"Ten thousand devils!"
"Not devils--dollars."
"You're crazy!"
"It's the least you can do," insisted Billy.
Tip O'Gorman made an odd noise in his throat. After making which, a
dog would have bitten Mr. Wingo. Tip may have been a bad old man, but
he was not a dog. He really dissembled his foamingly murderous rage
very well indeed.
"I'll have to see the rest of the boys," said Tip O'Gorman, and he
actually smiled.
"Why, no," contradicted Billy. "You won't. Why should you? Rafe and
you are the dogs with the brass collars in Crocker County, and you wear
more brass than Rafe, when you come right down to it. What you say
usually goes without question."
"I never said ten thousand for a sheriff before," protested Tip.
"There's nothing like establishing a precedent. Don't be hidebound.
This is the newer generation, and advanced age, you know; one that's
advanced by jumps, if you could only be brought to realize it."
Tip held up an arresting hand. "Don't joke," he said. "I realize what
the blessed age is doing, but doubling the ante this way is more than a
jump--it's a mighty wild leap."
"It can be done," Billy said placidly. "What are impossibilities
to-day become realities to-morrow. Q.E.D. P.D.Q."
Tip O'Gorman raised plump hands to the level of his ears. "I didn't
think when I proposed you for sheriff," he remarked earnestly, "that I
was proposing a road agent too. Oh, you burglar! I do admire a hawg.
Yes, sir. But what can a feller do? Ten thousand goes. About those
deputies--I don't suppose you'll have any objections, now that you've
got what you want, to appointing Johnson and Kenealy?"
"Oh, yes, indeed I have--plenty. No Johnson and no Kenealy. Shillman
and Tyler. Yes."
"No. You've got to earn that ten thousand."
"Bribery and corruption, Tip, is a serious crime."
"Bosh! You listen to me, young feller. We're buying you, body, soul
and roll, with that ten thousand cases! You've got to do as we say.
Hells bells, what do you think you are?"
"A stranger in a strange land. Damn strange, too. Tip, you're an old
scoundrel!"
Tip O'Gorman's hand halted half-way to his armpit.
"No, no, Tip, not that," Billy warned him, keeping turned on the other
man's stomach the gun that had suddenly appeared from nowhere. "Don't
turn rusty in here. The carpet is new and so is the furniture. Go a
li'l slow, or a li'l slower, whichever appeals to you."
Tip locked his hands behind his head. "Be sensible, Bill," said he
calmly. "You can't hope to buck us, if that's your idea. You can't."
"Can't I? We'll see."
"What can one man do?" contemptuously.
"One-two-three. Three men. Three men can do a lot. Yep. I've seen
it done."
"Have you?"
"I have. But I want to be fair to you, Tip. You'll notice I haven't
removed your gun. I'll return mine where it came from--behind the
waistband of my pants. Now turn your wolf loose."
But Tip O'Gorman merely smiled. "I thank you kindly," said he. "You
mean well; but as you say, the carpet and the furniture are new. It
would be a pity to spoil both them and the evening."
"You mean we'll go outdoors then?"
"_We_ will not, but _I_ will. You will stay here and, I hope, enjoy
one good night's rest."
"One, huh? Do I hear you say one? I do. I get your meaning, thank
you. So good of you. Don't get up. I would a tale unfold. Did you
ever hear the story of Benjy and the bear. No? This is it. Benjy was
out hunting one day and it happened the bear was out hunting too. For
the bear was hungry, and the bear saw Benjy before Benjy saw the bear.
And after the dust had cleared away and all, the bear was bulgy and the
bulge was Benjy."
"Huh," snorted Tip O'Gorman, "what does that prove?"
"It proves that it's better to be the bear than Benjy. At least,
that's the way it looks to a man up a tree. I made up my mind some
time ago that if I got tangled up in a situation like that I'd be the
bear and not Benjy."
Tip O'Gorman stared with an odd expression at Billy Wingo. "You _have_
changed," he remarked with conviction. "I wonder----"
"Give it a name," begged Billy, when Tip failed to complete the
sentence.