“I say, Pete,” said the prisoner familiarly, “mebbe you tells me just how this yere thing happens. I am a whole lot bothered over it.”
“Why, Bland, I has you—I has you foul,” retorted Curry, with a grim smile.
“That I certain admits,” nodded the other; “but how it was did is what puzzles me a-plenty.”
“You has some bad habits, Bland,” returned the captor. “You monkeys with firewater, and, for a man like you, with a price on him, it’s a keerless thing to do.”
“No firewater ever lays me out,” proudly retorted he of the drooping black mustache. “I knows my capacity when it come to the real stuff. But what I gits against this yere time is different a whole lot.”
The deputy sheriff smiled again.
“Mebbe you’re right, Bland,” he admitted. “You thinks yourself a heap clever, but this time you is fooled right slick.”
Texas Bland frowned.
“I confess, Pete, that it cuts me deep to realize it, but it certain is a fact that I gits tripped up. However, how it happened is what I wants ter know. There sure was dope in that booze.”
“Likely you’re correct,” nodded Curry.