
+and Bill are thick again, like they used to be.  Thicker, you might
+say."
+
+Jack Murray's thin lips became thinner.  "Skinny Shindle told me
+somethin' about him switching to Hazel Walton."
+
+"Don't you believe it," blattered the district attorney, continuing to
+rapidly pump the bellows on the fire of Jack Murray's hatred.  "Hazel
+Walton was only a passing fancy.  Sally Jane is the girl for him, you
+can gamble on it.  Tough luck, Jack.  I'll bet you'd have stood better
+than a fighting chance with her if she hadn't listened to his lies."
+
+"He'll never have her!" snarled Jack Murray, wagging a vicious head.
+"By Gawd, he won't!"
+
+"I guess she thinks he will--when this muss is cleared up," said the
+district attorney, with admirably simulated carelessness.  "Hazel--I
+mean Sally Jane----"
+
+"Yeah, Hazel!  I'd say Hazel, I would.  I should think her name _would_
+stick in your craw!"
+
+"Well, never mind about that.  I fixed it once to turn her loose, but
+here this Jonesy comes squallin' for her scalp to-night, and I had to
+promise to have her arrested to-morrow.  What else could I do?"
+
+"Just as if you wanted it any other way!  Why, I'll bet you even fixed
+it with Jonesy to raise a roar so that you'd get this second chance at
+her.  What did that li'l girl ever do to you?  Not that I give a
+damn--just between friends."
+
+"She cost me some money, if you want to know," snarled the district
+attorney, who saw red every time he thought of the two thousand dollars
+he had been taxed by Billy Wingo for Hazel's benefit.  "And anybody
+that costs me money will pay for what they get.  Look here," he added
+with an abrupt change of subject, "how did you find out Bill was still
+in this county?"
+
+Jack Murray gripped the district attorney's wrist.  "Do you know where
+he is?"
+
+Rale shook off the restraining hand.  "I don't know exactly where he
+is," he said coldly, "but I'm reasonably sure he's round here
+somewhere.  Good Gawd, man, don't you suppose if I knew where he was,
+I'd have him dumped so quick his hair would curl?"
+
+Jack Murray nodded.  "He's round here all right, unless he's gone north
+beyond the West Fork.  I cut his trail at Dorothy."
+
+"Was he there?"
+
+"Considerable.  Yeah, him and another feller were there.  Between 'em
+they caught Slike."
+
+"Were you with Slike?"
+
+"Not at the time he was caught, I wasn't.  But a while before that I
+met him in Shadyside and I told him what Skinny Shindle wrote about the
+Horseshoe outfit needin' gunfighters.  Slike, he didn't want to leave
+the country yet, anyway, and we decided to throw in with the Horseshoe
+a spell."
+
+"But how did Bill----"
+
+"Trailed us, I suppose.  First thing I knew, here we found Skinny dead
+as Julius Caesar alongside Fenley's Creek, and Slike he'd disappeared
+complete.  There'd been a brush, and Shindle and a TU puncher had
+cashed."
+
+"And where were you during the--brush?"
+
+"I was on the other side of the range with a couple of the Horseshoe
+bunch payin' a visit to a nester.  If I'd been with Slike and Skinny,
+the deal would have turned out different, and you can stick a pin in
+that."
+
+"Yes, you'd have been downed or dumped too."
+
+"Meanin' you wished I had been."
+
+"I didn't say so," the district attorney hastened to assure him.
+
+"You don't always have to say so," said Jack Murray, with heavy
+suspicion.  "I'm reading you like a page of big print, you lizard!"
+
+The district attorney forced a laugh.  "You're too clever for me, Jack.
+Look here, what makes you think it was Bill Wingo caught Slike?"
+
+"Because no posses from here went south so far, and because if anybody
+else but Bill had caught him, he'd either have been killed outright or
+brought into Dorothy or Marquis, and there'd have been a big time.
+Instead of that, there wasn't a peep.  So it must have been Bill, see?"
+
+"I see.  And you're going to get this Bill?"
+
+"You've got the idea,"
+
+"And you trailed him here?"
