"Milk of human kindness has curdled in him complete," declared Felix.
"Never you mind about any milk of human kindness. I ain't got a
smidgin of it with a girl like Hazel Walton, the lying hussy."
"Do you know, Arthur," said Sam solemnly, "I don't believe you like
that lady."
"I don't," admitted the district attorney, and wondered why both men
laughed.
"Be a Scotchman," advised Sam Larder, "and give her the benefit of the
doubt."
"I'd like to give her a good swift week or two in jail," snarled the
district attorney. "That would bring her to her senses. That would
make her talk."
"Well, you can't do it," said Felix, weary of the argument. "So why
waste your breath?"
"Tell you what I can do," said the district attorney, brightening with
hope. "I can go out to Walton's and question her some more."
"Good Gawd, ain't you had enough ridin' for one day?" said Sam.
"I'm good for a li'l bit more."
Felix laughed. "I had to laugh to-day. First time you ever went out
with a posse, I guess. Guess they must have thought you were crazy."
"I know damwell Shotgun and Riley Tyler thought so," declared Sam.
"They kept a-looking at you almighty hard."
The district attorney nodded. "They're a suspicious pair, those two.
I'll give you fellers credit. If it hadn't been for you, I'd never
have been able to bluff it through! I don't think anybody suspects
anything out of the way."
"Only that you're a damfool, Arthur. And they don't suspect that.
They're absolutely sure of it."
"Alla same," said Felix, "it's a good thing Sam Prescott wasn't along.
It would have been just like him to make out those tracks we followed
were a day old instead of one hour."
"I was worried some," admitted the district attorney, "when Shotgun
Shillman said they were too old to be the marks of Dan Slike's horse."
"That didn't bother me," declared Felix. "I knew it would be all right
if we could contradict him fast enough and loud enough before anybody
else could agree with him. Folks are like sheep thataway. They'll
most always believe the boys makin' the most noise. No, Shotgun didn't
bother me any. What made me feel like scratching my head was where the
tracks crossed the stage trail. There were the hoof-marks and
wheeltracks of the stage overlying the horse-tracks we were following.
I drew a long breath when I had 'em blotted out, you can gamble on
that."
"Was that why you rode ahead and twisted your horse round and round on
the trail so funny?"
"Sure that was why. Why else do you suppose?"
"I never thought of the stage passing," said the district attorney.
"No, you wouldn't, of course not. I don't see, Arthur, when you made
those tracks so careful in the first place you couldn't have kept off
the stage trail. It wasn't necessary, and it mighty near put the
kibosh on the whole deal."
"I wanted to end the trail in the west fork of the Wagonjack," defended
the district attorney. "It seemed like a good place."
"It was--only for the stage trail being in the way," said Felix warmly.
"If that infernal Wildcat Simms had come up half-a-minute earlier he'd
seen how those horse tracks lay, same as I did. Oh, lovely! Wouldn't
it have been a joke?"
"Well, it ended all right, anyway," offered the district attorney
pacifically.
"I didn't like to have that Slike jigger get off that-away," grumbled
Sam Larder. "I'd like to see him hung, the lousy murderer! I wish we
could have worked it some other way."
"There wasn't any other way," the district attorney hastened to assure
him. "We couldn't risk having Slike tried. He'd have snitched on Rafe
Tuckleton, sure as fate. It was the only thing for us to do, and you
know it."
Sam nodded. "I know, but----" He left the sentence unfinished.
"Now that we've got Dan out of the way," the district attorney pattered
on, "we've got to glom onto Bill Wingo, and the sooner the quicker.
Me, I'm going out to Walton's to-night and question Hazel some more.
You boys don't have to go, you know. I can get hold of somebody, I
guess."
"We'll go," said Sam Larder decidedly. "I ain't a heap attracted by
your methods with the ladies, and I intend to see the girl gets a
square deal."
"Me too," chimed in Felix Craft.
The district attorney was none too well pleased and showed it. "I'll
get two other jiggers then," he grumbled.
"Why not another posse?" suggested the sarcastic Mr. Larder. "Us three
might not be able to handle her by ourselves."
