John Wesley Pringle, limp, slack, and rumpled in his chair, yawned, stretching his arms wide.

"This man Foy," he ventured amiably, "if he really run away, he done a wise little stunt for himself, I think. Because every little ever and anon, thin sc.r.a.ps of talk float in from your cookfire in the yard--and there's a heap of it about ropes and lynching, for instance. If he hasn't run away yet, he'd better--and I'll tell him so if I see him.

Stubby, red-faced, spindlin', thickset, jolly little man, ain't he?

Heavy-complected, broad-shouldered, dark blond, very tall and slender, weighs about a hundred and ninety, with a pale skin and a hollow-cheeked, plump, serious face?"

At this ill-timed and unthinkable levity Breslin stared in bewilderment; Lisner glared, gripping his fist convulsively; and Mr.

Ben Creagan, an uneasy third inquisitor, breathed hard through his nose. Anastacio Barela, the fourth and last inquisitor, maintained unmoved the disinterested att.i.tude he had held since the interrogation began. Feet crossed, he lounged in his chair, graceful, silent, smoking, listening, idly observant of wall and ceiling.

No answer being forthcoming to his query Pringle launched another:

"Speaking of faces, Creagan, old sport, what's happened to you and your nose? You look like someone had spread you on the minutes." He eyed Creagan with solicitous interest.

Mr. Creagan's battered face betrayed emotion. Pringle's shameless mendacity shocked him. But it was Creagan's sorry plight that he must affect never to have seen this insolent Pringle before. The sheriff's face mottled with wrath. Pringle reflected swiftly: The sheriff's rage hinted strongly that he was in Creagan's confidence and hence was no stranger to last night's mishap at the hotel; their silence proclaimed their treacherous intent.

On the other hand, these two, if not the others, knew very well that Pringle had left town with Foy and had probably stayed with him; that the Major must know all that Foy and Pringle knew. Evidently, Pringle decided, these two, at least, could expect no direct information from their persistent questionings; what they hoped for was unconscious betrayal by some slip of the tongue. As for young Breslin, Pringle had long since sized him up for what the Major knew him to be--a good-hearted, right-meaning simpleton. In the indifferent-seeming Anastacio, Pringle recognized an unknown quant.i.ty.

That, for a certainty, Christopher Foy had not killed Marr, was a positive bit of knowledge which Pringle shared only with the murderer himself and with that murderer's accomplices, if any. So much was plain, and Pringle felt a curiosity, perhaps pardonable, as to who the murderer really was.

Duty and inclination thus happily wedded, Pringle set himself to goad ferret-eyed Creagan and the heavy-jawed sheriff into unwise speech.

And inattentive Anastacio had a shrewd surmise at Pringle's design.

He knew nothing of the fight at the Gadsden House, but he sensed an unexplained tension--and he knew his chief.

"And this man, too--what about him?" said Breslin, regarding Pringle with a puzzled face. "Granted that the Major might have a motive for shielding Foy--he may even believe Foy to be innocent--why should this stranger put himself in danger for Foy?"

"Here, now--none of that!" said Pringle with some asperity. "I may be a stranger to you, but I'm an old friend of the Major's. I'm his guest, eating his grub and drinking his baccy; if he sees fit to tell any lies I back him up, of course. Haven't you got any principle at all? What do you think I am?"

"I know what you are," said the sheriff. "You're a d.a.m.ned liar!"

"An amateur only," said Pringle modestly. "I never take money for it."

He put by a wisp of his frosted hair, the better to scrutinize, with insulting slowness, the sheriff's savage face. "Your ears are very large!" he murmured at last. "And red!"

The sheriff leaped up.

"You insolent cur-dog!" he roared.

"To stand and be still to the Birken'ead drill is a dam' tough bullet to chew,'" quoted Pringle evenly. "But he done it--old Pringle--John Wesley Pringle--liar and cur-dog too! We'll discuss the cur-dog later.

