"Not for licking him. That was all right. But I searched him and let him hide out a butcher knife on me in his bootleg--_in his bootleg_."

"That handle was down inside the leather. You couldn't see it. I didn't."

"I should have found it alla same," fretted Billy. "There's no excuse for such carelessness--none."

He went across to where he had thrown the knife and picked it up. He caught his breath. On the handle of the butcher knife the letters TW were cut deep into the wood.

When, for the second time that day, Slike recovered consciousness, Billy showed him the butcher knife.

"How many butcher knives did you take from Walton's?" he demanded.

"One," replied Slike.

"And is this the one?"

"Sure it is. Why not?"

"Why, h.e.l.ls bells!" exclaimed Billy, "then you didn't kill Rafe Tuckleton."

"First I knew he was dead," Slike said thoughtfully. "As a rule, I don't kill my customers," he added, with a grin rendered more horrible by his battered and b.l.o.o.d.y features. "I can't afford to. Maybe you killed him yourself. How about it? Aw, right! Go to h.e.l.l then! And I want to say right here you tied my arms and legs too tight! There ain't no feelin' in any of 'em!"

Billy paid Slike no further attention. His brain seemed to find it difficult to function. "She said he only took one knife," he told himself stupidly and sat down to think it over.

He had caught Slike. But he was no nearer the solution of the Tuckleton murder than he was in the beginning. His theory that Slike had killed Tuckleton was smashed to smithereens by the discovery of the Walton butcher knife in Slike's bootleg. Unless Slike had taken two knives. But Slike had not taken two knives. According to Hazel's testimony, he had taken only one.

It was then that Billy suddenly realized that he should have known better in the first place than to connect Slike with the murder of Tuckleton. Dan Slike was too experienced a longhorn to leave incriminating evidence behind him if he could help it. And if he had killed Tuckleton, he would at least have taken away the handle of the knife. But the handle had been left beside the body for any one to pick up. Manifestly, then, it had been left there with the design to throw suspicion upon a person other than the murderer,--for instance, a person intimately connected with the Walton ranch.

Obviously the Tuckleton murder and the O'Gorman murder were parallel cases. In both, clues had been left to manufacture circ.u.mstantial evidence against the wrong person. While it did not necessarily follow that the same brain and hands had planned and carried out both murders, yet the point was worth considering. For it was absolutely necessary to lay at least Tuckleton's murderer by the heels. There were no two ways about that. Because if he were not caught, it would only be a matter of time before Rale, by reason of his peculiar temperament, would recover from his fright, decide to risk the wrath to come, and once more turn the cold light of suspicion upon Hazel Walton. And that would entail her arrest sooner or later. Indeed, to Billy Wingo the future bore the appearance of a mighty boggy ford.

Mechanically he began to play mumbletypeg with the butcher knife--palm of hand, back of hand, right fist, left fist, and had progressed as far as his left pinky in the movement known as off fingers of each hand when he sat back and stared at the knife quivering in the turf. He thought he saw a gleam of light. The very fact of the two knives, each a match of the other, was as obvious a contrariety as any that ever delighted the soul of Mr. William Noy. Attaching to the demise of Rafe Tuckleton was another contrariety, several others in fact. Billy checked off the various contrarieties on his fingers. The gleam of light became a ray, the ray broadened to the bright light of complete understanding.

He hugged his knees and smiled the pleasant self-satisfied smile of the proverbial cat that has just received the canary into its midst. "I got him! I got him where the hair is short. It's one complete cinch."

Early one morning several days later the sheriff _pro tem._ of Crocker County was roused by rappings on the office door. Being an experienced man, Shotgun Shillman did not open the front door. He went round the back way with his gun in his hand. But his caution was needless. For, on circling the house, he found no one at the front door but Dan Slike--a hatless Dan Slike flat on his back in the dust, tied hand and foot, and with a gag in his mouth. Looped around Dan's ankles was one end of a lariat. At the other end of the lariat stood Hazel Walton's riding horse.

Later in the day Guerilla Melody called on Nate Samson, asked the storekeeper several apparently aimless questions and leafed through the cutlery pages of Nate's hardware catalogue. Still later in the day Johnny Dawson rode out of Golden Bar. Only two people besides himself knew that he was bound for the railroad and a telegraph line.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CONTRARIETIES

"There's a lot of this stuff I don't understand," said Guerilla Melody the day after Dawson's return from the railroad. "Why did Conley go south? Reelfoot and he were almighty friendly. Got drunk together and everything. And Conley ain't committed any crime round here that I know of."