+
+"I didn't have to.  I knew he'd bring Slike to Golden Bar, so I came
+along the shortest way.  It'll be quite a joke on you, this Slike
+business.  Will he snitch, do you think?"
+
+"He'd better not."
+
+"You frown at him thataway, and you'll scare him to death, Art.  He's
+one timid fawn, that Slike person."
+
+"He'll be----"
+
+"Never mind what he'll be, Art.  That's his business, and yours.  I
+didn't come here to help Slike.  I came here to get Bill and help yours
+truly.  I want some money."
+
+"I told you I haven't any."
+
+"But you can get it."
+
+"I told you folks want security."
+
+"That will do to tell somebody else besides me.  I've got my growth and
+cut most all my teeth a long time since.  You'll have to raise some
+money--say about fifteen hundred."
+
+"You might as well make it fifteen thousand."
+
+"Maybe I will.  Thousand sounds kind of good.  Say about three of 'em.
+Three thousand dollars, Art, and I'll let you alone a while."
+
+"But I tell you----"
+
+"And I tell you that if you don't, that same identical note with a
+written account of what I know goes to Judge Donelson."
+
+"You wouldn't dare."
+
+"Think I wouldn't?  You don't know me, feller.  When it comes to money,
+I'm the most daring cuss you ever saw.  That's me, Jack Murray.  Three
+thousand dollars, Artie, or you'll wish you'd never been born."
+
+"I can't raise it," the district attorney insisted despairingly.
+
+"I kind of thought you'd stick to that poverty squeal," smiled Jack
+Murray, fishing a folded paper from a shirt pocket.  "So I took care
+before I came here to write down what I know about this li'l deal.  I
+thought you might like to see how interestin' it all looks on paper.
+Hang your eyes over it, feller.  Never mind snatchin' at it!  I'll hold
+it for you to read.  See, there's my name signed to it all complete.
+How do you like it, huh?  Gives you a thrill, don't it?  I'll bet it
+will give Judge Donelson two thrills.  And as an evidence of good
+faith, to show you I still got it safe, here's your note for that five
+thousand.  It will go with the letter to the judge--unless you listen
+to reason and raise the three thousand--  What's that?"
+
+"That" was a rapping on the kitchen door.
+
+"Go in the bedroom," whispered the district attorney with a very pale
+face.  "You can slide out one of the windows, if I have to let him in."
+
+"I'll go in the bedroom," Jack Murray whispered back, with a chilling
+smile, "but I ain't sliding out of any windows--not until you and I
+have come to an agreement about that money.  I'll stick right there in
+the bedroom, Mister Man, right there where I can keep an eye on you.
+Now go see what's wanted."
+
+"You don't think I've stacked the cards on you, do you?" grunted the
+district attorney.
+
+"I don't," replied Jack Murray.  "Not while I've got that note and the
+Donelson letter in my pocket, you bet I don't.  I ain't worryin' a
+mite, not me.  Run along now, there's a good boy.  Papa will be right
+in the next room."
+
+Thus adjured, the district attorney ran along.  Yet not without
+heart-thumping misgivings.  For his was a fearful soul that night.  A
+great deal had happened to upset him.
+
+On his demand that the late caller declare himself, a voice whispered,
+"It's me, Guerilla Melody.  Let me in quick."
+
+"What do you want to see me about?"
+
+"I got a bargain to make with you--a bargain about Bill Wingo."
+
+"Did Bill Wingo send you?"
+
+"You can take it that he did."
+
+After all, why not?  What danger was there in listening to the details
+of Guerilla's bargain?  Perhaps he would learn something.  Quite so.
+The district attorney unlocked the kitchen door and opened it.
+
+A tall man pushed in at once.  The tall man had a sardonic gleam in his
+gray eyes, a ragged brown beard, and a derringer.  The twin-barreled
+firearm was pointing directly at the stomach of the district attorney.
+The district attorney's gun arm hung up and down.  The tall,
+brown-bearded man shot out a quick left hand and deftly twitched away
+the district attorney's weapon.
+
+"You won't need that," he remarked in a hoarse whisper, tucking the
+six-shooter into his waistband.  "Have you any other weapon on your
+person?  Hold still while I look.  No, I guess you haven't.  We will
+now go into your office, Arthur.  I have a li'l something for your
+private ear.  I guess I'll lock the kitchen door, so we won't run any
+risk of being disturbed."
