The man, with the rifle still pointed unwaveringly at Goodrich’s middle, smiled.
“About five foot ten,” said he. “Fair. Grayish eyes. Pretty husky about the shoulders. Twenty-five or so. Thirty-thirty Winchester carbine. Black Stetson hat, nearly new. Red sweater. Brown laced boots. Gray mule. Hell, Baker, what’s the use of stalling? It won’t get you anything. Anyway, you’re under arrest. Don’t make any breaks because we don’t aim to lose you. This ain’t no joke, Baker. Your man died in the hospital two hours after you lit out.”
Goodrich saw it in a flash while the man was speaking, understood that swapping of goods in the night. This man Baker knew he was being trailed, pressed close. Goodrich opened his mouth to recount the experience, to put the officers on the right trail. But he refrained. He could see they were quite sure he was their man. They would only laugh at his story. They would take him out to the county seat—and dozens of men could identify him there. And somehow or other the man hadn’t struck him as a criminal. Goodrich felt like giving him a chance. He decided to stand pat. The officers wouldn’t believe him, anyway.
“It’ll be a joke on you,” he said pleasantly. He had settled himself to say nothing of how he came by the things which identified him. “There’s no law against a man having a .30-.30, a black hat, and a gray mule. I guess you’d find half a dozen men in the Monterey Forest Reserve heeled like that. I tell you I’m not this guy Baker. I’m Bill Goodrich. You take me out to Monterey and you’ll see.”
“No chance for an argument,” one officer said shortly. “We’ll have a bite to eat and get on.”
They took the precaution of shackling his wrists while they cooked. Goodrich burned with resentment at the handcuffing. Then they gathered up his stuff, packed it on the gray burro, brought two saddle horses out of concealment in the brush, and set off down the mountain trail.
They rode. Goodrich had to walk. He had hunted hard that forenoon, and he was tired. With his ironed wrists it was difficult for him to walk with ease. He could not keep the flicking branches from lashing him across the face. The cocksureness of the men grated on him. A most ungodly anger grew in his breast. Curiously it was not directed toward Baker, who had bestowed upon him the goods and chattels directly responsible for this error in identity, but against the two deputy sheriffs. They were pluming themselves on his capture, and they were callously indifferent to the misery they were inflicting upon him. They refused to free his hands so that he could travel more easily, even though he promised not to attempt escape.
Ten miles out from the big pines, two thousand feet lower down, the trail forked. Goodrich stopped.
“Look here,” he said angrily. “I’ve told you straight I’m not this guy Baker. There are a hundred people in Monterey who can identify me. You aren’t going to drag me all the way to Salinas, are you?”
“Surest thing you know,” they jeered. “You suppose we don’t know you got two brothers and a swarm of friends between here and Monterey? No foolin’ now. You hike right along.”