“They say a fair exchange is no robbery,” Goodrich muttered. “I’m all to the good on the trade, but I’ll be hanged if I sabe why. I wonder what’s the idea?”
He got an insight upon the idea at noon. He did not sit about his camp puzzling about what had happened in the night, but took the .30-.30 and pursued his business along a ridge to the west. But luck was against him as it had been for a week. He failed to catch the wise old buck deer in the open, and he failed also to get a shot at any of those he stirred up in the heavy brush. So he trudged into his camp under the tall, solemn pines about twelve o’clock.
And as he sat whittling shavings to start a fire two men stepped out from behind separate trees with rifles trained on him and ordered him to put up his hands. Goodrich promptly obeyed. One possessed himself of Goodrich’s rifle, felt the prisoner carefully for concealed weapons, stepped back, and remarked to his companion.
“’S him, all right.”
“I don’t get you,” Goodrich snapped.
“Well, we’ve got you, Baker,” the man with the rifle drawled. “No use making the innocent-stranger play.”
“Baker, eh?” Goodrich remarked. “Are you officers?”
“You’ve guessed it, first shot,” one answered sarcastically.
Goodrich dropped his hands.
“I’m tired pawing the sky,” he said bluntly. “You got the wrong man. My name’s not Baker. It’s Bill Goodrich. I’m from Monterey. I’ve been up here camping for two months, nursing a bad lung. I’ve been hunting deer off and on for two weeks with an old fellow called Sam Hayes.”