+
+So saying he reached behind him, slammed the door shut, shook it, and
+turned the key in the lock.  The key he dropped into a trouser's pocket.
+
+"What are you waiting for?" he demanded, still in that hoarse whisper.
+
+The district attorney found his tongue--and stood his ground.  "Where's
+Guerilla?"
+
+"I don't know.  He left when you decided to let him in.  You see, I
+thought you'd be more likely to open up if it was some one you knew, so
+I got Guerilla to do the honors.  Just a li'l trick, Arthur, just a
+li'l trick.  You're such a shy bird.  No hard feelings, I hope.  No?
+Yes?  Well?"
+
+"Whonell are you?"
+
+"Me?  Oh, I'm the Fool-Killer.  Let us walk into your office says the
+fly to the spider, you being the spider, of course.  And if the fly has
+to say it again, the spider will have something to think about besides
+the pitfalls of this wicked world.  Thank you.  I thought you would.
+And bear in mind that any wild snatches toward table drawers and so
+forth will be treated as hostile acts."
+
+The district attorney continued to lead the way into the office.  He
+started to sit down in his accustomed chair behind the table.
+
+"Not there--there," said the brown-bearded man, indicating a chair on
+the other side of the table.  "I'd rather sit on the drawer side
+myself.  Not that I expect you to gamble with me, Arthur.  But in my
+business we can't afford to take chances.  Are you ready.  Gentlemen,
+be seated."
+
+He uttered the last three words in his natural voice.  The district
+attorney failed to suppress a bleak smile.
+
+"There's my old Arthur," approved Billy Wingo.  "I knew he'd be glad to
+see me, give him time."
+
+"Yes, indeed," declared the district attorney in a loud voice.  "I'm
+always glad to see Bill Wingo.  Bill Wingo, you bet."
+
+Billy Wingo's gray eyes narrowed.  "Not quite so loud," he reproved the
+district attorney.  "No need to disturb the neighbors."
+
+"Why, no, of course not."  The grimy soul of the district attorney
+capered with joy.  What luck!  Here was his enemy, and there was his
+enemy's enemy in the very next room.  It would make a cat laugh.  It
+would indeed.
+
+"Arthur," said Billy, "I've been hearing bad reports of you.  I
+understand you've decided to have Miss Walton arrested.  Is that
+correct?"
+
+"Correct, sure.  Sorry, but the law's the law, you know."
+
+"You remember what I said I'd do to you."
+
+The district attorney dismissed this with a simple wave of the hand.
+"Oh, that.  A mere bluff."
+
+"It may not be quite as mere as you seem to think.  Let me argue with
+you, Arthur.  Suppose I can prove that Dan Slike was at Miss Walton's
+the night Rafe Tuckleton was murdered.  Would that help any?"
+
+"You can't prove it."
+
+"Oh, yes, I can.  When he was there, he stole her hat, besides some
+other stuff, and inside the sweatband of the hat he stuffed the folded
+upper half of the front page of the Omaha _Bee_.  The other half of the
+newspaper was found at the Walton ranch house by Shotgun Shillman.  He
+has it now, and when Slike was caught, he was wearing Miss Walton's
+hat, and inside the sweatband was this particular folded upper
+half-page I'm telling you about.  This evidence is in the possession of
+Guerilla Melody right now.  When this comes out at the trial, why
+wouldn't that show that Slike was in the vicinity when Tuckleton was
+killed?  And being in the vicinity, why----"
+
+"Impossible!" snapped the district attorney.  "I don't see how it could
+be hung on him."
+
+"Won't you even have his presence there investigated?"  Why, Bill was
+actually pleading.  The district attorney swelled his chest like a
+turkey cock.  He would show Bill that he couldn't be bluffed.  Not he.
+
+"No, I won't have his presence at the Walton ranch investigated.  In
+the first place----"
+
+"In the first place," said Billy, "I know he didn't kill Tuckleton."
+
+"Then why are you trying to prove he did?"
