"Well, ain't somebody goin' to apologize?" Butch still had that mocking tone. "Bud's had a pipe dream, that's all. Now, I'll tell yuh where I been, and Bud c'n prove it easy enough. I been over to the Meddalark. I admit I went over there t' see Lark about gittin' a job. I stayed to dinner, and all the boys is gone but that pilgrim; yore black horses is in the bronch corral, Bud, and the kid's ridin' a pinto pony around he calls Huckleberry. Need any more proof, or does that convince yuh that I was there, all right?" Butch's tone was arrogant, though he was careful to make no offensive movement.
"Oh, you were there, no doubt. That doesn't let you out, Butch. Tell me where you were between four and five this afternoon!"
"Awn the road home," Butch drawled.
Bud twitched off Butch's hat and held it up in his left hand so that the edge of the brim was silhouetted against the stars.
"Look here, Kid. I suppose he'll say he bit that nick out of his hatbrim! Ever see a prettier bullet mark? Just about the size a .45 would make as nearly as I can tell in this light. Just for curiosity, Butch, how did you get that?" Bud's voice, that had been merely grim and unyielding, rang with triumph.
"None of yore damn' business. Is that plain enough, or shall I spell it?"
"No," said Bud softly, "you needn't spell it, Butch."
Followed another silence, which Kid broke placatingly.
"If Butch done what you think he done, Bud, I'm after him like a wolf. But if this is all the proof you got, why—you ain't got any, that's all." He stopped on the brink of saying more and looked from one to the other.
"Yeah. You ain't got any," Butch echoed, with that same faint mockery in his voice. "Goin' to hold me here all night? Me and my horse is hungry."