"Suppose Bill Wingo is there, then what? We took a big bunch before
and----"
"And got damwell laughed at by the whole town for our trouble," snapped
Sam. "Serves us right. Wild goose chase, anyway, and to-night will be
another. C'mon, if you're goin'."
The moon was high in the heavens when the three men came to the mouth
of the draw leading to the Walton ranch. A quarter-mile up this draw
they came upon a man standing beside a horse. This man they surrounded
immediately. He proved to be the town marshal, Red Herring, engaged in
the prosaic business of tightening a slipped cinch.
"What are you doing here," demanded the district attorney.
"Same thing you're doing," the marshal returned sulkily.
"It ain't necessary for you to be watching the Walton ranch," said the
crotchety district attorney.
"I got as much right to the reward as the next one, I guess," flared
the marshal. "If I wanna watch the ranch, I guess I got a right to do
that too. You don't want to cherish any idea that you own the earth
and me too, Artie Rale!"
"Well, you can ride along with us if you want to," condescended the
district attorney.
"Thanks," said the marshal, with sarcasm, "I kind of thought I would,
anyway."
Two hundred yards short of the bend in the draw that concealed the
ranchhouse from view the district attorney's horse which was leading,
snorted at something that lay across his path, and shied with great
vigor, coming within a red hair of throwing the district attorney off
on his ear.
The district attorney swore and jerked the animal back. Then he
dismounted hurriedly and ran forward to view at close range the object
that had startled the horse.
The three others pulled up and followed his example.
"My Gawd!" shrilled the district attorney. "It's Rafe Tuckleton!"
It was indeed Rafe Tuckleton. There he lay on his back, his legs and
arms spread-eagled abroad, his body displaying the flattened appearance
a corpse assumes for the first few hours after death. Rafe's throat
had been slit from ear to ear. His head was cut open and lay in a pool
of blood. His face was scored with scratches. There was blood on his
coat and vest and shirt, they found on examination. The district
attorney ripped open the shirt and found four distinct stab wounds in
the region of Rafe's heart. From one of these wounds protruded the
broken end of a broad-bladed knife.
"Pull it out," urged Sam Larder, with a slight shudder, his fat face so
white that it showed green in the moonlight.
"I can't," said the district attorney. "Jammed in between his ribs, I
guess. That's what busted her. See if you can find the handle, Red."
"There it is," pointed out the marshal. "Right by his elbow."
"Oh, yeah," said the district attorney, picking up the knife handle.
From force of habit he fitted the broken part of the knife remaining
attached to the handle to the part protruding from the wound. Of
course they fitted perfectly.
The marshal ran his hand along Rafe's naked waist. Then he lifted one
of Rafe's arms and let it go. The arm snapped stiffly back into
position.
"Been dead about two hours," proffered the marshal.
"About that," agreed Felix. "What you lookin' at, Arthur?"
"This," replied the district attorney, holding up the handle of the
butcher knife.
With his fingers he traced two initials on the wood. The initials were
T.W.
"You can't tell me," said the district attorney belligerently, "that
this butcher knife didn't come from the Walton ranch."
Sam Larder stated his belief at once. "She couldn't have done it,
Arthur. Why Rafe's carved up like an issue steer. She----"
"She's a woman," interrupted the district attorney. "And a woman will
do anything when her dander is up. And we know what this particular
woman will do when she's mad. Didn't she try to split open Nate
Samson's head when he was hardly more than joking with her? Didn't she
throw down on us with a rifle without any excuse a-tall? I tell you
this Hazel Walton is a murderess, and I'm going to see her hung."
"Are you?" said Felix Craft. "Seems to me you've overlooked a bet.
Didn't we run across Red Herring at the end of the draw?"
"Now look here, Craft," cried the marshal. "You can't hook this
killing up with me! I can prove I was in Golden Bar an hour ago. I
can get people to swear I was."
The district attorney nodded. "Red's innocent of this, all right. He
couldn't have done it. It wouldn't be reasonable. He always was
friendly with Rafe, and this was a grudge killing. It couldn't have
been robbery, because nothing of Rafe's was stolen; watch, money, it's
all here. It's Hazel Walton, and you can stick a pin in that. C'mon,
let's go."