+
+"Just to see what you'd say.  Just to see how dead set against
+investigating Slike you are.  Just to double-cinch the proof against
+the real criminal.  You know that Dan Slike didn't kill Tuckleton, but
+that isn't why you don't dare read his trail too much.  One reason is
+that if you do, he'll be sure to blat right out how you and Felix and
+Sam Larder helped him to escape from the calaboose.  Don't blush,
+Arthur.  I know how modest you are.  So we'll take it I'm right."
+
+"Oh, you're welcome to what you think," said the district attorney.
+"But just for the sake of argument, how do you know that Slike didn't
+kill Tuckleton?"
+
+"Because the initialed butcher knife Slike took with him from Miss
+Walton's was still on him when he was caught."
+
+"There must have been two knives!"
+
+"There were two knives, but only one belonged to Miss Walton.  Rale,
+when you and Felix and Larder caught Red Herring in the draw a few
+minutes before you found the dead body of Tuckleton, why didn't you ask
+more questions about Red being there so handy?"
+
+"Because Red couldn't have had anything to do with it."
+
+"I know he couldn't, but you weren't supposed to know he couldn't.  You
+were supposed to ask questions about any suspicious circumstances, and
+did you?  Not a question did you ask in town as to Red's movements that
+evening.  You simply took his word for it, which wasn't natural--except
+under a certain condition.  A certain condition, you understand, and it
+never occurred to me until I found that second knife.  It would have
+saved a lot of trouble if I had thought of it sooner.  Rale, you didn't
+ask any questions either about Red being in the draw or Slike being at
+the Walton ranch house, and you gave out that Miss Walton herself had
+killed Tuckleton because you had planned ahead that she was the one you
+were going to hang the murder on.  And why did you have it planned
+ahead?  And how did you know it all so certain sure?  How, damn you,
+how?  Because you killed Tuckleton yourself!"
+
+The district attorney sat perfectly still.  His eyes stole toward the
+bedroom door.  What on earth was the matter with Jack Murray?  Why
+didn't he shoot?
+
+"I don't know why you killed him," went on the inexorable voice, "but
+you did.  I've found out that early last spring you went to Nate Samson
+and borrowed his hardware catalogue, Nate being the only storekeeper
+here handling hardware.  Yes, Nate.  I knew you must have gone to Nate,
+because you weren't out of town all winter, that's how.  Nate said that
+you were the only customer to borrow the catalogue.  He said too that
+you told him when you returned it that you hadn't found what you
+wanted.  I sent a telegram to the supply house getting out this
+catalogue, and their answer stated that you had ordered from them back
+in February, a butcher knife, paying for it in stamps.  They gave the
+catalogue number of this butcher knife, and the catalogue number is the
+same number as that of the butcher knife with which Tuckleton was
+killed.  You cut TW on the handle of this knife, rusted it a little and
+ground it some, and then you--well, after you did for Rafe there in the
+draw near her house, you rode back to Golden Bar, gassed a while with
+Felix and Sam, and then you were in such a sweat to get the thing
+settled you couldn't even wait till next day.  You had to ride out to
+question Miss Walton that same night.  Another unnecessary
+circumstance.  Rale, you rat, I've got you right where you can't even
+wriggle."
+
+Billy leaned across the table to emphasize what he was saying, heard a
+slight sound in the bedroom and promptly blew out the lamp.  With a
+heave of one arm he slammed the table over on the district attorney.
+The latter, taking the table to his bosom, went over backward, together
+with the chair he sat in, and wallowed on the floor.
+
+Bang! a six-shooter crashed in the bedroom.  A streak of yellow flame
+cut the darkness.  A bullet snicked into the floor a yard from where
+Billy crouched.  He emptied his derringer at the flash and changed
+position hurriedly.  As he pulled his six-shooter, there was another
+shot from the bedroom, a shot that wrung an apprehensive yelp from the
+district attorney.
+
+"Don't shoot so far to the right!  Y'almost hit me!  He's over to the
+left more.  About where the red chair stands."
+
+
+This would never do.  Never.  First thing Billy knew, he would be shot.
