"To go out with a gun till I get them; the way your own Mounted Police do up in Canada! I'm going to quit monkeying with technicalities in the twilight zone . . . and go out . . . after the man."
The old Britisher sat thinking: "Wayland, if A was managing this thing, first thing A'd do would be blow such a blast on your local press, the authorities would have to sit up, then—A'd go after your sheriff if A had to tackle the coward by the scruff of his scurvy neck, A'd make him ashamed . . . not . . . to act."
"All right, Sir! Manage this thing . . . manage it just as you would behind your hide-bound British laws! We'll pass the Senator's ranch in ten minutes. You can telephone down to 'The Smelter City Herald.' I'll get something ready to eat while you telephone. Then, we'll go right along to the sheriff."
They kicked their ponies lightly into a trot and came to the Senator's k'raal before the noon hour. Two or three of the ranch hands loitered casually out to the road. All were in blue over-alls and shirt sleeves but one; and he was in knickerbockers.
"That's the foreman, ask him!"
"'Twould oblige me t' have the use of your telephone?"
The man in the knickerbockers tilted his hat at a rakish angle, stuck a tooth-pick in the corner of his mouth, put his thumbs in his jacket arm holes, shot Wayland a quick look of questioning, grinned at the old man and nodded towards a white pergola standing apart from the veranda of the ranch house.
"Find it there," he indicated, "drop a nickel—then, ring!"
"Did you see that look?" gritted the old Britisher between his teeth, as the fellow sauntered away with elaborate indifference.
"Yes, but looks don't go with a jury."