Even the judge smiled.

Dan Slike, lying on an improvised bed of blankets in the corner of the room, raised his head. "You'll never hang me, y'understand," said Dan Slike. "And you ain't got a jail in the territory big enough to hold me after I get shut of these scratches. I'll see you later, Sheriff."

Dan Slike added a curse or two and relapsed into silence. Not a likable person, Mr. Slike. No, not at all.

"This," said Rafe Tuckleton, "is a h.e.l.luva note."

"It's all your fault," the district attorney recriminated bitterly.

"You did most of it," flung back Rafe, always an enthusiastic player at the great game of pa.s.sing the buck. "You know d.a.m.n well----"

"Who thought of it first?" interrupted the district attorney. "Who was the bright li'l feller, I'd like to know?"

"Don't you try to ride me," snarled the genial Rafe. "Dontcha do it."

"Aw, shut up; you gimme a pain! Gawd, and I'll bet your parents thought you was just too cunnin' for anything. It's a shame they let you live. To think of all the fatal accidents that might have happened to you, and didn't, almost makes a feller lose his faith in Providence.

'Oh, yes,' says you, 'Wingo will walk into the trap with his eyes shut.

It'll be just too easy.'"

"Well, the first part worked all right," protested Rafe Tuckleton.

"Dan downed Walton without any trouble. How could I tell Driver would slip up on his part? I'm glad Slike downed him. Served him right for being a fool. Reelfoot did his part all right, too."

"How do we know Reelfoot did? How do we know what happened before the fraycas at Walton's? We don't. We don't know anything except that Tom Driver is dead, Dan Slike wounded in the calaboose, and Skinny Shindle has skedaddled."

"Skinny tell any one where he was goin'?"

"He did not. Soon as he heard that infernal Bill Wingo had pulled through without a hole in him, Skinny saddled his horse and went some'ers else a-whoopin'. And I don't think he expects to come back.

Oh, it's a fine mix-up all round, a fine mix-up."

"Sh-sh," cautioned Rafe. "Somebody coming--oh, it's you, Tip. 'Lo."

"Yeah, it's me, Tip," said O'Gorman, closing the door carefully and sitting down on the only vacant chair. "Look here, Rafe, what did I tell you about downing Tom Walton?"

"I ain't downed Tom Walton," denied Rafe sullenly.

"You had it done," insisted O'Gorman.

"How do you know I did?" dodged Rafe.

"By the way it was gormed up."

"I suppose now if you'd planned it----"

"I wouldn't have planned it in the first place. I told you to keep your paws off, and now look at the d.a.m.n thing."

"It wasn't my fault," barked back Rafe.

"Can't you say anything different?" the district attorney threw in drearily.

"You don't even seem able to obey orders any more," said Tip O'Gorman.

"I don't have to take orders from you," flared up Rafe.

"No, you don't have to. n.o.body has to do anything they don't want to.

But we've decided, Rafe, that hereafter you sit on the tail-board. You don't pick up the lines again, see."

"Who's we?" demanded Rafe.

"Craft, Larder and myself."

"You can't do anything!" Contemptuously.

"No? For one thing, we can keep you from shipping so much as a single cow."

"How?"

"Our ranges surround you on three sides, and where we don't fit in, the mountains do. You can't drive through the mountains, and we won't let you drive through us. That's how."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, it's root, hog, or die, feller. You gonna be good?"

"I--I suppose so."

"Good enough. One slip on your part and you know what happens, Rafe.

Bear it in mind, and it'll be money in your pocket."

"You talk like a minister."

"I wish I was one, preaching the funeral sermon over your grave. Lord, what a stinking skunk you are, Rafe!"

"Look here----"

"Blah! You are a skunk. So crazy after money you had to go and hurt li'l Hazel Walton. d.a.m.n your soul, I told you not to do anything to hurt her! And you bulled right ahead! You lousy packrat, you've broken that child's heart! She thought the world and all of her uncle, she did. I tell you, Rafe, you ain't fit to drink with a Digger or eat with a dog!"

"I ain't gonna fight with you," declared Rafe Tuckleton.

"I was hoping you would," averred Tip. "There'd be one tom-fool less to worry about if you did."

"No, I can wait," said Rafe with a feline grin.

"Oh, I'll be watching you, you rattle-snake," nodded Tip.

"Go easy, you two!" snapped the district attorney, as a dog in the next room began to bark. "There's somebody comin' up the path."

The squabble went dead.