+He stretched forth a hand, and breathed an inward curse.  There was
+certainly a chair not a foot from his face.  Taking care not to make a
+sound he lifted the chair by one leg and lobbed it through the air in
+the general direction of the district attorney.  The results were
+immediate.  The chair arrived, the district attorney squawked, and the
+man in the bedroom fired again, not according to the orders of the
+district attorney, but toward the spot where the chair had fallen.
+Billy pulled trigger at the flash of the other's gun.  Then he began to
+crawl toward the bedroom door.  He was a thorough believer in the
+doctrine of "getting in where it's warm."  He succeeded beyond his
+expectations.  The occupant of the bedroom, who had removed his boots,
+tiptoed around the door jamb and stepped on Billy's hand.
+
+Both guns exploded simultaneously.  What happened next has never been
+clear in Billy's mind.  He only knows that his head rang like a struck
+bell at the shot, and burning powder grains stung his ear and neck.  He
+fired blind.  A voice above his head cried aloud on the name of God, a
+hot and sweaty body collapsed upon him, and he dragged himself out from
+under precisely in time to glimpse the district attorney who, having
+torn open the door into the hall, was silhouetted for an instant
+against the dim radiance emanating from the kitchen.
+
+Billy hunched his right shoulder, took a snapshot, and drove an
+accurate bullet through the right leg of the district attorney.
+
+
+"He's comin' around," said Shotgun Shillman.  "You shot too high, Bill.
+Y'ought to held lower, and you'd drilled his heart or anyway, a lung.
+Now he'll be a invalid nuisance for a while, like Rale."
+
+"If I'd known you'd be so upset about it, I'd obliged you, Shotgun,"
+returned Billy sarcastically.  "As a matter of fact, I wanted both of
+'em alive.  You can't try dead men.
+
+"That's so," assented Shotgun.  "But what a waste of time, when--  Oh,
+all right, all right, Bill.  Have it your own way.  You're the dog with
+the brass collar, even if you do have to sleep in the jail till the
+warrants against you are annulled."
+
+"What's Jack trying to do?" Riley Tyler asked.  "Here, take that out of
+your mouth!"
+
+It was Billy who reached Jack Murray first.  He snatched the wadded
+ball of paper from Jack before he could close his teeth over it.  Jack
+groaned.
+
+"I didn't mean to hurt you," apologized Billy.  "But I had to grab your
+jaw.  You were so quick."
+
+"You didn't hurt me," snarled Jack Murray.  "It was somethin' else."
+
+"What is the thing?" queried Guerilla Melody.
+
+Billy smoothed out the crumpled wad.  It appeared to be a letter and a
+promissory note.
+
+"I forbid you to read that!" cried the district attorney, attempting to
+drag himself across the floor toward Billy.  "That letter is personal
+and my private property!"
+
+"You lie quiet," directed Riley Tyler.  "If you go busting those
+bandages open, I'll bust you.  Lie back, lie down, and take it easy.
+There's nothing for you to get excited over.  Everything's all right.
+Yeah.  That's the boy.  Do as Uncle says."
+
+"What's the writing, Bill?" inquired Shotgun.  "Read her off."
+
+Billy read:
+
+
+JUDGE HIRAM DONELSON,
+  Hillsville.
+
+DEAR SIR:--The man who killed Rafe Tuckleton is the county prosecutor
+Arthur Rale.  Rale owed Tuckleton five thousand dollars on a note and
+couldn't pay it.  Rafe wanted his money.  Early in the evening on the
+day he was killed, Tuckleton came to Rale's house where I was at the
+time, and demanded payment.  He brought the note with him.  Rale
+refused and they quarreled.  Tuckleton had been drinking.  Before
+Tuckleton left, he said he was going to the Walton ranch.  After he
+left, Rale told me he had planned some time ago to kill Tuckleton and
+get the note back at the first opportunity.  This looked like a good
+opportunity.  Rale showed me a butcher knife.  He said it was just like
+one at the Walton ranch.  He had cut Tom Walton's initials on the
+handle so it would be like it.  Rale said he had tried to get the
+original knife, but had not been able to.  This one he had fixed up had
+to do.  He said when his knife was found on Rafe's body, everybody
+would think Hazel Walton had killed him, and nobody would believe her
+if she said the knife wasn't hers.  He had it in for Hazel anyway, he
+said, and by rubbing out Rafe and laying the blame on her, he'd win two
+bets at one throw.  Suppose they found the regular Walton knife, I
+said.  Rale said it wouldn't make any difference.  Anybody might know
+she could easy have two knives.  Well, he offered me two hundred
+dollars cash to kill Rafe with this knife.  I wouldn't do it, so he had
+a couple of drinks and said he'd kill Rafe himself.  He asked me to go
+with him.  I went, and we hung around Walton's till Tuckleton came out,
+and then we followed him, and Rale stopped him down the draw and said,
+I've got the money for you, Rafe.  And Tuckleton got off his horse and
+then Rale stepped up close to him and let him have it.  He stuck the
+knife in him a couple of times after Tuckleton was down and wriggling
+round.  When Tuckleton was dead, Rale took the note out of Tuckleton's
+pocketbook, and I held Rale up and took the note away from him.  I
+thought maybe I might want to show him up some day, or sell it to him
+or something, when he got hold of some money.  I was going to make him
+pay for it, one way or another.
