Behind the corral of Guerilla Melody, at the tip end of Golden Bar,
Main Street, a small spring bubbled to life amid rocks. It was the
custom of Guerilla Melody to slip out to this spring for a long cool
drink of fresh water each night before going to bed.
On the night of the first of April, Guerilla, having spent a short but
profitable poker evening with several friends in a saloon, reached the
spring at eleven o'clock.
"I thought you were never coming," announced a peevish voice from the
black shadow of a large rock. "I've been waiting here since nine
o'clock."
"You talk much louder, Bill," said Guerilla calmly, "and you'll wait
here a while longer--say about twenty years longer or fifteen, if the
judge feels good-natured. Man alive, ain't you got _any_ sense?"
"I was lonesome," Billy excused himself. "I've got to talk to
somebody. And anyway, a feller hardly ever gets more'n ten years for a
hold-up where nobody's killed."
"But where somebody is killed the penalty is worth considerin',"
pointed out Guerilla Melody. "And Tip O'Gorman was found yesterday
morning lying on the floor of his front room dead as Julius Caesar, with
your quirt beside him, and your snakeskin hatband inside the door."
"Tip killed! Tip!"
"Yes, Tip, and on account of the quirt and the hatband there's a
warrant issued for you for the murder, and two posses are out looking
for you."
"I saw them," said Billy placidly. "I thought it was on account of the
stage hold-up. And they think I downed Tip?"
"Half the town's sure you did, and half is sure you didn't, and the
other half is straddlin' the fence."
"That makes three halves," Billy said dryly. "Golden Bar must have
considerably increased in population since I left."
"You know what I mean," snapped Guerilla, irritated at what he chose to
consider callous flippancy on the part of his friend. "And Tip ain't
the only one cashed. Rafe Tuckleton passed out last night."
"How?"
"Throat cut, head cut, and three knife cuts through his heart. Hazel
Walton is in jail charged with the job."
Billy Wingo stiffened where he sat. Hazel Walton in jail! For an
instant he couldn't realize it. His fingers closed on Guerilla's
forearm.
Guerilla jerked away the arm. "You don't need to cut my arm in two,"
he remonstrated, tenderly fingering the member in question. "I didn't
have nothing to do with it. Lord A'mighty, Bill, I'll bet you squeezed
a muscle out of place."
"My mistake," apologized Billy. "I forgot myself for a minute."
"Then I don't want to be around when you remember yourself. I----"
"What evidence is there against Hazel?" Billy cut in sharply.
"In the first place there's the knife that killed Rafe," said Guerilla,
seating himself beside his friend in the shadow of the rock. "Butcher
knife with T.W. on the handle that Hazel admitted was hers when they
showed it to her. But she said Dan Slike had taken the knife--stuck it
in his boot when he left. Then there was Rafe's own gun which Hazel
had lying on her kitchen table, showing he'd been there. She admitted
that too, but said he'd attacked her, and she'd managed to get hold of
his gun after the clock fell on him, and drive him out."
"Rafe attacked her, huh? And she drove him out?" Billy leaned back
against the rock in order to steady his shaking body. When he spoke,
he found some difficulty in keeping his voice down. "_He attacked her
and she drove him out_! Then what in hell is she arrested
for--defending herself?"
"Now, listen, Bill, you know me. I believe anything that girl says, no
matter what. But there are some other people harder to convince. The
district attorney, and he's got a good many others stringing their
chips with his, says how this story of Rafe's attacking her ain't true.
That Rafe wouldn't hurt her on a bet, because he liked her too much.
And to back that up, here's Rafe's foreman, Jonesy, steps up and swears
Rafe told him he was going to see Hazel last night and ask her to marry
him. Hazel says Rafe was drunk when he came to see her, and Jonesy
says he wasn't. So there's that."
"Weren't there any tracks round Rafe's body to show----"
"You know yourself there was a li'l freeze last night and the ground
stiffened up some, and I guess the district attorney and the three
others who found Rafe were so flustered they walked all over the ground
round Rafe and wiped out every sign there was."
"Who was with the district attorney?"
Guerilla told him and resumed the thread of his discourse. "When the
district attorney and the other witnesses examined the Walton premises,
they found plenty of evidence that there'd been a fight, and they found
a lot of supplies gone, cartridges, grub and such, Hazel had bought in
town the morning before."
"Is that all?" asked Billy when Guerilla paused.
