"Go on and arrest her. I"ll back you up."
"Will you?" Absolutely no enthusiasm on the part of the marshal.
"G"on! What are you waiting for?" barked the exasperated district attorney.
"I"m waiting for her to put up her gun," was the truthful reply.
"What you afraid of? She won"t shoot. She"s only bluffing, I tell you."
"You arrest her then. I ain"t none sure I got a right to. I"m only supposed to make arrests in town. You better get one of the deputies to arrest her, Arthur, I--I"d rather you would."
The marshal oozed outdoors. The district attorney said something.
"No more of that," Sam Larder enjoined him. "You stop your cussin", you hear. There"s ladies present."
"Where?" the district attorney demanded, staring about him insolently.
"My father will ask you what you mean by that," said Sally Jane.
"I didn"t mean you," mumbled the angry man, perceiving that he had gone a little too far. "I--I was a li"l hasty, I guess. No offense, ladies, I hope."
He achieved a clumsy bow and again faced Hazel. "Now, look here, you can"t go on acting this way, you know. You"re only hurting your own case. Be reasonable, be reasonable."
"And let you poke all through my house!" she snapped him up. "Not much. I don"t want any trouble, but I"ll have to shoot the first man that goes beyond this room."
"Told you you"d get her all stirred up," said Sam Larder.
"We didn"t want you to come along anyway, Rale," contributed Felix Craft. "You"re too buffle-headed for any human use. Y"oughta take things more easy with the girl. If you"d left it to us, everything would have been all right."
"I suppose busting in with your guns pulled is one way of taking it easy."
"I notice you had yours out," supplied Felix.
"I thought the man might be here, same as you," defended the district attorney.
"Which is why you let us go first," sneered Sam.
"When you"re quite through bickering among yourselves--" drawled Hazel.
"I wish you"d point that rifle somewhere else," the district attorney remarked uneasily.
"It"s all right where it is," was the instant return.
"I could arrest you, you know, if I wanted to," he pointed out.
"I heard you say something like that to the marshal," nodded Hazel.
The district attorney stared a moment.
"Huh!" he muttered finally and strode to the door. "Hey, Red!" he called. "Come here a minute, will you?"
"Now I ain"t gonna arrest her for you and that"s flat!" announced a sulky voice without.
"n.o.body"s asking you to. Come in, man, come in."
The marshal sidled in, stumbling in his efforts to keep one eye on the district attorney and the other on Hazel"s Winchester.
"You were in Nate Samson"s store this morning, weren"t you, Red?" It was more of a statement than a question.
The marshal immediately gave the district attorney the full benefit of both eyes. "Huh?"
"You were there when this girl, Miss Walton, made some purchases, weren"t you?"
"Yeah," admitted the marshal.
"When Nate told her of the murder and the warrant sworn out again Bill Wingo, what did she do?"
"Why--" stuttered the marshal.
"She flew into a rage, didn"t she? She threw a knife at Nate, didn"t she?"
"Who told you all this?" the marshal wished to know.
"Nate told me."
"d.a.m.n Nate, that"s all I got to say," p.r.o.nounced the marshal, disgusted at the duplicity of a former friend. "I was wonderin" where you got the notion so sudden of coming out here. d.a.m.n that-- Excuse me, Miss, for cussin". What"s that you want to know, Rale? Yes, I was there and she slung a knife at Nate. With any luck she"d had hit him and serve him right, the flat-tongued snitch."
"There now," exclaimed the triumphant district attorney, "you hear that, Miss Walton? You drove into town the morning after the murder.
When you are told of the murder and the warrant, you fly into a pa.s.sion and try to kill the inoffensive storekeeper who told you the news. Not content with this, you throw what you"ve already bought at the storekeeper and make your purchases at the other store. I have learned that among the purchases were twelve boxes of .45-90 rifle cartridges and six boxes of .45 caliber Colt cartridges. I have reason to believe that these cartridges are not intended for your personal use. In fact, I am positive you bought them for the murderer, William H. Wingo."
The marshal glanced quickly at the district attorney. He himself had not been aware of the ammunition item. The marshal inwardly cursed the district attorney and Nate Samson.
"Well," boomed the district attorney, when Hazel did not instantly speak, "what have you to say?"
"Plenty," said she then. "I bought those cartridges for my personal use. This Winchester is a .45-90 and my six-shooter is a .45. I guess I"ve got a right to buy ammunition now and then if I like."
"Rats!" snarled the district attorney, stiff in his conceit. "What does a girl want with two hundred and forty rifle cartridges and three hundred revolver cartridges? Those revolver cartridges especially?
You won"t have use for "em in ten years. You bought them for Bill Wingo. You can"t fool me! You know where he is, you know you do, and I know you do, and I intend to put you in jail as a suspicious character until you tell us where he is."
"What a filthy animal you are, anyway, Rale! I didn"t know such things as you lived!" Thus Sally Jane, her upper lip fairly, curling with disgust.
"When I get back to Golden Bar, Miss Walton," fumed the district attorney, unmoved by the insult, "I intend to swear out a warrant for your arrest, and have it served by deputy sheriffs. If necessary, I shall swear in deputies other than the two men, Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler, for the purpose of serving this warrant. I intend to have the law obeyed."
"She ain"t busted any law that I can see," struck in Sam Larder gruffly.
Neither he nor Felix Craft had intended to go as far as an actual arrest of the girl. They were bad enough, in all conscience, but they drew the line somewhere.
Felix Craft shook his head. "No arrest, Arthur. That don"t go."