CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
JONESY'S ULTIMATUM
"You can't tell me that infernal Bill Wingo ain't at the bottom of all this business!" snarled Felix Craft. "Guerilla Melody and that Dawson friend of his didn't get Slike by themselves any more than I did. I tell you flat, Bill Wingo was the boss of that job. He was the brains, and you can't tell me different."
"And there was a time when we thought Bill didn't have any brains," Sam Larder grieved bitterly.
"I didn't," avowed the district attorney. "I always knew——"
"Oh, you!" interrupted Felix with a sneer. "You know it all, you do. You know so much, maybe you'll explain why Reelfoot says you told him Tip O'Gorman was gonna tangle him up in the Walton murder and that the easiest way was for him to down Tip."
"He says Rafe Tuckleton told him that," corrected the district attorney.
"He says you did too," accused Sam Larder. "What did you tell him a thing like that for?"
"Reelfoot's a liar," declared the district attorney. "I never told him anything of the kind. Why should I?"
"I don't know. I'd like to find out." The fat man's stare was bright with suspicion.
The district attorney bristled. "Good Lord, man, I was always friendly with Tip."
"You were friendlier with Rafe Tuckleton," pointed out Felix, "and we all know Tip didn't have any use for Rafe after that Walton deal, and Rafe knew it."
"It's just possible," put in Sam Larder, "that Rafe put Reelfoot up to downing Tip."
"In which case," supplemented Felix, "you bein' so friendly with Rafe, it would be natural for you to help him."
"Next thing you'll be saying I killed Tip." Thus the district attorney with sarcasm.
"No, because that wouldn't be true. I know you didn't kill him. But I'm not sure you aren't an accessory before and after the fact."
The district attorney went pale. But he made no attempt to go after his gun. Not against Felix Craft. Not now at any rate. "I'll settle this with you later," he began. "I——"
"You'll never settle anything with anybody," Felix flung the insult with contempt.
"We'll gain nothing by fighting among ourselves," went on the district attorney evenly. "If we don't stick together, we'll hang together, and you can gamble on that. If Slike talks——"
"He'll implicate you and Tuckleton," Larder chipped in swiftly. "We're out of that proposition."
"But we all aided him to escape from jail, so we are all guilty of felony. If Slike should choose to blat about it—" The district attorney left the remainder of the sentence to his comrades' imagination.
"He's right," said Sam Larder suddenly. "We've got to stick together."
"All right," Felix Craft said grudgingly, "I'll wait until we're out of this muss before I ask you any more questions about egging Reelfoot to down Tip O'Gorman, Rale. Afterward I'll get the truth out of you if I have to choke you to death first. Oh, you needn't show your teeth at me, feller. You won't bite."
The district attorney swallowed hard. "You'll find your suspicion is baseless, Felix, baseless and unjust. I had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Tip O'Gorman. Whoever told you——"
"Nobody told me anything. I——"
"Let it go for now," broke in Sam Larder. "We've got to think of our skins. And if we don't catch Bill Wingo, they'll be gone skins."
"You bet they will," said the district attorney. "That man at large is a menace. He'd bushwhack any or all of us three without a moment's hesitation. He's—he's capable of anything."
"I know he's capable of anything," Sam Larder said with deep feeling, thinking of Billy's escape from the Larder ranch house. "And I'd give a good deal to know he was two feet underground. But Gawd knows we can't do more than we have done to catch him. Felix and me have ridden ourselves bowlegged combin' the Medicines for him."
"You bet we have," agreed Felix. "There ain't a square foot of those mountains we don't know intimate. Speaking personal, I've ridden—" He paused and looked across at Sam Larder. "That bet was I'd ride more than six hundred miles in sixty days. Remember, Sam? And the sixty days ain't up yet, and I've ridden more than six hundred already."
"What bet's that?" asked the district attorney chattily, anxious to reëstablish friendly relations. "Who you bettin' with?"
"Nobody you're interested in," parried Felix Craft, it having been thought better to keep the district attorney in the dark regarding the happenings at the Larder ranch house on the day of the stage hold-up.