"Lemme get my breath," Guerilla begged indignantly. "The whole
business is so tangled and mixed up it's hard to tell it straight. No,
it ain't all. The district attorney says those supplies were bought
for you and they were taken by you. Hazel's ridin' horse, the one used
to be her uncle's, that's gone too--with you."
"If Rale thinks I was at Hazel's, it's reasonable to assume I might
have had a hand in killin' Rafe my own self. That goes double for Dan
Slike, seeing he had the knife last."
"It's reasonable all right enough, but then you and Dan Slike ain't
noways available, and Hazel is right handy. Rale admits you might have
done it, and he keeps yawpin' the evidence is strong against Hazel, and
he would be false to his oath of office if he didn't put her in jail."
"False to his oath of office! Rale!"
"Yeah, ain't it a joke?" contemptuously.
"But how did Slike get hold of the butcher knife, that's what I want to
know? He didn't have it on him when I arrested him last January."
"That's the damndest part of the whole deal, Bill. Hazel says Dan
Slike came to her place before Rafe did, and it was him took the
supplies and her horse and her hat and that very same butcher knife
which gave Rafe his come-uppance. Slike beat her almost senseless too,
she said."
Billy Wingo looked up at the stars. His lips moved. But no sound
issued. After a moment he said, in an oddly dead tone of voice, "How
did Slike escape?"
"Far as anybody can tell, he made him a key somehow and unlocked the
jail door and walked out. Anyway, Riley Tyler found the door open
yesterday afternoon and Dan's cell empty. And the district attorney
lost a horse and saddle."
"The district attorney, huh?"
"The district attorney."
"It was to some people's interests to have Dan Slike escape," Billy
said musingly.
"You bet it was, and I'm gamblin' somebody let him out all right,
but--well, I dunno. Anyway, Rale, he led the posse that trailed Slike,
him and Felix Craft. Nobody could have been more energetic than those
two."
"If they were so energetic and there was any kind of a trail, which
there should have been, because it was a warm afternoon, it's queer
they didn't run up on Slike at Hazel's."
"That's the funny part of it. The trail led in the opposite direction
toward Jacksboro. The posse followed it clear to the West Fork of the
Wagonjack, where they lost it on the rocky ground on the other side."
"Slike might have doubled back."
Guerilla Melody shook his head. "Not without gettin' caught--if he
rode to the West Fork first. Besides, Hazel says he came to her house
a li'l after sunset, and he escaped, near as we can figure out, between
three and four. So you see he'd never have had time to make it to
Walton's from the West Fork by sunset."
"Did Hazel say how long he stayed?"
"About an hour."
"An hour! Then Slike knew he wasn't being followed. He never went to
the West Fork a-tall."
Guerilla nodded a grave head. "I never was sure he did, especially
after Shotgun Shillman told me when he got back that the tracks they
followed to the West Fork looked a damsight older than they had a right
to, always supposin' they were made that afternoon. Oh, you can't
blame Shotgun, Bill, or Riley either. The district attorney was in
charge of the posse, and him and Felix and the rest of his friends said
it was the wind a-blowing so hard made the tracks look old. And there
was a tearin' breeze, worse luck."
"Do you know somethin', Guerilla? It wouldn't surprise me a whole lot
to find out the district attorney his own self made that trail to the
Wagonjack."
"It would surprise me if you _found it out_. You ain't catchin' him so
easy. Not that feller."
"Leave it to me. And he provided Slike with the horse too. You'll
see."
"I'm sure hoping I do. I'd like nothing better than to see Art Rale
stretching the kinks out of a new rope."
"Stranger things have happened. I guess I'd better go see the district
attorney."
Guerilla Melody chuckled as one does at a pleasantry.
"I mean it," pronounced Billy. "He needs a li'l straight talk, and
he's going to get it prompt and soon. Luckily he likes fresh air."
"Fresh air?" puzzled Guerilla.
"Leaves his window partly open at night," explained Billy. "Which
being so, I'll be out of luck if I can't creep in and give him the
surprise of his life."
"He may not have gone to sleep yet. I'll find out."
Before Billy could stay him, Guerilla was gone. Fifteen minutes later
he returned.
"He's abed, snoring like a circular saw working on a knotty log,"
Guerilla informed him. "But there's a light in the kitchen."
"That means his housekeeper's up--probably settin' bread for to-morrow.
Ain't she quite a friend of yours, Guerilla?"