"Clumsy!" Marie hissed as he arose hurriedly. "All thumbs and left feet! Why don't you make a li'l more noise? I'll bet you could if you tried."
"Say," Racey snapped, temperishly, for a sharp corner of the stove door had totally obscured his sense of proportion, "say, I didn't ask to come over here with you! What do you want, anyway?"
"Want you to shut up and pay attention to me!" she flung back. "I thought you was gonna leave town. Why ain't you?"
"Changed my mind," was his answer.
"Why can't you do what you said you'd do?" She was quite vehement about it.
"I got a right to change my mind, ain't I?"
"Go, dammit! Why can't you go? You gave them a chance to even up when you ran that blazer on Doc Coffin an' Honey Hoke there in the Starlight. Let it go at that. Whadda you want to hang round here for? Don't you know that every hour you stay here makes it more dangerous for you?… Oh, you can laugh! That's all you do when a feller does her level best to see you don't come to any harm. Gawd! I could shake you for a fool!"
"Was that what you pulled me alla way over here to tell me?" he inquired, somewhat miffed at her acerbity.
"I pulled you across the street because if I'd left you where I found you you wouldn't 'a' lived a minute." The starlight was bright enough to reveal to him the set and earnest tenseness of her features.
"I wouldn't 'a' lived a minute, huh?" was his comment. "I didn't see anybody round there fit and able to put in a period."
"It wasn't anybody you couldsee. Don't you remember what I said about a knife in the night, or a shot in the dark? Man, do you have to be killed before you're convinced?"
"Well—uh—I—"
"Whadda you guess I was standin' alongside of you for while you was talkin' to that other feller, huh? Tryin' to listen to what you was sayin'? Think so, huh?"
"You shore had yore nerve," he said, admiringly—and helplessly.
"Nerve nothin'!" she denied. "He wouldn't shoot through me. I know that well enough."
"Why wouldn't he? And how do you know?"
"Because, and I do. That's enough."
"Which particularoneis he?"
"I ain't sayin'."
"Do you like him as much as that?" Shrewdly.
"Not the way you mean." Dispassionately.
"Then who is he?"
"I ain't sayin', I tell you!"
"You snitched on Nebraska." Persuasively.
"This feller's different."
"How different?"
"None of yore business. Lookit, I'm doin' my best for you, but I won'thave the luck every time that I had to-night—nor you won't, neither.Gawd! if I hadn't just happened to strike for a night off this evenin'I dunno where you'd be!"
"Say, I thought you didn't dare let them see you have anythin' to do with me?"
"I didn't, and I don't. But I had to. I couldn't set by an' let you be plugged, could I? Hardly."
"But—"
"'Tsall right, 'tsall right. Don't you worry any about me. I got a ace in the hole if the weather gets wet. But I wanna tell you this: If yo're bound to go on playin' the fool, keep a-movin' and walk round a lighted window like it's a swamp."
She dodged past him and was gone. He made no move to follow. He pushed back his hat and scratched his head.
"Helluva town this is," he muttered. "Can't stand still any more without having some sport draw a fine sight where you'll feel it most."
After she left Racey Dawson Marie diagonalled across Main Street, passed between the dance hall and Dolan's warehouse, and made her way to the most outlying of the half-dozen two-room shacks scattered at the back of the dance hall. She entered the shack, felt for the matches in the tin tobacco-box nailed against the wall, and struck one to light the lamp. Like the provident miss she was she turned the wick down after lighting in order that the chimney might heat slowly.
It may have been the dimness of the lighted lamp. It may have been that she was not as observing as usual. But certainly she had no inkling of another's presence in the same room with her till she had slipped out of her waist. Then a man in the corner of the room swore harshly.
"—— yore soul to ——!" were his remarks in part. "What did you horn in for to-night?"
Racey Dawson did not remain long idle after Marie's departure. The girl had barely entered the narrow passage between the warehouse and the dance hall before he was crossing the street at a point beyond the jail, where there were no shafts of light from open windows and doorways to betray him.
Racey Dawson circled the sheriff's house and tippytoed past the outermost of the six two-room shacks at the rear of the dance hall. His objective was the Starlight Saloon, his purpose to discover the bushwhacker who had tried to shoot him.
As he passed the outermost shack a light flashed up within it. He saw Marie's head and shoulder silhouetted against the curtain. He recognized her immediately by the heavy mass of her hair. No other woman in Farewell possessed such a mop.
Racey resolved to speak with Marie again. His hand was lifted in readiness to knock when Marie's visitor spoke. Racey's hand promptly dropped at his side. He had recognized the voice. It was that of Bull, the Starlight bartender.
The shack door was fairly well constructed. At least there were no cracks in it. But a log wall has oftentimes an open chink. This wall had one between the third and fourth tiers of logs not more than a yard from the door. Racey crouched till his eyes were on a level with the narrow crack.
He could not see Bull. But he could see Marie. Apparently she was not according her visitor the slightest attention. She daintily and unhurriedly hung her waist over the back of a chair. Then she turned up the lamp, removed the pins from her abundant hair, shook it down, and began to brush it calmly and carefully.
"—— you!" snarled Bull, advancing to the table where he was within range of Racey's eyesight. "I spoke to you! What didja do it for?"
She raised her head and looked at him, the brush poised in one hand. "—— you, Bull," she drawled at him. "I'm tellin' you, because I felt like it."
Bull shot forth a hand and grabbed her right wrist. Marie, as a whole, did not move. But her left hand dropped languidly and nestled in the overhang of her bodice.
"Bull," she said, softly, staring straight into the evil eyes glowering upon her. "Bull, bad as you are, you ain't never laid a hand on me yet. You ain't gonna begin now, are you?"
Bull's great fingers began to tighten on her wrist, slowly, inexorably.
"I'm sorry, Bull," she resumed, when he made no reply, "but I got a derringer pointin' straight at yore stomach. Now you ain't gonna lemme make a mess on my clean carpet, are you?"
Bull released her wrist as though it burnt him.
"You devil!" he exclaimed. "I believe you'd do it."
"Shore I would," she affirmed, serenely, dragging a small and ugly derringer from its place of concealment and balancing it on a pink palm. "I'll drill you in one blessed minute if you don't keep yore paws to home. They's some things, Bull, you can't do to me. An' one of them things is hurting me. I don't believe in corporal punishment, Bull."
"I wanna know what you horned in for," he demanded, pounding the table till the lamp danced again.
