Tex Alden had left the Oasis and sauntered down the street to where a
weathered sign proclaimed the office of Lee Barnhardt, Attorney at
Law. Barnhardt was a lean, hatchet-faced, keen-eyed sort of person,
possibly forty-five years of age, whose eyes were rather too close
together, ears small and clinging close to his bony head, and chin was
wedge-shaped. His neck was so long and thin that it was the general
opinion in Blue Wells that on Sunday Barnhardt wore a cuff around his
neck instead of a collar.
Tex Alden and Lee Barnhardt had considerable in common, as Tex was
manager of the X Bar 6 cattle outfit, while Barnhardt was legal
counsel and manager for the same outfit. Tex had always born a fairly
good reputation, except that he was an inveterate gambler. People
admitted that Barnhardt was shrewd, even if they did not like him.
Barnhardt was busily engaged in cleaning out his old cob pipe when Tex
walked in and sat down, and like all lawyers he kept Tex waiting until
the pipe was cleaned, filled and lighted. Then he turned around on his
creaking swivel-chair and fixed his cold eyes upon Tex.
“Well?” he managed to say, between puffs.
“Well, ——!” snorted Tex. “I just finished losing the eight thousand
dollars I got for that shipment to Frisco.”
Barnhardt’s eyebrows lifted slightly and he sucked heavily on his
extinguished pipe, staring steadily at Tex. Then:
“You lost it all, eh? Playing poker with Neal?”
Tex nodded wearily. Barnhardt leaned back in his old chair, squinting
narrowly at the ceiling.
“That’s a lot of money, Tex,” he said thoughtfully. “It puts you in
pretty bad, don’t yuh think?”
“Sure. That’s why I came over here, Lee.”
“Is that so? Thinking, of course, that I can square it for yuh,”
Barnhardt laughed wryly. “It’s quite a job to explain away eight
thousand dollars, Tex. I don’t know why you didn’t bring that check to
me.”
“They made it out in my name,” said Tex, as if that might mitigate the
fact that he had used eight thousand belonging to the X Bar 6 outfit.
“That didn’t cause it to belong to you,” reminded Barnhardt. “They can
jail yuh for that, Tex. It’s plain embezzlement. I’ve got to account
for that eight thousand dollars.”
“How soon, Lee?”
The lawyer frowned thoughtfully. He knew he could defer the accounting
for a long time, but what good would that do Tex Alden, whose monthly
salary was seventy-five dollars.
“Got something in sight, Tex?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Tex studied the toes of his dusty boots. “But yuh never can
tell what might turn up.”
“I see.”