Introductory material (continued 6)

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.

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 reëstablish 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 Cæsar 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.

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