The Rider of Golden Bar Part 75

"Yeah, Hazel! I'd say Hazel, I would. I should think her name _would_ stick in your craw!"

"Well, never mind about that. I fixed it once to turn her loose, but here this Jonesy comes squallin' for her scalp to-night, and I had to promise to have her arrested to-morrow. What else could I do?"

"Just as if you wanted it any other way! Why, I'll bet you even fixed it with Jonesy to raise a roar so that you'd get this second chance at her. What did that li'l girl ever do to you? Not that I give a d.a.m.n--just between friends."

"She cost me some money, if you want to know," snarled the district attorney, who saw red every time he thought of the two thousand dollars he had been taxed by Billy Wingo for Hazel's benefit. "And anybody that costs me money will pay for what they get. Look here," he added with an abrupt change of subject, "how did you find out Bill was still in this county?"

Jack Murray gripped the district attorney's wrist. "Do you know where he is?"

Rale shook off the restraining hand. "I don't know exactly where he is," he said coldly, "but I'm reasonably sure he's round here somewhere. Good Gawd, man, don't you suppose if I knew where he was, I'd have him dumped so quick his hair would curl?"

Jack Murray nodded. "He's round here all right, unless he's gone north beyond the West Fork. I cut his trail at Dorothy."

"Was he there?"

"Considerable. Yeah, him and another feller were there. Between 'em they caught Slike."

"Were you with Slike?"

"Not at the time he was caught, I wasn't. But a while before that I met him in Shadyside and I told him what Skinny Shindle wrote about the Horseshoe outfit needin' gunfighters. Slike, he didn't want to leave the country yet, anyway, and we decided to throw in with the Horseshoe a spell."

"But how did Bill----"

"Trailed us, I suppose. First thing I knew, here we found Skinny dead as Julius Caesar alongside Fenley's Creek, and Slike he'd disappeared complete. There'd been a brush, and Shindle and a TU puncher had cashed."

"And where were you during the--brush?"

"I was on the other side of the range with a couple of the Horseshoe bunch payin' a visit to a nester. If I'd been with Slike and Skinny, the deal would have turned out different, and you can stick a pin in that."

"Yes, you'd have been downed or dumped too."

"Meanin' you wished I had been."

"I didn't say so," the district attorney hastened to a.s.sure him.

"You don't always have to say so," said Jack Murray, with heavy suspicion. "I'm reading you like a page of big print, you lizard!"

The district attorney forced a laugh. "You're too clever for me, Jack.

Look here, what makes you think it was Bill Wingo caught Slike?"

"Because no posses from here went south so far, and because if anybody else but Bill had caught him, he'd either have been killed outright or brought into Dorothy or Marquis, and there'd have been a big time.

Instead of that, there wasn't a peep. So it must have been Bill, see?"

"I see. And you're going to get this Bill?"

"You've got the idea,"

"And you trailed him here?"

"I didn't have to. I knew he'd bring Slike to Golden Bar, so I came along the shortest way. It'll be quite a joke on you, this Slike business. Will he snitch, do you think?"

"He'd better not."

"You frown at him thataway, and you'll scare him to death, Art. He's one timid fawn, that Slike person."

"He'll be----"

"Never mind what he'll be, Art. That's his business, and yours. I didn't come here to help Slike. I came here to get Bill and help yours truly. I want some money."

"I told you I haven't any."

"But you can get it."

"I told you folks want security."

"That will do to tell somebody else besides me. I've got my growth and cut most all my teeth a long time since. You'll have to raise some money--say about fifteen hundred."

"You might as well make it fifteen thousand."

"Maybe I will. Thousand sounds kind of good. Say about three of 'em.

Three thousand dollars, Art, and I'll let you alone a while."

"But I tell you----"

"And I tell you that if you don't, that same identical note with a written account of what I know goes to Judge Donelson."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Think I wouldn't? You don't know me, feller. When it comes to money, I'm the most daring cuss you ever saw. That's me, Jack Murray. Three thousand dollars, Artie, or you'll wish you'd never been born."

"I can't raise it," the district attorney insisted despairingly.

"I kind of thought you'd stick to that poverty squeal," smiled Jack Murray, fishing a folded paper from a shirt pocket. "So I took care before I came here to write down what I know about this li'l deal. I thought you might like to see how interestin' it all looks on paper.

Hang your eyes over it, feller. Never mind s.n.a.t.c.hin' at it! I'll hold it for you to read. See, there's my name signed to it all complete.

How do you like it, huh? Gives you a thrill, don't it? I'll bet it will give Judge Donelson two thrills. And as an evidence of good faith, to show you I still got it safe, here's your note for that five thousand. It will go with the letter to the judge--unless you listen to reason and raise the three thousand-- What's that?"

"That" was a rapping on the kitchen door.

"Go in the bedroom," whispered the district attorney with a very pale face. "You can slide out one of the windows, if I have to let him in."

"I'll go in the bedroom," Jack Murray whispered back, with a chilling smile, "but I ain't sliding out of any windows--not until you and I have come to an agreement about that money. I'll stick right there in the bedroom, Mister Man, right there where I can keep an eye on you.

Now go see what's wanted."

"You don't think I've stacked the cards on you, do you?" grunted the district attorney.

"I don't," replied Jack Murray. "Not while I've got that note and the Donelson letter in my pocket, you bet I don't. I ain't worryin' a mite, not me. Run along now, there's a good boy. Papa will be right in the next room."

Thus adjured, the district attorney ran along. Yet not without heart-thumping misgivings. For his was a fearful soul that night. A great deal had happened to upset him.