+
+Here is the note he took off Tuckleton.
+
+The district attorney will tell you who I am if I don't, so I haven't
+any objections to signing my name.  I'll be in Old Mexico by the time
+you read this, anyway.  So long, and give Rale what he deserves.
+
+Yours truly,
+  (Signed) JACK MURRAY.
+
+
+Billy handed the letter and the Rale note to Shotgun Shillman, who
+folded both carefully and slipped them into an inner pocket of his
+vest.  "And did you hear Rale say these were his private property?"
+
+Shotgun Shillman nodded happily.  "Even without 'em, there is enough
+evidence to hang him.  But there's nothing like swinging a wide loop if
+you want to rope two at a clatter."
+
+Billy's eyes followed Shotgun's side glance at Jack Murray.  "You
+needn't look at me thataway," snarled Jack.  "I'm no snitch!  I only
+wrote that letter to throw a scare into Rale.  I'd never have sent it
+to the judge a-tall!"
+
+"Maybe you're no snitch," Billy flung back, with deep disfavor, "even
+if it does look like it, but you were skunk enough to let an innocent
+girl be blamed for murder."
+
+"That was different.  She hadn't ought to horned in on what was none of
+her business.  If she hadn't--  Oh, hell, what's the use?  Gimme a
+chew, somebody."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+THE LONG DAY CLOSES
+
+"Well," observed Sam Prescott, "folks will be sending Bill to Congress
+next.  Directly or indirectly, he sure has put a crimp in county
+politics."
+
+"Yes," assented his daughter, "now that the grand jury have indicted
+Craft, Larder, Murray and Rale, there isn't anything left of the
+Crocker County ring but the hole."
+
+"Maybe now Hazel will make it up with him."
+
+"Maybe."  With some indifference.
+
+"Shucks, and he used to like you, Sally Jane."
+
+"But I never liked him--enough."  This with more indifference.
+
+"More fool you.  Bill's going to get there, and you can stick a pin in
+that."
+
+She bounced up from her chair and ruffled her father's grizzled hair.
+"I'd rather stick a pin in you, Samuel.  Where did Hazel go?"
+
+"Room, I guess.  I don't know what's got into the child.  She didn't
+eat enough breakfast for a fly."
+
+"She has been acting pretty meaching the last few days.  I'll go see
+what's the matter."
+
+Sally Jane found Hazel folding up her clothes as fast as she could
+fold.  The bureau drawers were empty.  Everything was on the bed.
+
+"What on earth--" began Sally Jane.
+
+"I'm going home," said Hazel, keeping her face turned away.
+
+The direct Sally Jane cupped a hand under Hazel's chin.  "Let me see
+something.  I _thought_ so.  What's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," declared Hazel, beginning to sniff a little.
+
+"Then why don't you tell him so?"
+
+"_Him_?  Him?"
+
+"Yes, him.  Bill.  Mr. William H. Wingo.  The sheriff of Crocker
+County.  That's what _I'd_ do if _I_ loved him."
+
+"I don't love him," snapped Hazel, the shine in her black eyes giving
+the lie to her words.