"If you only knowed what a silly fool you looked," she commented, "you'd sit down and take it easy…. That's right, tell the neighbours, do! Squawk out good and loud how yore bushwhackin' li'l killing turned out a misdeal. Shore, I'd do that, if I was you. Whadda you guess they pay Jake Rule an' Kansas Casey for, huh?"
"What did you get in front of him for?" Bull persisted in a lower tone. "I pretty near had him, but you—Gawd, I could wring yore neck!"
"But you won't," she reminded him, sweetly. "Lookit here, Bull, if you hadn't locked the door leading up the stairs to the Starlight's loft, I'd 'a' come after you there and done my persuadin' of you right in the loft. As it was when I heard what you were up to—nemmine how I heard. I heard, that's enough—I had to go out in the street and do what I could there. I don't believe the feller liked it much, neither."
"But what's he to you? You ain't soft on him, are you, account of what he done for that yellow mutt of yores?"
"I owe him something," she evaded. "That dog—I like that dog. And then that man treats me like a lady. It ain't every man treats me like a lady."
"I should hope not," guffawed the amiable Bull.
"Now that's a right funny joke," she assured him. "It almost makes me laugh. Still, alla same, I got feelin's. I'm a human being. And you'll notice molasses catches a heap more flies than vinegar does. I like that Dawson man, and I ain't gonna see him hurt."
"Did you tell him it was me up there with a rifle?" There was a hint of unease in the blustery tone.
"I didn't tell him nothin'," said Marie. "I ain't no snitch."
"Ah-h, youaresoft on him," Bull sneered in disgust.
"What if I am?" she flared. "What business is it of yores?"
"What'll Nebraska say?" he proffered.
"Nebraska hell!" she sneered. "Nebraska and me are through!"
"I know you've split, but that ain't saying Nebraska will let you go with another gent."
"I'll go with anybody I please, and neither Nebraska nor you nore any other damn man is gonna stop me. If you think different,tryit, justtryit! Thassall I ask.Thisfor you and Nebraska!" With which she snapped her fingers under his nose once, twice, and again.
"I wish Pap was still alive. He could always handle you. Remember the time you sassed him there in …" Here Marie accidentally dropped her brush into an empty pail, and the clatter drowned out the name of the town so far as Racey was concerned. But Marie caught the name, for she straightened with a start and stared at Bull. "Yeah," continued Bull, "you remember it, huh? I guess you do. That was where Pap slapped yore chops and throwed you down the stairs. Like to broke yore neck that time. I wish you had."
"'Pap,'" she repeated. "'Pap,' and that town. What made you think of them two names together?"
"Because that was the town where he throwed you down the stairs," Bull told her matter-of-factly.
"It was the town where we met up with Bill Smith."
"What about it?"
"Nothing—only Bill Smith is here in town."
"In Farewell?"
"In Farewell."
"Why ain't I seen him if he's in Farewell?"
"Because he's shaved off all of that beard and part of his eyebrows—they used to meet plumb in the middle, remember—till a body would hardly know him. I didn't. I knowed they was somethin' familiar about him, but I couldn't tell what till you mentioned Pap and the town together. Then I knowed. Yeah, Bull, this gent's the same Bill Smith Pap picked up on the trail. He's a respectable member of society now, I guess. Calls himself Jack Harpe and spends most of his time runnin' round Lanpher."
"Then he ain't too respectable, the lousy pup. Calls himself Jack Harpe, huh? Shore, he come in the Starlight with Lanpher and gimme the eye without a quiver. Didn't know me, he didn't! And I ain't done nothin' tomylooks to change 'em."
"Huh, y' oughta seen the way he looked me up and down when he passed us on the Marysville trail. You'd 'a' thought he just seen me. Oh, he's got his nerve."
"Who isus?" Suspiciously.
"What it won't do you no good to know. I guess I can go riding with a friend if I like. You seem to keep forgettin' you ain't got any ropes on me—nary a rope. Stop botherin' yore fool head about me and my doings, and think of something worth while—for instance, Jack Harpe."
"Then what?"
"No wonder they call you Bull. That's all you are, beef to the heels and no more sense than a calf. Listen, Jack Harpe's respectable, ain't he? Or he aims to be, which is the same thing. Anyway, he's swelling round here like a poisoned pup and don't know us a-tall. Takin' him down a couple o' pegs wouldn't hurt him. He always was too tall. I'll bet if he was come at right he'd pay cash down on the hoof for us, me and you both, to keep our heads shut about what we know."
"But we was in that, too."
"But we didn't do what he done," pointed out Marie. "And you know yoreself the company don't drop the case like a ordinary sheriff does. No, I expect Jack Harpe would be worried some if he knowed we'd recognized him…. Aw, what are you scared of? Pap's dead, ain't he? How can Harpe hurt us? He never knowed how intimate we knowed Pap while he was stayin' at our house. He just thought Pap was a friend. He never knowed we got our share of the money. Nawsir, he can't hook us up with that killin' nohow, but we can hook him. Brace up to him, Bull. Maybe you can work him for a stake. They ain't no danger, I tell you."
"By Gawd, I'd like to!" declared Bull and swore a string of oaths.
"Then go ahead," urged Marie. "And don't forget I want in on the stake."
"Ah-h, I do all the work and then have to whack up with you, huh? I will not. What I get I keep."
"I remember Jack Harpe used to say that. He shore hated himself, the poor feller. Alla same, I guess maybe you'll go even Steven with me, Bull. Who is it recognized him first? Who give you the idea? Who did, huh? Who did? Whatever you get you'll divide with me or I'll know the reason why. And if you don't think I'm a wildcat get me roused, man, get me roused."
Bull stood back and scratched a tousled head. "I—well—" he began and paused. Obviously the prospect did not wholly please him.
"Go to Jack Harpe easy like," suggested the girl. "Don't tell him too much, just enough to show yo're meanin' what you say. I'd do it myself only he'd laugh at me. He's one of those gents a woman has to shoot before they'll believe she's in earnest. He ain't the only one, they's another just like him in town…. Nemmine who. You go to Jack Harpe. He'll listen to a man. G'on! They's money in it, if you work it right. You want money, don't you? You need three hundred to pay what you owe Piggy Wadsworth, don't you? Yah, you big hunk, you been runnin' to me for money long enough! Here's a chance to make some of yore own. Fly at it."
When Bull had picked up a rifle standing in a corner and departed, slamming the door behind him, Marie sat down on the lid of a mottled zinc trunk and wiped her hot face on a petticoat that hung on the wall conveniently to hand. "Warm work, warm work!" she muttered, wearily. "I dunno when I seen Bull so mad. I shore thought one time there I wasn't gonna get rid of him without a fight." She rolled her well-shaped ankles and flipped the gilt tassels on her shoe tops to and fro (yes, indeed, some women wore tasseled footgear in those days). "Men," she went on, staring down at the shiny tassels, "men are shore hell."
