The Rider of Golden Bar Part 27

"You'd better trust me," rumbled Tip.

"Be reasonable, Tip. You ask for trust and you give me a stone."

"A stone?"

"What else is three to five thousand bucks, I'd like to know. I'm no child, man. I've got my growth, and I've put away childish things, including all-day suckers."

"You must take me for one."

"Not you, not in a million years. But--" Mr. Wingo paused and looked up at the ceiling. His lips moved. He muttered of figures and sums.

Tip O'Gorman awaited his pleasure. What else was there to do?

"I think between nine and ten thousand is nearer the correct amount for li'l me," Billy said at last.

"What?" screeched Tip, fairly jarred off his balance at last.

Billy made his position plain. "Say ten thousand in round numbers."

"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 bra.s.s collars in Crocker County, and you wear more bra.s.s 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.

h.e.l.ls bells, what do you think you are?"

"A stranger in a strange land. d.a.m.n 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.

Mr. O'Gorman shook his bullet head. "No, I got other fish to fry."

He got up heavily and began to pull on his overcoat.

When he was gone, Billy Wingo crossed the room unhurriedly and barred the door. He threw a quick glance at the blankets nailed across the windows ostensibly to keep out the drafts. All tight. No one could look in.

"All right, boys," he said in a conversational tone. "You can come out now."

The door of an inner room opened. Two men emerged. One was a long, lean citizen with a long, lean face barred by a heavy grizzled mustache. The other was shorter, of equally lean build, and considerably younger. The older man was Shotgun Shillman, the younger was Riley Tyler.