"I'm betting he did, alla same," said Billy. "Or else why was he so particular to tell those TU boys he was from Arizona? Folks don't hide where they come from without a reason. We know there have been two murders committed here by unknown murderers. It never occurred to me till you said Conley hadn't committed any crime that you know of that maybe--" He left the sentence unfinished.

Guerilla looked bewildered. "What did Conley have against Tip?"

"I don't know," said Billy. "But I intend to find out."

"That's the trick," chipped in Dawson. "In cases like this it pays to dig into the innards of everything you don't understand. You're almost sure to find out somethin'."

"Maybe friend Simon can tell us somethin'," Billy said. "Let's go.

It'll be sunrise in two hours."

Simon Reelfoot, riding the range that day, met a horseman who said he was strayman for the Wagonwheel outfit north of the West Fork. Did Simon know where Park Valley was? Simon knew, and gave the strayman minute directions.

"Shucks," said the strayman, "I can't carry all that in my head.

Here's a envelope and a pencil. Make a li'l map like, will you?"

Simon was not an adept with the pencil. To use either it or a pen required the most perfect concentration and his tongue in his cheek.

Wondering greatly at the strayman's claimed inability to remember a few simple landmarks, Simon took the pencil and envelope and bent over his saddle horn.

"Here," he said, after three minutes' work, holding out the envelope, "This ought to fix you up."

To this horror, the well-known voice of Billy Wingo at his back concurred readily. "It ought to," said Billy Wingo. "We're obliged to you, Simon. Kindly clasp your hands over your hat."

The envelope and pencil fell to the ground as Simon obeyed. The strayman dismounted and picked them up.

"You oughtn't to have given him that envelope," Billy admonished the strayman. "It has the confession in it. You got to be more careful."

"I will," said the strayman humbly, and tucked the envelope into his pocket.

Simon stirred uneasily on his saddle. Confession! Whose confession?

He recalled that there had been several folded sheets of paper in the envelope. Of course, Simon could not know that these sheets were white,--innocent of either handwriting or printing. But Simon's conscience was a helpful little thing. And Simon's mind was p.r.o.ne to jump at conclusions.

"I'll just take your gun, Simon," murmured Billy. "I don't think you'd do anything reckless, but you might. Slide off easy. That's it. You look kind of bewildered, Simon. Don't know how I got here, do you?

Easy, like eatin' pie. While you were hard at work with your pencil, Guerilla and I were tippytoeing out of that stand of timber behind us a ways. You shouldn't be so trusting of strangers, feller. _Keep your paws up_! Just because I've felt you all over and haven't found an extra gun or knife doesn't signify you can do as you please. You stand right still and steady. Johnny, let's have that envelope. My friend will watch you, Simon, while I glance over this."

Billy took the envelope, fingered out the sheets of paper and unfolded them. His lip moved as he solemnly looked them over. It was apparent to Reelfoot that he was refreshing his memory.

"Simon," Billy said, glancing up suddenly, "why did Conley go South?"

Simon's leathery face a.s.sumed a richly jaundiced hue. "I--I dunno!"

"Yes, you do," Billy insisted, striking the sheets of paper with his fist. "We found Conley. He was working for the TU when he died."

Simon's face went even yellower. "I told him not to go," muttered Simon Reelfoot.

"Conley talked before he died," said Billy. "He told me some interesting things about himself--and you. We've got you dead to rights, Simon." Here Billy stuffed the sheets of paper into his trousers pocket and gripped Simon by the throat. "You d.a.m.ned murderer, what did you kill him for?"

At the fierce clutch of Billy's fingers, Simon's shaking legs refused to uphold him longer. He fell on his knees. "I--I didn't kill him!"

he spluttered. "He was dead when----"

"You lie! You killed him! Conley said so! You tried to throw the blame on me by leaving behind--" Billy's voice trailed off into silence.

"That was Conley's idea!" screamed the panicky Reelfoot. "He got the hatband and quirt one day when n.o.body was in the office. I didn't have anything to do with it! Conley shot him, too!"