"I'll go the limit we've covered a thousand miles," groaned Sam. "I've lost thirty pounds myself. I don't believe Bill ever went near the Medicines."
"Oh, he went there, all right," said the district attorney. "Take my word——"
A pounding on the office door cut the sentence in half.
"You are certainly jumpy this evening, Rale," Felix Craft said dryly. "Open the door. Maybe it's our friend Bill."
The district attorney obeyed with caution. Not that he expected Billy. But then, he did not quite know what to expect. That it would be something to trouble him he was positive. He was not disappointed. It was a trio of the Tuckleton outfit, to wit, the foreman, Jonesy, and two punchers, Ben Shanklin and Tim Mullin. All three were in the worst of tempers.
"Look here, Rale," Jonesy began without preliminary, "you've fooled with us long enough, and we're sick of it."
"We want action," rapped out Ben Shanklin.
"You can't come any of this high and mighty stuff over me," said the district attorney, with an eye that flickered in spite of himself. "I don't know what you're talking about, but if you want anything, you'll have to ask for it in the right way, and maybe you'll get it and maybe you won't."
"Is that so?" fleered Jonesy. "We'll see about that. What have you done in Rafe's case?"
"We hope to land the murderer very soon. We have several clues. We——"
Jonesy banged his fist down on the table with a force that made the windows dance. "Shut up! You and your 'we's!' Rafe's murderer is that damn niece of Walton's, and you know it. You had her in the jug and you turned her loose. The evidence was insufficient to hold her on, you said. You said at that time you had evidence against Bill Wingo and expected to catch him soon. You haven't caught him, and we want to know what the evidence against him is. What is it? C'mon! Spit it out!"
"Now look here," temporized the district attorney, "I can't tell you——"
"You bet you can't," interrupted the angry Shanklin. "'Cause why?' Cause you haven't any evidence against him! The only evidence you've got is against Hazel Walton, and you've got enough of that to put her over the jumps."
"Lemme do the talkin', Ben," directed Jonesy. "Look here, Rale, either you tell us what evidence you got against Bill Wingo, or you issue a warrant for Hazel Walton's arrest. One or the other. Take your choice."
"Say, are you friends of Bill Wingo?" demanded the district attorney.
"You know better than that," snapped back Jonesy. "It's just that we're gonna know what's what."
"But what good will it do to rearrest Hazel Walton?"
"Then you haven't any evidence against Bill Wingo?" persisted Jonesy.
"I didn't say that. I——"
"If you can't tell us what the evidence is, we'll take it you haven't any. I knew there was some trick in it when you turned Hazel loose. You and your evidence against Bill Wingo! You lousy liar, you gotta get up early in the morning to pile us! You listen to me! You issue a warrant for that girl's arrest immediate!"
"I can't," denied the district attorney. "I haven't the power to issue warrants. No justice of the peace has yet been appointed to fill Driver's place, and the nearest judge is Donelson at Hillsville."
"Under the law," horned in Felix Craft, suddenly choosing his side, "when a felony has been committed, and there is reasonable cause for believing that the person to be arrested has committed it, that person may be arrested without a warrant."
"I thought you didn't want anything to happen to Hazel Walton," fleered the district attorney.
"I don't want her hurt, that's all. I haven't any objection to her being tried for the murder of Tuckleton. But I ain't going to have you haze her around. Understand?"
"There y'are," said Jonesy. "You don't need a warrant for the girl. All you have to do is to give your orders to Shotgun and Riley. They'll do the rest."
"But after turning her loose thisaway—" began the thoroughly frightened district attorney.
"You can rearrest her and have her tried on that butcher-knife evidence," insisted the stubborn Jonesy. "Just going by what she says herself, there's enough to fix her clock twice over. You dump her, Rale, and dump her quick."
"Or we'll fix your clock," inserted Tim Mullin.
The hapless district attorney cast his distressed gaze this way and that. But every eye that met his either was unfriendly or wrathfully hostile. Certainly there was no help for him in that room. The district attorney shuddered. He knew Jonesy and the rest of the Tuckleton outfit; knew, too, if he did not do as these men of violence demanded, that they would make him hard to find. On the other hand, if he obeyed them, Bill Wingo would as surely kill him. The district attorney shuddered again.