Bull had halted a moment outside the door of the shack to roll a cigarette. Before he pulled out his tobacco bag he leaned the rifle against the doorjamb.
His eyes, unaccustomed to the darkness, did not see the crouchingRacey Dawson within arm's-length.
Both of Bull's hands were cupped round the lighted match. He lifted it to the end of the cigarette. He sucked in his breath and—a voice whispered: "Drop that match an' grab yore ears."
Bull did not hesitate to obey, for the broad, cold blade of a bowie rested lightly against the back of his neck. Bull swayed a little where he stood.
"I got yore rifle," resumed the whisperer. "Walk away now. Yo're headin' about right. Don't make too much noise."
Bull did not make too much noise. In fact, he made hardly any. It is safe to say that he never progressed more quietly in his life. The man with the bowie steered him to a safe haven behind a fat white boulder half buried in sumac.
"Si'down," requested the captor in a conversational tone. "We can be right comfortable here."
"Dawson!" breathed the captive.
"Took you a long time to find it out," said Racey Dawson. "Si'down, I said," he added, sharply.
Bull obeyed, his back against the rock, and was careful not to lower his hands. Racey hunkered down and sat on a spurless heel. The rifle was under his knee. He had exchanged the bowie for a sixshooter. The firearm was trained in the general direction of Bull's stomach.
Racey smiled widely. He felt very chipper and pleased with himself. He was managing the affair well, he thought.
"You show up right plain against that white rock," he remarked. "If yo're figuring to gamble with me, think of that."
"Whatcha want?" demanded Bull, sullenly.
"Lots of things," replied Racey, shifting a foot an inch to the left. "I'm the most wantin' feller you ever saw. Just now this minute I want you to tell me where it was you met up with Bill Smith and what it was he did so bad that you and Marie think you've got a hold on him."
"Youwaslistenin' quite a while," muttered Bull.
"Quite a while," admitted Racey Dawson. "Quite a while."
"But you didn't listen quite hard enough," suggested Bull.
"No," assented Racey, "I didn't. I'm expecting you to sort of fill in the gaps."
Bull shook a decided head. "No," he denied. "No, you got another guess comin'. I won't do nothin' like that a-tall."
"And why not?"
"Because I won't."
"'Won't' got his neck broke one day just because he wouldn't."
"Yeah, I guess so," sneered Bull.
"You must forget I heard all about how you tried to bushwhack me from the second floor of the Starlight," Racey put in, gently.
"Aw, that's a damn lie," bluffed Bull. "A damn lie. All a mistake. You heard wrong."
Racey shook a disapproving head. "When it's after the draw," he said, "and you ain't got a thing in yore hand, and the other gents have everything and know they have everything to yore nothing, she's poor poker to make a bluff. Whatsa use, sport, whatsa use?"
"I dunno what yo're talkin' about," persisted Bull.
"Aw right, let it go at that. Who put you up to bushwhack me?"
"Nun-nobody," hesitated Bull.
"Yore own idea, huh?"
Bull spat disgustedly on the grass. He had seen the trap after it had been sprung.
"You shore can't play poker," smiled Racey, his eyes shining with pleasure under the wide brim of his hat. "I—The starlight's pretty bright remember."
Bull's sudden movement came to naught. He settled back, his eyes furtively busy.
"Still, alla same," pursued Racey, "I wonder was it all yore own idea."
"Whatell didja kick me for?" snarled Bull.
"'Kick you for?'" Racey repeated, stupidly.
"Yeah, kick me," said Bull. "No damn man can kick me and me not take notice."
"Dunno as I blame you. Dunno as I do. If any damn man kicks you, Bull, you got a right to drill him every time. And you think I kicked you?"
"I know you did."
"You know I did, huh? Did you see me do it?"
"You kicked me after you'd knocked me silly with that bottle. Kicked me when I was down and couldn't help myself."
"So I did all that to you after you were down, huh? Who told you?"
"Nemmine who told me. You done it, that's enough."
"No, it ain't enough. It ain't enough by a long mile. I want to know who told you?"
"I ain't sayin'." Sullenly.
"Come to think, she's hardly necessary. Doc Coffin and Honey Hoke were the only two gents in the Starlight at the time. It was either one or both of 'em told you. Maybe I'll get a chance to ask 'em about it later. Now I dunno whether you'll believe it or not but to tell the truth and be plain with you, Bull, I didn't kick you."
"I don't believe you." But Bull's tone was not confident.
"I wouldn't expect you to—under the circumstances. What I'm tellin' you is true alla same. Lookit, you fool, is it likely after takin' the trouble to knock you down, I'd kick you besides? Do I look like a sport who'd do a thing like that? Think it over."
Bull was silent. But Racey believed that he had planted the seed of doubt in his mind.
"And another thing," resumed Racey, "do I look like a sport who'd let another jigger lay for him promiscuous? You go slow, Bull. I'm good-natured, a heap good-natured. But don't lemme catch you bushwhacking me again."
"I won't," said Bull with a flash of humour.
"Be dead shore of it," cautioned Racey. "If I ever get to even thinking that yo're laying for me, Bull, I'm liable to come a-askin' questions you can't answer. Yo're a bright young man, Bull, but you want to be careful how you strain yore intellect. You might need it some day. And if you want to keep on being mother's li'l helper, be good, thassall, be good."
"Yo're worse'n a helldodger," affirmed Bull.
"You got me sized up right. I'm worse than a helldodger, a whole lot worse." The words were playful, but the tone was sardonic.
Bull grunted.
"You tell me, will you, just where it was you met this Bill Smith-JackHarpe feller, and what it was he did? There's a company in it, too.What company is it—the Northern Pacific?"
"Ah-h, you got a gall, you have," sneered Bull, savagely. "Think you'll make something out of Harpe yore own self, huh?"
"That is my idea," admitted Racey.
"Well, you got a gall, thassall I gotta say."
"You forget you've got a gall, too, when you try to bushwhack me,"Racey reminded him. "I'm trying to play even for that."
"Try away."
"You seem to make it hard for me kind of," grinned Racey.
"Of course I'd enjoy makin' it easy for you all I could," observedBull with sarcasm.
"I dunno as I'd go so far as to saythat," was the Dawson comment."But maybe it's possible to persuade you to tell me what you know."
"It ain't."
"Suppose I decided to leave you here."
"You won't." Confidently.
"Why not?"
"Because you ain't shootin' a unarmed man."
