Which command was backed by a six-shooter trained on the center of
Rafe's abdomen. The way the Tuckleton hands flew upward and locked
thumbs above the Tuckleton hat was gratifying. But the Tuckleton face
was empurpled with rage.
"Of course," remarked Billy, "one of you may hit me, but if I go Rafe
goes with me."
"It's all right, boys," Rafe assured his hesitating followers in a
voice thick with anger. "Lemme argue this thing."
"There'll be no hanging here," said Billy.
"You bet not!" chimed in the voice of Riley Tyler from a position
thirty yards distant on the right.
Riley had returned with the water and whisky. He had been sufficiently
thoughtful to bring with him a double-barreled shotgun. He stood, the
firearm held level with his hip, the blunt twin muzzles gaping at the
Tuckleton outfit.
"Hazel," said Riley, "I wanna borrow this shotgun for a few minutes. I
found it leaning inside the door. Ben, I wish you'd come over here and
take this water and whisky to the lady. I'm stuck here, sort of."
"You go ahead, Ben," said Billy. "Don't lemme detain you."
Ben went slowly. He plumped whisky and bucket on the ground beside
Hazel and then began to sidle casually toward the house.
"You come right back," urged Riley, gesturing with the shotgun. "The
best place for you is right beside Jonesy. He's gettin' lonesome for
you already, ain't you, Jonesy?"
Jonesy spat upon the ground. Ben slouched back to his comrades. While
this byplay had been going on, Tuckleton had been talking at Billy.
"Would you mind repeating all that?" said Billy, when Ben had rejoined
the group at Rafe's back. "I didn't catch some of it."
Tuckleton glared, his little eyes hot with rage. "I said that man's a
cow thief and we're gonna stretch him!"
"But you said that at first," pointed out Billy. "And I said 'no'
then. I haven't changed my mind."
"Since when have you been dry-nursing rustlers?" snarled Rafe.
"I don't know he's a rustler."
"I said he was, didn't I?"
"You said so, sure. But you might be mistaken."
"I don't make mistakes like that. And, anyway, all my boys here saw
him branding that calf."
"We sure did," corroborated Jonesy. "Feller had a fire all lit, and
was heating a running-iron when we jumped him."
"Did the calf have its mammy along?" was Billy's next question.
No one answered. Billy, however, did not remove his eyes from Rafe's
face. The pause was becoming almost embarrassing when the five
Tuckletonions made reply with a rush. Two of them said "Yes," and the
other three said "No."
"There seems to be a difference of opinion," said Billy. "Don't you
know whether the cow was along?"
"She wasn't along," declared Jonesy, sticking to his original assertion.
"But Rafe said she was," said Billy.
"I made a mistake," Rafe hastened to assure him.
Billy nodded in triumph. "Then you do make mistakes. I always knew
you did. Funny how you and Jonesy saw things so different and all.
Ben didn't see any cow either, and Tim Mullen and Lake did."
"Maybe I made a mistake too," said Lake sullenly, taking his cue from
his employer.
"How about you, Tim?" persisted the questioner.
Tim looked furtively from his employer to his foreman and back again
before answering.
"Speak up, Tim," directed Billy, "speak up. You did or you didn't.
Yes or no?"
"Maybe I made a mistake," was Tim Mullen's final decision.
"They seem to have come over to your point of view, Jonesy," Billy
observed dryly. "How about you? Did you make a mistake too?"
But Jonesy was not to be caught. "The cow wasn't along. I oughta
know."
"You don't need to be so fierce about it. I was just askin' questions.
If this feller had a fire and was heating a running-iron, I suppose he
had a calf handy."
"I said we caught him _with_ a calf," insisted Rafe Tuckleton.
"That's right, so you did. Was the calf hog-tied?"
"Naturally."
"And when you saw this stranger and jumped him, I suppose you came
boiling along right after him?"
"Sure did." Thus Rafe Tuckleton.
"None of you stopped anywhere, huh?"
"Why, no, of course not. It wouldn't be reasonable, would it, if we
were chasin' him, to get off and fiddle around?"
"No, it wouldn't be reasonable," admitted Billy. "Then if none of you
got off to turn the calf loose, the calf must still be there--calf,
fire and running-iron?"
Rafe looked a little blank at this. So did the others. Jonesy was the
first to recover his spirits.
"Unless somebody else turned it loose," suggested Jonesy brightly.
"But the fire and running-iron will still be there."
"Of course they will," Rafe Tuckleton declared heartily. "Of course
they will. But it just occurs to me that this man may have had a
friend with him we didn't see. And that hog-tied calf and fire and
running-iron--that last may have been a cinch ring, Bill--are evidence
that'll hang this man. Jonesy, suppose now you ride back to the fork
of that split draw south of Saddle Hill, where we saw this man's fire,
and see that nobody destroys the evidence before we get there. Ben, I
think you'd better go with Jonesy."
"No," said Billy decidedly. "Jonesy and Ben will stay right here."
"Remember," called Riley, "that this Greener is double-barreled."
"But see here--" Rafe began desperately.
"No see about it," interrupted Billy. "You'll all stay right here with
us till Tom Walton gets here."
"But suppose somebody destroys the evidence," worried Rafe.
"I don't guess they'll destroy all of it," said Billy cheerfully. "You
see, Rafe, we want to go with you to the fork of that split draw south
of Saddle Hill."
Rafe's blazing eyes were fairly murderous. His men muttered behind
him. But they made no hostile move. They realized that Rafe would
never forgive them if they did. He would not be able to.
In the meantime Hazel had been alternately bathing the senseless one's
forehead and dribbling drops of whisky between his teeth.
"He's coming round," she said suddenly.
The man opened his eyes, groaned, grunted, and sat up. He blinked his
eyes rapidly several times and smiled pleasantly at Hazel.
"That was a jolt I got," said he. "Is there whisky in the bottle?"
He took a long and healthy pull, drove in the cork with the heel of his
hand, wiped his lips and then seemed to see Rafe Tuckleton and his men
for the first time.
"I seem to remember those bandits giving me the chase of my young
life," he remarked, nodding his head. "I don't know why. I don't know
why my unknown friend with the six-shooter and my other equally unknown
friend with the scatter-gun are holding them up, but I'm glad they're
doing it. Still, why? Why all this fuss and these feathers?"
"I don't know either," replied Billy, continuing to watch Rafe
Tuckleton and his men like the proverbial hawk, "but we hope to find
out. When a couple of friends of mine get here, we aim to find out."