Billy nodded. "I was just wonderin'. No harm in that, I suppose.
Lucky she wasn't there alla same."
"It was lucky," stated Tip O'Gorman. "Do you know I've been doing a
li'l wondering myself. Why wasn't she there?"
"She just happened to be visiting the Prescotts'," replied Billy Wingo,
his eyes on Rafe's face.
Rafe did his best to return the stare, but his eyes would drop despite
his best effort.
"You know that letter from Miss Walton Judge Driver threw in the
fire--the one you heard me telling Judge Donelson about?" went on
Billy. "Yeah, that one. It might have fooled me--I'm only human, you
know, if----"
"You're too modest," Tip interrupted dryly.
"If it hadn't been for one or two li'l things," resumed Billy. "The
handwriting was a fine imitation--you couldn't beat it. But I knew she
hadn't written it." He paused, and began to roll a cigarette.
Rafe Tuckleton passed his tongue across his lips. The district
attorney looked down at his locked hands. Of the three Tip O'Gorman
was the only one to remain his natural self.
"G'on," urged Tip, "give it a name."
"You see," said Billy, "Skinny Shindle told me Miss Walton gave him the
note about 2.30 P.M. Now on that afternoon I happened to be at the
Prescott ranch. Miss Walton was there visiting Miss Prescott. I
didn't leave the Prescotts' till nearly three o'clock, and Miss Walton
was still there and intending to spend the night. That's how I knew
she couldn't have written that note."
"Nine miles from Prescott's to Walton's," said Tip.
"Nearer ten," corrected Billy. "Skinny was sure careless. So were
several other men. You've got to make things fit."
He nodded kindly to the company and abruptly departed with his
companion.
"I wonder what he meant by 'making things fit,'" mused the district
attorney, following five minutes' silence.
"I dunno," Rafe mumbled in accents of the deepest gloom, "but you can
put down a bet he meant something."
"He did," declared Tip O'Gorman, "and I'm telling you two straight,
flat and final, you ain't fit to play checkers with a blind man. It
makes a feller ashamed to do business with you, you're so thumb-handed,
tumble-footed foolish. At the time the note was written from Walton's
the girl was at Prescott's. Oh, great! And he knew it alla time. And
you two jokes wondered why your scheme fell through! You know now,
don't you? Gawd! What a pair you are! Oh, I've always believed that
a man makes his own li'l hell. Whatever devilishness he does on this
earth he pays for on this earth. You fellers are already beginning to
pay."
Thus Tip O'Gorman, the moralist. He departed wrapped in a virtuous
silence. He did not dare let the others know the actual worry that
rode his soul. He knew it was only a matter of time when Billy Wingo
would be camping on his trail too. Lord, how he'd been fooled! He had
never suspected that the sheriff possessed such capabilities. And how
had the sheriff learned of that flour deal between Rafe and the Indian
agent. The flour supposed to have been bought through another man.
Rafe had not appeared in the affair at all, yet Billy Wingo knew all
about it.
And the bribe taken by the district attorney. There was another odd
chance. Besides the two principals, Rafe Tuckleton and himself, Tip
had not supposed that any one knew of the matter. It was very
mysterious.
Tip could have kicked himself. He alone was the individual responsible
for the whole trouble. If only he had not proposed the election of
Billy Wingo-- But he had proposed it, and now look at the result!
"Say, Bill," said the greatly impressed Riley Tyler on the way to the
office, "what's this about that deal of Rafe's with the Indian agent?
You never said anything about it before."
"Good reason," grinned Billy, "it just occurred to me."
"Occurred to you?" puzzled Riley.
"Yeah, I don't actually know of any deal between Rafe and that thief of
an agent; but knowing Rafe and knowing the agent, I guessed likely they
had been mixed up together in a business way. Seems I guessed right.
Same with the district attorney, only easier. If he's taken one bribe,
he's taken forty. Wouldn't be Arthur Rale if he hadn't."
Riley Tyler chuckled. "Poker is one fine game," said Riley Tyler.
At the office they found Shotgun Shillman.
"What luck?" asked Billy.
"Plenty," was the reply. "We went to the Cayley cabin first. Nobody
livin' there. Ashes in the fireplace might have been a week or a month
old. But the balsam tips in the bunks were older than that. They were
last summer's cutting--all stiffer than a porcupine's quills."
"As I remember that cabin," reflected Billy, "the balsam grew all
around it."
"They still do. We found a quarter of beef hanging on a stub back of
the house. 'There,' says Simon, 'there's proof for you.' 'Yes,' I
says, 'let's see the cow it came off of.' 'Whatsa use?' says Simon.
"'Lots,' I says. 'C'mon.' He did reluctant, bellowing alla time how
we'd oughta follow the tracks leading away from the house toward the
Hillsville trail a mile away."
"Were those tracks made by one man?" inquired Billy.
"Looked so to me--anyway, we went along on the line of tracks leading
to the dead cow. It had been shot all right enough. It oughta been
shot. It had big-jaw."
"'You mean to tell me them fellers cut that quarter off a big-jaw cow?'
I says to Simon. 'Sure,' he says. 'Aw right,' I says. 'Let it go at
that.' I poked around to find the other cow. Simon raising objections
alla time to me wastin' so much time and trying to get me off the
trail. Oh, he didn't care a whoop about me finding the second cow.
Wasn't one enough? Oh, sure, to hear him talk! But I found the cow.
It hadn't been shot a-tall. Died of the yallers last fall. And it had
just about half rotted before freezing weather set in. 'I suppose,' I
says sarcastic, 'both cows were killed about the same time.' 'You've
guessed it,' says Simon, bold as brass. 'Now all you gotta do is chase
right along back to the cabin and take up the trail like I wanted you
to do in the first place and trail 'em down.' He acted real
disappointed when I left him standin' there and came away. I'd have
arrested him right then only you said not to."
"Good enough," approved Billy. "Plenty of time to arrest him later. I
want to give him plenty of rope. One of these days I'll get a subpoena
from Judge Donelson and serve it on him. That'll give him plenty of
time to think things over between now and the trial."
"Simon ain't the kind to take things easy," mused Shotgun Shillman.
"He'll fret his head off. About the time Slike is well enough to stand
prosecution, Simon Reelfoot will be ready to bust."
But the well-known best-laid plans are more breakable than the equally
well-known best-laid eggs.