"Yet you think I'm the boy to kick one that's down."
"Sometimes I change my mind," said Bull with a harsh laugh.
"You laugh as loud as that again," said Racey, irritably, "and you'll change somethin' besides yore mind. Don't be too trusting a jake, Bull, not too trusting. I might surprise you yet. About that information now—I want it."
"If anybody's gonna make money out of Harpe I am." Thus Bull, stubbornly.
"I ain't aimin' to makemoneyout of Harpe. What I'm figuring to make out of him is somethin' else again."
"Whatsa use of lying thataway? Don't—"
"That'll be about all," interrupted Racey. "You've called me a liar enough for one night. I ain't gotallkinds of patience. You going to tell me what I want to know?"
"No, I ain't."
"Yo're mistaken. You'll tell me, or you'll leave town."
"Leave town!"
"Yep, leave town, go away from here, far, far away. So far away that you won't be able to blackmail Jack Harpe. See? Yore knowledge won't be worth a whoop to you then. An' I'll find out what I want to know from Marie."
"She'll never tell."
"Oh, I guess she will," said Racey, but he knew in his heart that worming information out of Marie would not be easy. Saving his life was one thing, but giving up information with a money value would be quite another. The amiable Marie was certainly not working for her health.
"Yo're welcome to what you can get out of her," said Bull.
"Then you'll be starting to-night. From here we'll go get yore hoss and see you safely on yore way."
"What'll you gimme to tell you?" inquired the desperate Bull.
"Nothin'—not a thin dime, feller. C'mon, let's go."
"Nun-no, not yet. I—say, suppose you lemme talk to Jack Harpe first myself. Just you lemme get my share out of him, and I'll tell you all you wanna know."
"When you going to him?" Racey demanded, suspiciously.
"To-night if I can find him. It ain't so late. But to-morrow, anyway."
"I'll give you till sundown to-morrow night. If you ain't ready to tell me then you'll have to drift."
"Maybe, maybe not," sneered Bull.
"I've said it," Racey said, shortly, rising to his feet.
"There's no ropes on you. Skip…. Nemmine yore Winchester. She's all right where she is. So long, Bull, so long."
The sun, lifting over the rim of the world, sprayed its rays through the window and splashed with gold the face of Racey Dawson. He awoke, and much to the profane disgust of Swing Tunstall, shook that worthy awake immediately.
"Aw, lemme sleep, will you?" begged Swing, with suspicious meekness, reaching surreptitiously for a boot. "You lemme alone, that's a good feller."
"Get up," commanded Racey. "Get up, it's the early worm catches the most fish. Rise and shine, Swing. Never let the sun catch you snorin'. Besides, I can't sleep any more myself. I—"
Wham! Swing's flung boot shaved Racey's surprised ear and smashed against the partition.
"You'll wake up that Starlight proprietor," Racey said, calmly, as he picked up the boot and dropped it out of the window. "Good dog," he continued, presumably addressing a canine friend without, "leave Swing's nice new boot alone, will you? Don't go gnawin' at it thataway. It ain't a bone."
Swing, pulling on his pants, left the room, hopping physically and mentally. Racey rested both elbows on the sill and waited happily for his comrade to appear beneath him.
"Shucks," he said in a tone of great surprise when Swing shot round the corner of the hotel, "I shore thought there was a dog there a-teasin' that boot. I could have took my Bible oath there was a great, big, black, curly-haired feller with lots of teeth down there. I saw him, Swing. Shore thought I did. Must 'a' been mistaken. And you went and believed me, and got splinters in yore feet because you were in such a hurry. Never mind, Swing, here's the other one."
He jerked the boot in question at his friend's head, and sat down on his cot to complete his own dressing.
Came then the sound of a prodigious yawn from the room next door occupied by Jack Harpe. A cot creaked. A boot was scraped along the floor.
"Shore must be a sound sleeper," said Racey Dawson to himself, "if he really did just wake up."
He buckled on his gunbelt, set his hat a-tilt on one ear, and went down to wash his face and hands in the common basin on the wash-bench outside the kitchen door.
But Swing Tunstall was before him, and was disposed to make an issue of the dropped boots. Only by his superior agility was Racey enabled to dodge all save a few drops of a full bucket of water.
"Djever get left! Djever get left!" singsonged Racey from the corner of the building, and set the thumb of one hand to his nose and twiddled opprobrious fingers at his comrade. "You wanna be a li'l bit quicker when you go to souse me, Swing. Yo're too slow, a lot too slow. Yep. Now I wouldn't go for to fling that pail at me, Swing. You might bust it, and yore carelessness with crockery thataway has already cost you ten dollars and six bits."
This was too much for the ruffled Swing. Waving the pail he pursued his tormentor round the hotel and into the front doorway. Racey fled up the stairs. At the stair foot Swing gave over the chase and returned to the washbench to resume his face-washing. Racey went on into their room. There was in it several articles belonging to Swing that he intended to throw out of the window at once.
But when he had entered the room and the door was closed behind him he did not touch any of Swing's belongings. Instead he remained standing in the middle of the room looking thoughtfully at the floor. What had given him pause was the fact that he had found the door ajar. And he knew with absolute certainty that he had closed the door tightly before he went downstairs.
It is the vagrant straw that shows the wind's direction, and since the attempt to bushwhack him Racey was not overlooking any straws. The door had been ajar. Why?
There was no closet, and from where he stood he could see under both cots. No one lay concealed in the room. The bedclothes on Swing's cot had not been touched. At least they were in precisely the position in which they had been landed when thrown back by Swing's careless hand. Racey did not believe that his own had been touched, either. But the saddlebags andcantenaslying on the floor at the head of his cot had certainly been moved. He recalled distinctly having, the previous evening, piled thecantenason top of the saddlebags. And now the saddlebags were on top of thecantenas.
He glanced at Swing's warbags. They had not been moved. He wondered if Jack Harpe and the Starlight's owner were still in their rooms. He listened intently. Hearing no sound he went out into the hall, and knocked gently on Jack Harpe's door and called him softly by name. Getting no reply, he lifted the latch and walked in. There were Jack Harpe's saddlebags,cantenas, and rifle in a corner. A coat lay on the tumbled blankets of the cot. Otherwise the room was empty.
Racey went out, being careful to close the door tightly, and went to the room of the Starlight's owner. This room, too, was empty. Racey returned to his own room, tossed hiscantenasand saddlebags on the cot, and began feverishly to paw through their contents.
Nothing had been subtracted from or added to the heterogeneous collection of articles in thecantenas. The contents of the off-side saddlebag were in their familiar disorder. There was nothing in or about the off-side saddlebag to arouse suspicion. Not a thing.
