“I’ll be out--sure!”
Soapy headed straight for the sheriff’s office where he found Weary, Fat
and Chuck. They were discussing the shooting of Joe LeClere and welcomed
Soapy warmly.
“I dunno nothin’ except what I’ve told yuh,” he declared, when they
wanted him to repeat what had happened. “Ask Weary. He knows more about
it than I do.”
“I wasn’t there,” said Weary.
“Well, you know all about it, judgin’ from what I heard. You shore
spread that fiddle story around,” sneered Soapy. Weary’s face broke
into a wide grin.
“I never told anybody except Frenchy and Yvonne. I had to tell it all,
yuh see. And I had to tell ’em about the fiddle.”
“Yuh would! Things like that are a duty to you.”
“All I told ’em was that you got drunk, stole a fiddle, tried to
serenade Chuck and then fell down and used the fiddle for a piller.
That ain’t much, is it?”
“Well, I don’t know of a damn thing yuh left out.”
“I forgot to tell ’em that you paid for the fiddle.”
“You would! Any damn redeemin’ feature you’d leave out.”
“That ain’t no redeemin’ feature,” laughed Weary. “You paid up when yuh
was caught with the goods.”
“That’s all right,” grinned Soapy. “Wait’ll I get a chance to deal you a
bum hand!”
* * * * *
Hashknife and Sleepy were at a restaurant when an idea suddenly occurred
to Hashknife. He laid down his knife and looked intently at Sleepy as he
said:
“You remembered the time we met McFee, didn’t yuh?”
“Sure.”
“He was deputy sheriff of Piney River and he was on the trail of a
horse-thief.”
“That was it. He said the man’s name was Welton or Holton or--”
“Belton! ‘Bitter River’ Belton, he called him.”
“That’s the baby!” exclaimed Sleepy. “That’s memory for yuh! But what
good does that do us?”
“_Quien sabe?_ as they say below the line.”
They finished their meal and sauntered down to the depot where a
tired-looking depot agent fought flies with an old palm-leaf fan and
tried to amuse himself with an old magazine. Hashknife secured a
telegraph blank and wrote out the following message: