“I’ve another funny story to tell you fellows,” he drawled, just before the silence became awkward. “Glad you’re all here––it’s too good to keep, too good to waste on part of the outfit. I want you all to get the kick. You’ll enjoy it––being 340 cattlemen. It’s a joke that was pulled on an outfit down in Arizona.”
Like a trained monologist, he had them listening, deceived by his smiling ease, waiting to hear the joke on the Arizona outfit. Tom and Al, at the table with some papers before them, papers that held figures and scribbled names, he quite overlooked. But they, too, listened to the story, were imposed upon by that quizzical smile, by his mimicry, by the bold, swift strokes with which he painted word pictures which their imaginations seized upon as fast as they were made.
It was Tom who first felt a suspicion of Lance’s purpose, and shifted his position a little, so that his right hand would be free. As he did so, without looking toward him Lance’s left fingers began tapping, tapping the muscles of his right arm; his right hand had sagged a little. Tom’s eyebrows pulled together. Quite well he knew that pose. He waited, listened with closer attention to the story.
Lance paused, as your skillful raconteur usually does pause before the climax. His glance went impersonally over the faces of his audience. Most of them were leaning forward, a few were breathing hard. They were listening, straining unconsciously to get the meaning he withheld from them. Lance’s right hand sagged another half inch, his lips pulled sidewise in the enigmatical smile of the Lorrigans.
“I lied, of course––about the outfit this joke is on. It’s really the Devil’s Tooth I’m talking about. But the kick remains, so listen, folks, just listen.
“I’m a Lorrigan. Two of you are Lorrigans, and you know what I mean when I say that. The rest of you had better guess what I mean, if you don’t know––and guess right!
“I’m talking to you with my back against the wall––in more ways than one. Don’t think I’m fool enough not to know it. But you’re listening with your backs against another wall; I believe it is of stone, usually, and the windows have bars. I don’t think you’re such fools you fail to grasp my meaning. I’m talking––and you’re going to listen.
“What I said––well, I have the dope, you know. I know where you took that last bunch of stolen horses, and I know the date when you turned them over. I have a map or two––I know those secret trails you made, that lead into that hidden little basin that the Rim has not discovered yet. I’ve dope enough to indict the whole outfit on five separate counts––and any one of them will put every man of you in the pen for a term of years––well, from five to ten up to fifteen or twenty––a mere detail.
“I know why Duke didn’t come back. There’s a yellow streak in Duke, and he lost his nerve and drifted to parts unknown. Where, I’m not curious 342 to discover. It doesn’t matter, so long as his destination remains unknown.