He unbuckled the flap of the near-side saddlebag, and flipped it back. Somebody had been at this saddlebag. He was sure of it. His extra shirt, instead of being wadded into the fore-end of the saddlebag on top of a pair of socks, had been stuffed into the hinder end on top of a pair of underdrawers. Which underdrawers should by rights have been at the bottom of the leather hold-all.
But there was something else at the bottom of the saddlebag. It was something long and hard and wrapped in the buttonless undershirt despised and rejected by Swing.
Racey unrolled the undershirt. His eyes stared in genuine horror at what the unrolling revealed. It was the commonest of butcher knives that someone's busy hand had wrapped in the undershirt. But what was not nearly so common was that the broad, thin blade was stained with blood. From point to haft the steel was as red as if it had been dipped in a pail of paint. Indeed, being dry, it looked not unlike paint. But Racey knew that it was not paint.
"It was dry before it was wrapped in that undershirt," he said to himself, testing the blood on the blade with a speculative fingernail. "There ain't a mark on the undershirt. Gawd! Here it is again—the earmark of a crime, and no crime—yet. This is getting monotonous."
He laid down the knife, settled his hat, and methodically searched Swing Tunstall's warbags. It turned out a needless precaution. He had felt that it would be. But he could not afford to take any risks. Having found nothing in Swing's warbags save his friend's personal belongings, Racey slid the knife up his sleeve and went downstairs to breakfast. On the way he stopped a moment at a fortuitous knothole in the board wall. When he passed on his way the knife was no longer with him.
Jack Harpe was still eating when Racey eased himself into the chair at Swing's right hand. Jack Harpe nodded to Racey and went serenely on with his meal. Racey seized knife and fork, squared his elbows, and began to saw at his steak. And as he chewed and swallowed and sloshed the coffee round in his cup in order to get the full benefit of the sugar he wondered whether it was Jack Harpe or Bull to whom he was indebted for the butcher knife. It was one of the two, he thought. Who else could it be?
He believed it would be wise to spend most of his spare time in his room. At least until he knew the inwardness of the butcher-knife incident. It was possible that the man who had secreted the knife would return. Racey might well be in line for other even more delicate attentions.
Before going up to his room Racey went to the corral. He had left his saddle-blanket out all night, he mentioned to Swing in the hearing of Jack Harpe. He was gone five minutes. When he returned, strangely enough minus the saddle-blanket, he was in time to see Piney Jackson dart round the corner of the blacksmith shop, cup his hand at his mouth, and raise a stentorian bellow for Jake Rule.
Piney did not wait to see whether the sheriff replied to his call. Instead he beckoned violently to the handful of men grouped on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.
"C'mon over!" he bawled. "Look what I found here this morning."
Jack Harpe and the owner of the Starlight being among those present and responding to the invitation, Racey Dawson took a chance and went with the rest.
"Look at that," said Piney Jackson, indicating a humped-up individual sitting behind the woodpile.
Racey and the other spectators went round the woodpile and viewed thehumped-up individual. The latter was Bull, the Starlight bartender.And he was dead, very dead. His throat had been cut from ear to ear.He was a ghastly object.
"Who done it?" inquired one of the fools that infest every group of men.
"He didn't leave any card," the blacksmith replied with sarcasm.
The fool asked no more questions. Came then Jake Rule and Kansas Casey. Jake, a rather heavy, well-meaning officer, old at the business, began to sniff about for clues. Kansas Casey laid the body down on its back and thoroughly searched the pockets of the clothing.
"One thing," said Kansas Casey, looking up from what he had found—a handful of silver dollars, a pocket knife, and a silver watch, "robbery wasn't the motive."
Racey looked sidewise from under his eyebrows at Jack Harpe. The latter was staring down unmoved at the dead body.
"Somebody must 'a' had a grudge against Bull," offered the fool.
"You think so?" said Piney. "Yo're a real bright feller."
The fool subsided a second time.
"Lookit here, Jake," Piney continued to the sheriff's address, "you don't have to kick my wood all over the county, do you?"
"I'm lookin' for the knife," explained the sheriff, ceasing not to stub his toes against the solid chunks. "Feller after doing a thing like this gets flustrated sometimes and drops the knife. And finding the knife might be a help in locating the feller."
All of which seemed sufficiently logical to the bystanders.
Racey decided he had seen enough. Besides, he wanted to camp closer to his warbags. He should have been in his room before this, and he would have been had he cared to make himself conspicuous by not going along with the crowd to see what Piney Jackson had found.
Declining Swing's earnest invitation to drink he returned to the hotel. Swing went grouchily to the Happy Heart, wondering what was the matter with his friend. It was not like the Racey he knew to play the hermit.
Once in his room Racey again explored his own and Swing's saddlebags andcantenas, looked under the cots and through the bedclothes. But he found nothing that did not belong to either himself or Swing.
"They didn't make a second trip," he said to himself. "I'm betting it's Jack Harpe. Shore it is, the polecat."
Then in order to have a water-tight reason for remaining in the room he pulled off his boots and trousers, fished a housewife from acantena, and set about repairing a rip in his trousers. It was a perfectly good rip. He had had it a long time. What more natural that on this particular day he should wish to sew it up?
It was an hour later that he heard the tramp of several pairs of boots on the stairs. He could hear the wheezing, laboured breathing of Bill Lainey, the hotel proprietor. Climbing the stairs always bothered Bill. The latter and his followers came along the hall and stopped in front of Racey's door.
"This is his room," panted Bill Lainey.
Unceremoniously the latch was lifted. A man entered. The man was JakeRule, the sheriff of Fort Creek County. He was followed by KansasCasey, his deputy.
Jake looked serious. But Kansas was smiling as he closed the door behind him. Then he opened it quickly and thrust his head into the hall.
"No need of you, Bill," he said.
"Aw right," said Bill, aggrievedly, and forthwith shuffled away.
Kansas withdrew his head and nodded to Jake Rule. "He's gone," he said.
Racey Dawson, sitting crosslegged on his cot and plying his needle in most workmanlike fashion, grinned comfortably at the two officers. Lord, how glad he was he had found that knife! If he hadn't—
"Sidown, gents," invited Racey. "There's two chairs, or you can haveSwing's cot if you like."
Jake Rule shook his head. "We don't wanna sit down, Racey," he said."We got a li'l business with you, maybe."
"Maybe? Then you ain't shore about it?"
"Not unless yo're willing. You see, Dolan's drunk to-day, and of course we can't get a warrant till he's sober."