+
+"You blessed child," said Sally Jane, and threw her arms around Hazel
+and drew her to her breast.  "You blessed child.  I don't know what
+ever came between you and Bill, but something did, and if you've got an
+atom of sense in your head, you'll move heaven and earth to make it up
+with him."
+
+"He doesn't love me any more," declared Hazel, her emotion getting the
+better of her.
+
+"Do you love him?" probed the older girls.
+
+A pronounced sniffle.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"I always have," came the dragging confession.
+
+"Then, for heaven's sake, tell him so!  I'll bet he loves you fast
+enough!  Land alive, if you've got Love in your grasp, don't turn it
+down!  Love is the greatest thing in the world, and if you throw it
+away, you'll never have any luck the rest of your life.  And you won't
+deserve any either."
+
+Hazel drew out a damp ball of a handkerchief and blew her nose
+vigorously.  "It's no use," she told her friend with a catch in her
+voice.  "I couldn't tell him.  I just couldn't."
+
+Sally Jane flung up her hands.  "You're a coward, that's what you are.
+A moral coward.  If I loved a man, which I don't, I'd tell him so, that
+is, providing he didn't tell me first," she added thoughtfully.
+
+Hazel stooped to pick up a fallen chemise.  "You're--you're different,
+Sally Jane.  Besides, he doesn't love me any more.  So it wouldn't do
+any good."
+
+"Oh, no, of course not," Sally Jane waxed sarcastic.  "And they say all
+mules are quadrupeds!  Look here, Hazel, if it hadn't been for him,
+you'd be in a fine fix right now.  Why, that Rale man--  Oh, you make
+me so mad I could shake you!  I've told you more'n once how much you
+owe Bill.  Look how he fought for you.  Look--  Oh, Lord!  Haven't you
+got any gratitude at all?"
+
+"Plenty," Hazel replied over her shoulder.  "But my gratitude can't
+make him love me."
+
+Sally Jane put her hand on her friend's shoulders and turned her
+around.  "I tell you, you're making a mistake.  I tell you he does love
+you.  You remember that last winter he came here several times, and he
+certainly didn't come to see me or Dad.  And you weren't overly
+cordial, you know, Hazel.  You didn't fall on his neck exactly."
+
+"I'm not going to throw myself at any man's head!"
+
+"Oh, don't be so high-strung!  You're too proud for any human use!  And
+Bill's just like you, the stiff-necked lollop!"
+
+"He is not!" Hazel cried, with a decided flash of temper.  "He's not
+stiff-necked!  He's not a lollop!  Oh, Sally dear, don't spoil
+everything," she begged.  "You've been so good to me."
+
+Sally Jane immediately changed her tune.  "But why leave here?  Why go
+home?"
+
+"Because I've imposed on you long enough.  I'll be safe there--now."
+
+Sally Jane looked long into the eyes of Hazel Walton.  "All right," she
+said shortly.  "I'll drive you over myself."
+
+
+Billy Wingo stretched out his long legs and absent-mindedly hacked the
+edge of his desk with a pocket knife.  "I told her she'd have to come
+to me and put her arms around my neck and tell me I was right and she
+was wrong, and now I've got to stick to it, damitall!  Bill, you idiot,
+you always did let your tongue run away with you.  Always.  And now she
+won't make it up.  Three days now, since I got my job back, and not a
+word.  Not a word.  Well, one thing is certain sure, I ain't going to
+run after her.  I ain't, not by a jugful."
+
+"His lips are moving, but he ain't sayin' anything," announced Riley
+Tyler in a loud, cheerful tone.  "Do you think he's going crazy,
+Shotgun, or is it only the beginnings of droolin' old age?"
+
+"I dunno," said Shotgun.  "Better watch him.  If he begins to gibber
+and pull out his hair, he's looney and we'll have to tie him down, I
+expect.  Is your rope strong, Riley?"
+
+"You fellers," Billy remarked with dignity, "make me more tired than a
+week's work."
+
+So saying, he arose and went to the corner where his saddle and bridle
+lay.  Three minutes later he rode out of Golden Bar.
+
+"He's taken the Hillsville trail," said Riley Tyler, his nose flattened
+against the window pane.  "Where do you suppose he's going?"
