"How's that? I been awn the anxious seat all night, Lark, worryin' about Bud and that damn' gold of Palmer's. Aw, he can't hear. I've got him tied to the bed back in another room. And the coon's only about half there. Go awn, Lark. I'm achin' to know what happened."
"That's jest the trouble, Jelly. Nothin' atall happened. Kid, he sided in with Bud and said if Butch had come over here and robbed Palmer's cache he'd turn him over to the sheriff himself. Bud thinks he meant it, but I dunno. Butch didn't have nothin' on his saddle but his slicker, and he give Bud the laugh. That's about all there was to it, fur as I could make out. Bud, he come shackin' along home about three this morning, et everything in sight and packed off what's left to feed Bob with.
"Bob stayed out in the hills. They got the idee they can back-track Butch and find out where he cached the stuff. But I dunno—like lookin' fer a needle in a haystack, to my notion. My Jonah, what a mess! How'd you bust yore rib, Jelly? Bud said you'd done it, but he never said how. Gimme some facts, fer gosh sake!"
By the time Gelle had told all he knew, had heard or surmised, Delkin, Bradley, the sheriff and the coroner came walking up from the pasture, still arguing. They greeted Lark, then drifted back to the subject of the two dead men. The sheriff sensed the work of a third man there, but the others insisted that the killing had been an impromptu duel, the coroner holding that the position in which the men lay had no bearing upon that point, since death was not instantaneous in either case and both had evidently staggered a few feet before falling.
"Kinda funny they'd both be facin' the same way—toward that ledge where you folks got your money," the sheriff pointed out, with a stubborn tilt to his chin. "If they went down fightin' each other, wouldn't they be likely to fall facin' each other? They hadn't started to run, neither of 'em. Looks to me like they both went down shootin' at somebody up on that ledge. You can think what yuh please about it—that's what I think."
"There couldn't have been anybody on the ledge," Delkin stated positively. "Bud Larkin was with us; Jelly, here, was at the house with a broken rib; Palmer and the old man were tied up in the bedroom and the coon was here in the kitchen. The four Meadowlark boys had left town ten minutes behind the two Palmer men, and not more than five minutes ahead of us. They heard the shooting as they rode up. The four will swear that Jelly and the coon were here at the house—and as a matter of fact, the rest of us arrived so soon after the shooting that it would have been physically impossible for these two to get back up here."
"Well," retorted the sheriff, quickly, "are these all the men there is in the world, Mr. Delkin?"
"All that could possibly have known anything about what was on the ledge. Bud Larkin found the money and came straight in after us, leaving Jelly to guard the old man that works here. We came right back, got the money and took it on in to town, still leaving Jelly on guard out here. He brought his prisoner to the house—a very wise thing to do, I may say—and so was here when Palmer came, and while capturing him he broke a rib, as you know. You can ask the doctor here whether he would be able, with that broken rib, to run from the pasture up here in, say, one minute."
"Couldn't have done it without a broken rib," stated the coroner, expectorating a generous amount of tobacco juice. "They shot each other. No reason why they shouldn't, is there? They were both after the money, and each man wanted to get there first. Be funny if they didn't fight over it. Guess we better hold an inquest and thrash this thing out before a jury. How soon can you get a jury together, Stilson?" The coroner must have been out of humor with the sheriff, because usually he addressed him familiarly as Jim.
"Hour, maybe. That quick enough? You get your witnesses together, and a few facts to show, and I'll have the jury ready to listen to 'em quick enough to ketch 'em before they melt." He probably referred to the facts.