"A warrant? For me?"
"Not yet," said Jake Rule. "Only a search warrant—first. But of course if you ain't willing we can't even touch anything."
"Still, Racey," put in Kansas Casey, smoothly, "if you could see yore way to letting us go through yore warbags, yores and Swing's, it would be a great help, and we'd remember it—after."
"Yeah, we shore would," declared the sheriff. "You save us trouble now, Racey, and I'll guarantee to make you almighty comfortable in the calaboose. You won't have nothing to complain of. Not a thing."
Racey laughed cheerily. "Got me in jail already, have you?" he chuckled. "You'll have me hung next."
"Oh, they's quite some formalities to go through beforethathappens," declared the sheriff, seriously.
"I'm glad," drawled Racey. "I thought maybe you were fixing to take me right out and string me up before dinner. Want to search our stuff, huh? Hop to it. Swing ain't here, but I'll give you permission for him. He won't mind."
Jake and Kansas went at the warbags like terriers digging out a badger. Racey leaned on his elbow and watched them. What luck that the door had been ajar and that he had noticed it! If it had not been a life-and-death matter he would have laughed aloud.
At the end of twenty minutes the officers stood up. They had gone through everything in the room, including the cots. Kansas Casey wore a pleased smile. Jake Rule looked disappointed.
"Don't look so glum, Jake," urged Racey. "Is it a fair question to ask what yo're hunting for?"
"The knife," he said, shortly. "The knife that cut Bull's throat."
"The knife, huh?" remarked Racey as if to himself. "So yo're suspectin' me of wiping out Bull, are you?"
"I never did," said Kansas, promptly. "I know you. You ain't that kind."
Jake looked reproachfully at his deputy. "You never can tall, Racey," he said, turning to the puncher. "I've got so myself I don't trust nobody no more."
"Was this here yore own idea," pursued Racey, "or did somebody sic you onto me?"
Jake made no immediate answer. It was obvious that he was of two minds whether to speak or not.
"Why not tell him?" suggested Kansas. "What's the odds?"
At this Jake took a piece of paper from his vest pocket and handed it to Racey.
"I found this lying on the floor of my office when I come back after attending to Bull," was his explanation.
There were words printed on the slip of paper. They read:
Look in Racey Dawson's room for what killed Bull.
The communication was unsigned.
Racey handed it back to Jake Rule. "Got any idea who put it in yore office?" he asked.
Jake shook his head. "I dunno," he said. "The window was open. Anybody passing could 'a' throwed it in."
"You satisfied now, Jake, or—" Racey did not complete the sentence.
"Oh, I'm satisfied you didn't do it," replied the sheriff, "if that's what you mean. But—the man who wrote this herejoke!"
As he spoke he tore the note in two, dropped the pieces on the floor, and stamped out of the room. Kansas Casey looked over his shoulder as he followed in the wake of his superior.
He saw Racey Dawson picking up the two pieces of the note. Racey's mouth was a grim, uncompromising line.
"If Racey ever finds out who wrote that," thought Kansas to himself, pulling the door shut, "hell will shore pop. And I hope it does."
For he liked Racey Dawson, did Kansas Casey, the deputy sheriff.
"Why didn't you tell me at breakfast?" demanded Swing Tunstall.
"And give it away to Jack Harpe!" said scornful Racey. "Shore, that would 'a' been a bright thing to do now, wouldn't it?"
"What didja do with the knife?"
"Dropped it through a knothole in the wall. The only way they'll ever get hold of it is by tearing the building down."
"Jack Harpe, if heisthe feller, will know you found it and try again."
"Shore. We can't help that. One thing, we'll know before the day is over whether it is Jack Harpe or not."
"How?"
"Remember me this morning telling you how I'd left my saddle-blanket out all night and then going out in the corral for the same. I said it so Jack could hear me. He did hear me, and he watched me go. He saw me go out round the corral, and he saw me come back without the saddle-blanket. Now anybody'd know I wouldn't leave my saddle-blanket out behind the corral, would I?"
"Not likely."
"But a feller who'd just found a knife with blood on it in his warbags might go out back of the corral to lose the knife, mightn't he?"
"He might."
"Well, that's what I did. Naturally, having already lost the knife down through the knothole I couldn't lose her again. But I did the best I could. I dug in the ground with a sharp stick, and I made a li'l hole like, and I filled her in again, and tramped her all down flat, and sort of half smoothed down the roughed-up ground like I was trying to hide my tracks and what I'd been doing. Then I came away.
"Now I'm betting that if Jack Harpe is the lad tucked away that knife in my warbags he'll go skirmishing out behind the corral to see what I was really doing."
"Maybe." Doubtfully.
"There ain't any maybe if he's the man turned the trick. And from where we're a-laying under this wagon we can see the back of the corral plain as—There he comes now."
The posts of the corral were less than a hundred yards from where Racey and Swing lay beneath a pole-propped freight wagon. From the wagon, which was standing beyond the stage company's corral, the ground sloped gently to the hotel corral. Racey had taken the precaution to mask their position with a cedar bush.
Hatless he peered through the branches at the man quartering the ground behind the hotel corral.
"He's getting close to where I made that hole," he told Swing. "Now he's found it," he resumed as the man dropped on his knees. "Jack Harpe all along. Ain't he the humoursome codger?"
"He shore couldn't 'a' dug up that hole already," declared Swing when Jack Harpe jumped to his feet after a sojourn on his knees of possibly thirty seconds' duration.
"No," assented Racey, puzzled. "He couldn't. There's an odd number," he added, as Jack Harpe pelted back at a brisk trot over the way he had come. "Le's not go just yet, Swing. I have a feeling."
He was glad of this feeling when ten minutes later Jack Harpe returned with Jake Rule and Kansas Casey. The latter carried a shovel. The three men clustered round the spot where Racey had dug his hole. Kansas Casey set his foot on the shovel and drove it into the ground. Racey chuckled at the pleasant sight. What must inevitably follow would be even pleasanter.
The deputy sheriff made the dirt fly for six minutes. Then he threw down the shovel, pushed back his hat, and wiped his face on his sleeve. He spoke, but his language was unintelligible. Jack Harpe said something and picked up the shovel. He began to dig. He cast the earth about for possibly five minutes.
"Ain't he the prairie-dog, huh?" Racey demanded, jabbing his comrade in the ribs with stiffened thumb. "Just watch him scratch gravel."
Suddenly Jake Rule and Kansas Casey turned their backs on the frantically labouring Jack Harpe and walked away. Jack Harpe watched them, threw up a few more half-hearted shovelfuls, and then slammed the implement to earth with a clatter, hitched up his pants, and strode hurriedly after the officers.