"What you shivering about?" demanded the sarcastic Tim Mullin.
The district attorney squared his afflicted shoulders and did the obvious,—chose the more remote of the two evils. "I'll send Shotgun and Tyler to Prescott's to-morrow," he said, rose to his feet and,—the door flew open, and, Jerry Fern, wild-eyed with liquor, stumbled into the room. The stage driver rolled straight to Felix Craft and pawed him. "Fuf-felix," he babbled, "I wan' shush-shome mon-money."
The furious Felix shook him off. But Jerry Fern was nothing if not persistent. He returned with bellowings.
The grinning faces of Guerilla Melody, Johnny Dawson, Shotgun and Riley looked in through the open doorway.
"Come along, Jerry," called Guerilla. "We been hunting you all over."
Jerry Fern was not in the least interested in coming along. He had another and very definite end in view. "Fuf-felix, gug-gimme shome mum-money!"
Felix bit off a curse. "Look here, Jerry," he said soothingly, patting the hysterical drunkard on the back, "you go home and sleep it off. You don't want to go whoppin' round this way at your age."
The district attorney, Jonesy and his two punchers stared. This was another Felix. The Felix they knew would have knocked the sot down.
"I wuh-wuh-wan' shush-shome mum-money," gargled Jerry, even as Billy's four friends pushed in through the open doorway.
"You come along with me," urged Felix, gently propelling Jerry toward the street.
Jerry braced his feet mulewise. "I wuh-won't! I wuh-won't! I wuh-wan' mum-money you promised me."
"I didn't promise you a nickel," said Felix, wrestling with his emotions. "But come along, and I'll give you some money if you're hard up."
"Huh-how much?"
"Plenty. I'll give you what you deserve." There was cream and butter in the gambler's voice, but there was grisly menace in his restless eyes.
"Gug-guve mum-me more than you gug-gave bub-before?"
"Yes, yes. C'mon!"
"Wuh-want mum-money now!" yelped the contumacious Jerry, "or I'll pup-put you in jail!"
At which Felix lost his patience and his head and gave Jerry the bum's rush through the doorway. Jerry skidded across the sidewalk and slid a yard on his nose. This annoyed him considerably. He sat up, supporting himself on a wavering elbow and squalled, "Yuh-you nun-needn't thuh-think I'm gug-gonna lul-lie for you nun-no longer! If you dud-don't gug-gimme plenty mum-money, I'm gug-gonna tell folks how yuh-you huh-held up the sush-stage yourself all dressed up in Bill Wingo's clothes sho you cuc-could throw the bub-blame on him!"
Most certainly then the gambler would have put a bullet through Jerry Fern had not Shotgun Shillman and Riley Tyler been too quick for him.
"Now, now, Felix, calm down," suggested Shotgun.
"He's a liar!" foamed Felix, struggling to jerk his gun arm free. "I never held up the stage! Bill Wingo did it himself! Ask Sam Larder!"
"Was Sam there, too?" said Riley, with fresh interest. "Here, Sam, wait a minute. What's your hurry?"
"Got to see a man," mumbled Sam. "Be right back."
"Stay a while," invited Riley Tyler.
Sam Larder regarded the muzzle of Riley's gun. "All right," said Sam Larder.
"Felix," said Shotgun Shillman, "I don't want to plug you."
Felix Craft took the hint.
Johnny Dawson went out into the street and returned with Jerry Fern, who had forgotten his grievance against Felix Craft and wished only to sleep.
Shotgun Shillman looked at the district attorney. "Rale, this sort of puts a crimp in the notion that Bill Wingo held up the stage."
"It looks like it," admitted the district attorney, fumbling the papers on his desk. "Of course, we'll have to do some more investigating first."
"Before any investigating is done, we want Hazel Walton arrested," tucked in the malevolent Jonesy.
"All right! All right!" snarled the badgered Rale. "I'll have her arrested first thing in the morning."