Now, about the liar. You're mighty certain, seems to me. Why? How do you know I'm lying? For I am lying--I'll not deceive you. I'm lying; you know I'm lying; I know that you know I'm lying: and you apprehend clearly that I am aware that you are cognizant of the fact that I am fully a.s.sured that you know I am lying. Just like that! What a very peculiar set of happenstances! I am a nervous woman and this makes my head go round!"

"The worst day's work you ever did for yourself," said the angry sheriff, "was when you b.u.t.ted into this business."

"Yes, yes; go on. Was this to-day or yesterday--at the hotel?"

"Liar!" roared Lisner. "You never were at the Gadsden House."

"Who said I was?"

The words cracked like a whiplash. Simultaneously Pringle's tilted chair came down to its four legs and Pringle sat poised, his weight on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, ready for a spring. The sheriff paused midway of a step; his mottled face grew ashen. A gurgle very like a smothered chuckle came from Anastacio. Creagan flung himself into the breach.

"Aw, Matt, let's have the girl in here. We can't get nothing from these stiff-necked idiots."

"Might as well," agreed Lisner in a tone that tried to be contemptuous but trembled. "We're wasting time here."

"Lisner," said the Major in his gentlest tone, "be well advised and leave my daughter be."

"And if I don't?" sneered Lisner. He had no real desire to question Stella, but welcomed the change of venue as a diversion from his late indiscretion. "If, in the performance of my duty, I put a few civil questions to Miss Vorhis--in the presence of her father, mind you--then what?"

"But you won't!" said the Major softly.

"Do you know, Sheriff, I think the Major has the right idea?" said Pringle. "We won't bother the young lady."

"Who's going to stop me?"

Anastacio, in his turn, brought his chair to the floor, at the same time unclasping his hands from behind his head.

"I'll do that little thing, Sheriff," he announced mildly. "Miss Vorhis has already told us that she has not seen Foy since yesterday noon. That is quite sufficient."

Silence.

"This makes me fidgety. Somebody say something, quick--anything!"

begged Pringle. "All right, then; I will. Let's go back--we've dropped a st.i.tch. That goes about me being a liar and a d.a.m.ned one, Sheriff; but I'm hurt to have you think I'm a cur-dog. You're the sheriff, doin' your duty, as you so aptly observed. And you've done took my gun away. But if bein' a cur-dog should happen to vex me--honest, Sheriff, I'm that sensitive that I'll tell you now--not hissing or gritting or gnashing my teeth--just telling you--the first time I meet you in a strictly private and unofficial way I'm goin' to remold you closer to my heart's desire!"

"You brazen hussy! You know you lied!"

"You're still harpin' on that, Sheriff? That doesn't make it any easier to be a cur-dog. How did you know I lied? You say so, mighty positive--but what are your reasons? Why don't you tell your a.s.sociates? There is an honest man in this room. I am not sure there are not two--"

Anastacio's eyes again removed themselves from the ceiling.

"If you mean me--and somehow I am quite clear as to that--"

"I mean Mr. Breslin."

"Oh, him--of course!" said Anastacio in a shocked voice. "Breslin, by all means, for the one you were sure of. But the second man, the one you had hopes of--who should that be but me? I thank you. I am touched. I am myself indifferent honest, as Shakespere puts it."

The sheriff licked his dry lips.

"If you think I am going to stay here to be insulted--"

"You are!" taunted John Wesley Pringle. "You'll stay right here. What?

Leave me here to tell what I have to say to an honest man and a half?

Impossible! You'll not let me out of your sight."

"My amateur Ananias," interrupted Anastacio dispa.s.sionately, "you are, unintentionally, perhaps, doing me half of a grave injustice. In this particular instance--for this day and date only--I am as pure as a new-mown hay. To prevent all misapprehension let me say now that I never thought Foy killed d.i.c.k Marr."

"In heaven's name, why?" demanded Breslin.

"My honest but thick-skulled friend, let me put in my oar," implored the Major. "Let me show you that Matt Lisner never thought Foy was guilty. Foy said last night, before the killing, that he was coming up here, didn't he?"

"Hey, Major--hold up!" cried Pringle. But Vorhis was not to be stopped.