"That proves it, I guess," said Swing.
"Naturally. She's enough for us, anyhow.—— it to ——!"
"Whatsa matter?" inquired Swing, surprised at his friend's vehemence.
"Whatsa matter? Whatsa matter? Everythin's the matter. I just happened to think that now Bull won't be able to tell me what he was going to to-night."
"That'so. Can't you ask the girl?"
"I can, but I ain't shore it'll do any good. Marie ain't the kind that blats all she knows just to hear herself talk. If she wants to tell me she will. If she don't want to, she won't. Bull was my one best bet."
"What's that?" cried Swing, raising himself on an elbow.
"That" was the noise of a tumult in Farewell Main Street. There were shouts and yells and screams. Above all, screams. Racey and Swing hurried to the street. When they reached it the shouts and yells had subsided, but the screams had not. If anything they were louder than before. They issued from the mouth of Marie, whom Jake Rule, Kansas Casey, and four other men were taking to the calaboose. They were doing their duty as gently as possible, and Marie was making it as difficult for them as possible. She was as mad as a teased rattlesnake, and not a man of her six captors but bore the marks of fingernails, or teeth, or heels.
She had, it appeared, attacked without warning and with a derringer, Jack Harpe as he was walking peacefully along the sidewalk in front of the Starlight. Only by good luck and a loose board that had turned under the girl's foot as she fired had Mr. Harpe been preserved from sudden death.
"That's shore tough," Racey said to their informant. "I'm goin' right away now and get me a hammer and some nails and fix that loose board."
"You better not let Jack Harpe hear you say that," cautioned the other.
"If you want something to do, suppose now you tell him," was Racey's instant suggestion.
Racey's tone was light, but his stare was hard. The other man went away.
"Fire! Fire!" shrilled young Sam Brown Galloway, bouncing out of his father's store, and jumping up and down in the middle of Main Street. "The jail's afire! The jail's afire!"
Men added their shouts to his childish squalls and ran toward the jail. Racey and Swing trundled along the sidewalk together. "She's afire, all right," said Racey. "Lookit the smoke siftin' through the window at the corner."
The smoke was followed by a vicious lash of flame that whipped up the side of the building and set the eaves alight. The glass of another window fell through the bars with a tinkle. A billow of smoke rushed forth. Smoke was seeping through cracks at the back of the building.
"My Gawd!" exclaimed Racey, as a shriek rent the air. "The girl's in there!"
He had for the moment forgotten that Marie was incarcerated in the jail. But Kansas Casey had not forgotten. Racey, having picked up a handy axe, raced round to the back only to find the deputy unlocking the back door. A burst of smoke as he flung open the door assailed their lungs. Choking, holding their breath, both men dashed into the jail. Kansas unlocked the girl's cell.
"You shore took yore time about comin'," drawled Marie. "I didn't know but what I'd be burned up with the rest of the jail. You big lummox! You don't have to bust my wrist, do you? Go easy, or I'll claw yore face off!"
Once outside they were immediately surrounded by the townsfolk. Most of them were laughing. But Jake Rule was not laughing.
"Good joke on you, Jake," grinned a friend. "Burned herself out on you, didn't she?"
"You can't keep a good man down," shouted another.
"Never let the baby play with matches," advised a third.
"Get pails, gents!" shouted Rule. "We gotta put it out. Where's a pail? Who—"
"Aw, let 'er burn," said Galloway. "Hownell you gonna put it out?She's all blazin' inside. You couldn't put it out with ShoshoneFalls."
"The wind's blowin' away from town," contributed Mike Flynn. "Nothin' else'll catch. Besides, we been needing a new calaboose for a long time. You done us a better turn than you think, Marie."
"If you say I set the jail afire, Mike Flynn," cried Marie, "Yo're a liar by the clock."
"You set it afire," said the sheriff, sternly. "You'll find it a serious business setting a jail afire."
"Prove I done it, then!" squalled Marie. "Prove it, you slab-sided hunk! Yah, you can't prove it, and you know it!"
To this the sheriff made no reply.
"We gotta put her somewhere till the Judge gets sober," he said, hurriedly. "Guess we'll put her in yore back room, Mike."
"Guess you won't," countered Mike. "They ain't any insurance on my place, and I ain't taking no chances, not a chance."
"There's the hotel," suggested Kansas Casey.
"You don't use my hotel for no calaboose," squawked Bill Lainey. "Nawsir. Not much. You put her in yore own house, Jake. Then if she sets you afire, it's your own fault. Yeah."
Jake Rule scratched his head. It was patent that he did not quite know what to do. Came then Dolan, the local justice of the peace. Dolan's hair was plastered well over his ears and forehead. Dolan was pale yellow of countenance and breathed strongly through his nose. He looked not a little sick. He pawed a way through the crowd and cast a bilious glance at Marie.
He inquired of Jake Rule as to the trouble and its cause. On being told he convened court on the spot. Judge Dolan agreed with Mike Flynn that the burning of the jail was a trivial matter requiring no official attention. For was not Dolan's brother-in-law a carpenter and would undoubtedly be given the contract for a new jail. Quite so.
"You can't prove anything about this jail-burning," he told Jake Rule and the assembled multitude, "but this assault on Jack Harpe is a cat with another tail. It was a lawless act and hadn't oughta happened. Marie, yo're a citizen of Farewell, and you'd oughta take an interest in the community instead of surging out and trying to massacre a visitor in our midst, a visitor who's figuring on settlin' hereabouts, I understand. Gawd knows we need all the inhabitants we can get, and it's just such tricks as yores, Marie, that discourages immigration."
Here Judge Dolan frowned upon Marie and thumped the palm of his hand with a bony fist. Marie stood first on one leg and then on the other and hung her head down. Since her raving outburst at the time of her arrest she had cooled considerably. It was evident that she was now trying to make the best of a bad business.
"Marie," resumed Judge Dolan, and cleared his throat importantly, "why did you shoot at Mr. Jack Harpe?"
"He insulted me," Marie replied without a quiver.
"I ain't ever said a word to her," countered Jack Harpe. "I don't even know the girl."
The judge turned back to Marie. "Have you any witnesses to this insult?" he queried.
"Nary a witness." Marie shook her brown head.
"Y' oughta have a witness. She's yore word against his. Where did this insult take place?"
"At my shack. He come there early this mornin'."
"That's a lie!" boomed Jack Harpe.
"Which will be about all from you!" snapped Judge Dolan, vigorously pounding his palm.