+
+"Going to spend some of the reward money, I expect.  Joke on you,
+Riley, having to dig up a thousand plunks you haven't got."
+
+"I'd rather owe it to him than cheat him out of it," grinned Riley, who
+had long since spent the money obtained from Jack Murray.  "Alla same,
+I'll pay him when I get it.  You lend me a hundred, Shotgun."
+
+"Go 'way from me!" snarled Shotgun, flapping both hands at him.  "If
+you're looking for easy money, sit into a game of draw, or rob a bank
+or somethin'.  You won't get a single wheel from me.  Nawsir!"
+
+Billy, riding the Hillsville road, came at last to the mouth of the
+draw that led to Walton's.  He stopped his horse and looked along the
+draw.  Then he looked along the road.
+
+"Of course, I was going to Hillsville," he lied rapidly to himself,
+"but I don't suppose it would hurt to sort of ride past her house.
+Seems to me I heard somethin' about her leaving Prescott's.  It may not
+be true, and then again--  Let's go, feller."
+
+Feller headed obediently into the draw.
+
+Hazel Walton, sewing in the front room, saw a rider coming up the draw.
+"That looks like Bill's horse," she muttered.  "And Bill's hat.  It--it
+is Bill."
+
+Her heart began to pound.  Her throat constricted.  There was something
+the matter with her knees.  She dropped the sewing in her lap and
+clasped her hands together.  She breathed in little gasps.
+
+Billy Wingo came on.  He came quite close--within twenty yards and
+stopped his horse and rested his hands on the saddle horn, and looked
+at the house.  Just looked.
+
+Although she knew he could not see her through the scrim curtains, she
+drew her chair a little away and to one side.
+
+He pushed back his hat with the old familiar gesture.  His face was
+expressionless.  There were hollows under his eyes.  He looked thin.
+Poor boy.  He had had an awfully hard time.  And he had fought for her.
+He had risked his life for her.  Certainly she owed him a good
+deal,--everything, in fact.  And here she couldn't even find sufficient
+courage to thank him.  As though thanks, empty thanks, could possibly
+be adequate.  Sally Jane was right.  She was a coward.  And proud.
+Especially proud.  She shivered.
+
+Suddenly Billy pulled his hat forward and picked up his reins.  She saw
+his heel move.  The horse began to turn.  It was then that something
+snapped in Hazel's breast.  Strength came to her shaking knees.  She
+sprang to her feet, ran to the door, flung it open and dashed out.
+Billy's startled horse shied away.  Billy dragged him back with a jerk.
+
+Six feet from the horse Hazel stopped and stood very straight, her arms
+stiff at her sides.  Her knees began to shake again.  She knew that her
+voice would tremble.  It did.  "Bill, I--I've changed my mind.  I was
+wrong.  I--you--you did the right thing to see it through.  If--if you
+hadn't, I don't know what would have become of me."
+
+Then, of a sudden, he was off his horse, his arms were around her, and
+she knew that all her troubles were over.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Other Books by William Patterson White
+
+
+THE OWNER OF THE LAZY "D"
+
+Frontispiece.  12mo.  324 pages.
+
+"The most stirring Wild West story that has been published for many a
+year."--_The Philadelphia Ledger_.
+
+"William Patterson White ... knows how to make an interesting
+tale."--_The Oakland Tribune_.
+
+"All kinds of excitement are assured."--_The Cincinnati Times-Star_.
+
+"A most thrilling story."--_The San Francisco Chronicle_.
+
+
+LYNCH LAWYERS
+
+Frontispiece.  12mo.  378 pages.
+
+"As in his previous novel, 'The Owner of the Lazy D,' Mr. White shows
+himself to be a master in the field of the Western adventure
+story."--_The New York Tribune_.
+
+"A new and thrilling story of Western life."--_The Rochester Herald_.
+
+"The author knows his people and his localities, and his conception
+rings true to life."--_The Pittsburgh Sun_.
+
+"Mr. White shows himself a master of the art of dialogue in the Western
+vernacular."--_The Boston Transcript_.
+
+
+LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS
+
+34 BEACON STREET BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Rider of Golden Bar, by William Patterson White
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