"Well, if you will bring dust in with you, you must expect to be swept out," Polly replied, with a show of spirit.

Polly was shaking the mat vigorously at the door when Slim said:

"I see they buried Poker Bill this mornin'."

"Is HE dead?" It was the first Polly had heard of the pa.s.sing away of one of the characters of the Territory. She had expressed her surprise in the of an interrogation, emphasizing the "he," a colloquialism of the Southwest.

Slim, however, had chosen to ignore the manner of speech, and with a grin answered: "Ye-es, that's why they buried him."

Polly laughed in spite of herself. "What did he die of?" she asked.

As Slim was about to take a drink at the olla, he failed to hear her.

"Eh?" he grunted.

"What did he die of?" she repeated.

"Five aces," was the sober reply of the Sheriff, before he drained the gourd.

Polly put the broom back of the door, and was rearranging the articles on the table, before Slim could muster up enough courage to speak on the topic which was always uppermost in his mind when in her presence.

"Say, Miss Polly," he began.

"If you've anything to say to me, Slim Hoover, just say it--I can't be bothered to-day--all the fixin's and things," saucily advised the girl.

"Well, what I want to say is--" began the Sheriff.

At this moment Bud Lane, laboring under heavy excitement, burst open the door.

"Say, Slim, you're wanted down at the corral," he cried, paying no heed to Polly.

"Shucks!" exclaimed the disappointed Sheriff. "What's the row?"

"I don't know--Buck McKee--he's there with some of the Lazy K outfit.

They want to see you."

Slim threw himself out the door with the mild expletive: "Darn the luck!"

Bud turned quickly to Polly. "Did Jack pay off the mortgage last week?" he almost shouted at the girl.

Polly stamped her foot in anger at what seemed to her to be a totally irrelevant question to the love-making she expected: "How do I know?"

she angrily replied. "If that is all you came to see me for, you can go and ask him. It makes me so dog-gone mad!"

Polly, with flushed face and knitted brow, left the bewildered Bud standing in the center of the room, asking himself what it was all about.

The sound of the voices of disputing men floated in from the corral.

Bud heard them, and comprehended its significance.

"It's all up with me," he cried, in mortal terror. "Buck McKee has stirred up the suspicion against Jack Payson. Jack paid off his mortgage, and they wanted to know where he raised the money. Well, Jack can tell. If he can't, I'll confess the whole business. I won't let him suffer for me. Buck sha'n't let an innocent man hang for what we've done."

The sound of footsteps on the piazza and the opening of the door drove Bud to take refuge in an adjoining room, where he could overhear all that was happening. He closed the door as the cow-punchers entered with Slim at their head.

CHAPTER XI

Accusation and Confession

Buck McKee had not been idle in the days following the slaying of 'Ole Man' Terrill. Having learned that Slim and his posse had discovered only the fact that the murderer had ridden a pacing horse to the ford, McKee took full advantage of this fact. In the cow-camps, the barrooms, and at the railroad-station he hinted, at first, that a certain person every one knew could tell a lot more about the death of the old man than he cared to have known. After a few days he began to bring the name of Payson into the conversation. His gossip became rumor, and then common report. When it became known that Jack had paid off the mortgage on his ranch, Buck came out with the accusation that Payson was the murderer. Finding that he was listened to, Buck made the direct charge that Payson had killed the station-agent, and with the proceeds of the robbery was paying off his old debts.

Gathering his own men about him, and being joined by the idle hangers-on, which are to be found about every town, Buck lead his party to the ranch on the Sweet.w.a.ter to accuse Jack, and so throw off, in advance, any suspicions which might attach to himself.

Fortunately, Slim happened to be at Jack's ranch at the time. When he entered the corral he found Jack's accusers and defenders rapidly nearing a battle.

Jack was taking the charges coolly enough, as he did not know what support McKee had manufactured to uphold the charges he made. Slim informed McKee he would listen to what he had to say, and if afterward he thought Jack guilty, he would place him under arrest. For all concerned it would be better to go into the house. The Sweet.w.a.ter boys surrounded Jack as they followed Slim into the living-room. Lining up in opposing groups, Slim stood in the center to serve as judge and jury, with Buck and Jack at his right and left hand.

Inside the door Jack said: "Keep as quiet as you can, boys. I don't want to alarm my wife. Now what is it?"

The punchers hushed their discussion of the charge, and listened attentively to what the men most interested had to say.

"Well, darn it all," apologized the Sheriff to Jack, "it's all darn fool business, anyway. Buck here he started it."

Jack smiled sarcastically, and, glancing at McKee, remarked: "Buck McKee's started a good many things in his day--"

Buck began to bl.u.s.ter. He could not face Jack fairly. Already placed on the defense, when he had considered he would be the accuser, McKee took refuge in the plea of being wronged by false suspicion.

"I ain't goin'," he whined, "to have folks suspicion me of any such doin's as the killin' of 'Ole Man' Terrill. I got a witness to prove I wasn't in twenty miles of the place."

"Who's your witness?" asked Slim, in his most judicial tones.

"Bud Lane--me an' him rode over to the weddin' together--from the Lazy K, an' I was put out as not fittin' to be there, an' by that very man there that did the killin'."

The punchers had to grin, in spite of the seriousness of the occasion.

Buck appeared to be deeply hurt at the unceremonious way he had been left out at the feast.

"What makes you point to me as the man?" asked Jack quietly.

"You was late gettin' to your own weddin'."

Fresno could not repress his feelings any longer. He started angrily toward McKee, but Jack and Sage-brush held him back. The others were about to follow his lead, when Slim motioned them back with the caution: "Keep out of this, boys!"

"I was late," explained Jack, "but I told you I rode around to the station to get a wedding-present I ordered for my wife--"

Jim interrupted him to substantiate the statement. Pointing to a chair, he said: "That's so. There it is, too--that there chair."

The Sweet.w.a.ter outfit nodded in acquiescence, but the others looked incredulous.

Buck sneered at the defense which Jack made. "n.o.body saw you over that way, did they?"