"What did he say to you?" was the judge's next question.
"I'd rather not tell," hedged Marie.
"Well, of course, you don't have to answer," said the judge, gallantly. "But alla same, Marie, you hadn't oughta used a gun on him. It—it ain't ladylike. Nawsir. Don't you do it again or I'll send you to Piegan City. Ten dollars or ten days."
"What?" Thus Jack Harpe, astonished beyond measure.
"Ten dollars or ten days," repeated Judge Dolan. "Taking a shot at you is worth ten dollars but no more. It don't make any difference whether you came here to invest money or not, you wanna go slow round the women."
"But I didn't even say howdy to her," protested Jack Harpe.
"She says different. You leave her alone."
Public opinion, which at first had rather favoured Jack Harpe, now frowned upon him. He shouldn't have insulted the girl. No, sir, he had no business doing that. Be a good thing if he was arrested for it, perhaps. What a virtuous thing is public opinion.
"I ain't got a nickel, Judge," said Marie. "You'll have to trust me for it till the end of the week."
"I'll pay her fine," nipped in Racey, glad of an opportunity to annoyJack Harpe. "Here y' are, Judge. Ten dollars, you said."
It was a few minutes after he had eaten dinner that Racey Dawson presented himself at the door of Kansas Casey's shack. The door was open. Racey stood in the doorway and leaned the shovel against the wall of the room.
"You forgot yore shovel, Kansas," he said, gently, "or Jack Harpe did.Same thing, and here it is."
Kansas had the grace to look a trifle shamefaced. "Somebody said you'd buried that knife—" he began, and stopped.
"Yep, I know, Jack Harpe," smiled Racey. "Li'l Bright Eyes is shore a friend of mine. Only I wouldn't bank too strong on what he says about me."
"I ain't," denied the deputy.
"Another thing, Kansas," drawled Racey, "did you ever stop to think how come he knowed so much about that knife? And did you ask him if he was the gent left that paper in Jake's office? And going on from that did you ask him why he didn't come out flat footed at first and say what he thought he knowed instead of waiting till after you'd searched my room? You don't have to answer, Kansas, only if I was you I'd think it over, I'd think it over plenty. So long."
From the house of Casey he went to the shack of Marie. He found the girl cooking her dinner quite as if attempts at murder, dead men, and jailburning were matters of small moment. But if her manner was placid, her eyes were not. They were bright and hard, and they flickered stormily upon him when she lifted her gaze from the pan of frying potatoes and saw who it was standing in the doorway.
"I'm obliged to you," she said, calmly, "for payin' my fine. You ran away so quick this mornin' you didn't gimme any chance to thank you. I'll pay you back soon's I get paid come Saturday."
Racey stared reproachfully. He shifted his weight from one uncomfortable foot to the other. "I didn't come here about the fine," he told her. "I—" He stopped, uncertain whether to continue or not.
"If you didn't come about the fine it must be something else important," said she, insultingly. "I shore oughta be set up, I suppose. So far it's always been me that's had to make all the moves."
"'Moves?'" repeated Racey, frankly puzzled.
"Moves," she mimicked. "Didn't you ever play checkers? Oh, nemmine, nemmine! Don't take it to heart. I don't mean nothin'. Never did. C'mon in an' set. Take a chair. That one. What do you want? Down feller, down!"
The command was called forth by the violent entry of the yellow dog which, remembering Racey as a friend, flung itself upon him with whines and tail-waggings.
"He's all right," said Racey, rubbing the rough head. "I just thoughtI'd ask you what you knew about Jack Harpe."
Marie's narrowed eyes turned dark with suspicion. "Whadda you know about me an' Jack Harpe?" she demanded.
"Not as much as I'd like to know," was his frank reply.
"I ain't talkin'." Shortly.
"Now, lookit here—" he began, wheedlingly.
She shook her head at him. "S'no use. I don't tell everything I know."
"Then you do know something about Jack Harpe?"
"I didn't say I did."
"You didn't. But—"
"That's what the goat done to the stone wall. Look out you don't bust yore horns, too."
"Meanin'?"
"Meanin' you'll knock 'em off short before you get anything out o' meI don't want to tell you. And I tell you flat I ain't talkin' overJack Harpe with you."
"Scared to?" he hazarded, boldly.
"You can give it any name you like. Pull up a chair. Dinner's most ready. They's enough for two."
Despite the fact that he had just dined at the hotel he accepted her invitation in the hope that she could be persuaded to talk. And after dinner he smoked several cigarettes with her—still hoping. Finally, finding that nothing he could say was of any avail to move her, he took up his hat and departed.
"Don't go away mad," she called after him.
"I ain't," he denied, and went on, her mocking laughter ringing in his ears.
After Racey was gone out of sight Marie turned back into her little house. There was no laughter on her lips or in her eyes as she sat down in a chair beside the table and stared across it at the chair in which Racey had been sitting.
"He's a nice boy," she whispered under her breath, after a time. "I wish—I wish—"
But what it was she wished it is impossible to relate, for, instead of completing the sentence, she hid her face in her hands and began to cry.
Early next morning Racey Dawson and Swing Tunstall rode out of town by the Marysville trail. They were bound for the Bar S and a job.
* * * * *
"What have you been drinkin', Racey?" demanded Mr. Saltoun, winking at his son-in-law and foreman, Tom Loudon.
The latter did not return the wink. He kept a sober gaze fastened onRacey Dawson.
Racey was staring at Mr. Saltoun. His eyes began to narrow. "Meanin'?" he drawled.
"Now don't go crawlin' round huntin' offense where none's meant," advised Mr. Saltoun. "But you know how it is yoreself, Racey. Any gent who gets so full he can't pick out his own hoss, and goes weaving off on somebody else's is liable to make mistakes other ways. You gotta admit it's possible."
The slight tinge of red underlying Racey's heavy coat of tan acknowledged the corn. "It's possible," he admitted.
Mr. Saltoun saw his advantage and seized it. "S'pose now this is another mistake?"
"Tell you what I'll do," said Racey. "You said you had jobs for a couple of handsome young fellers like us. Aw right. We go to work. We ride for you six months for nothing."
"Huh?" Mr. Saltoun and Tom Loudon stared their astonishment.
"Oh, the cat's got more of a tail than that," said Racey. "You don't pay us a nickel for those six monthsprovidedwhat I said will happen, don't happen. If it does happen like I say, you pay each of us two hundred large round simoleons per each and every month."
"Come again," said Mr. Saltoun, wrinkling his forehead.
Racey came again as requested.
"Six months is a long time" frowned Mr. Saltoun. "If I lose—"