The Rider of Golden Bar Part 16

"Would you mind repeating all that?" said Billy, when Ben had rejoined the group at Rafe's back. "I didn't catch some of it."

Tuckleton glared, his little eyes hot with rage. "I said that man's a cow thief and we're gonna stretch him!"

"But you said that at first," pointed out Billy. "And I said 'no'

then. I haven't changed my mind."

"Since when have you been dry-nursing rustlers?" snarled Rafe.

"I don't know he's a rustler."

"I said he was, didn't I?"

"You said so, sure. But you might be mistaken."

"I don't make mistakes like that. And, anyway, all my boys here saw him branding that calf."

"We sure did," corroborated Jonesy. "Feller had a fire all lit, and was heating a running-iron when we jumped him."

"Did the calf have its mammy along?" was Billy's next question.

No one answered. Billy, however, did not remove his eyes from Rafe's face. The pause was becoming almost embarra.s.sing when the five Tuckletonions made reply with a rush. Two of them said "Yes," and the other three said "No."

"There seems to be a difference of opinion," said Billy. "Don't you know whether the cow was along?"

"She wasn't along," declared Jonesy, sticking to his original a.s.sertion.

"But Rafe said she was," said Billy.

"I made a mistake," Rafe hastened to a.s.sure him.

Billy nodded in triumph. "Then you do make mistakes. I always knew you did. Funny how you and Jonesy saw things so different and all.

Ben didn't see any cow either, and Tim Mullen and Lake did."

"Maybe I made a mistake too," said Lake sullenly, taking his cue from his employer.

"How about you, Tim?" persisted the questioner.

Tim looked furtively from his employer to his foreman and back again before answering.

"Speak up, Tim," directed Billy, "speak up. You did or you didn't.

Yes or no?"

"Maybe I made a mistake," was Tim Mullen's final decision.

"They seem to have come over to your point of view, Jonesy," Billy observed dryly. "How about you? Did you make a mistake too?"

But Jonesy was not to be caught. "The cow wasn't along. I oughta know."

"You don't need to be so fierce about it. I was just askin' questions.

If this feller had a fire and was heating a running-iron, I suppose he had a calf handy."

"I said we caught him _with_ a calf," insisted Rafe Tuckleton.

"That's right, so you did. Was the calf hog-tied?"

"Naturally."

"And when you saw this stranger and jumped him, I suppose you came boiling along right after him?"

"Sure did." Thus Rafe Tuckleton.

"None of you stopped anywhere, huh?"

"Why, no, of course not. It wouldn't be reasonable, would it, if we were chasin' him, to get off and fiddle around?"

"No, it wouldn't be reasonable," admitted Billy. "Then if none of you got off to turn the calf loose, the calf must still be there--calf, fire and running-iron?"

Rafe looked a little blank at this. So did the others. Jonesy was the first to recover his spirits.

"Unless somebody else turned it loose," suggested Jonesy brightly.

"But the fire and running-iron will still be there."

"Of course they will," Rafe Tuckleton declared heartily. "Of course they will. But it just occurs to me that this man may have had a friend with him we didn't see. And that hog-tied calf and fire and running-iron--that last may have been a cinch ring, Bill--are evidence that'll hang this man. Jonesy, suppose now you ride back to the fork of that split draw south of Saddle Hill, where we saw this man's fire, and see that n.o.body destroys the evidence before we get there. Ben, I think you'd better go with Jonesy."

"No," said Billy decidedly. "Jonesy and Ben will stay right here."

"Remember," called Riley, "that this Greener is double-barreled."

"But see here--" Rafe began desperately.

"No see about it," interrupted Billy. "You'll all stay right here with us till Tom Walton gets here."

"But suppose somebody destroys the evidence," worried Rafe.

"I don't guess they'll destroy all of it," said Billy cheerfully. "You see, Rafe, we want to go with you to the fork of that split draw south of Saddle Hill."

Rafe's blazing eyes were fairly murderous. His men muttered behind him. But they made no hostile move. They realized that Rafe would never forgive them if they did. He would not be able to.

In the meantime Hazel had been alternately bathing the senseless one's forehead and dribbling drops of whisky between his teeth.

"He's coming round," she said suddenly.

The man opened his eyes, groaned, grunted, and sat up. He blinked his eyes rapidly several times and smiled pleasantly at Hazel.

"That was a jolt I got," said he. "Is there whisky in the bottle?"

He took a long and healthy pull, drove in the cork with the heel of his hand, wiped his lips and then seemed to see Rafe Tuckleton and his men for the first time.