“You’re the owner of the Double R?” questioned Allen.
“You and Dakota friendly?” he questioned again, noting Langford’s nod.
“We’ve been quite friendly,” smiled Langford.
“But you ain’t now?”
“Not since this has happened. We must have law and order, even at the price of friendship.”
Allen squinted a mildly hostile eye at Langford. “That’s a good principle to get back of—for a weak-kneed friendship. But most men who have got friends wouldn’t let a little thing like law and order interfere between them.”
Langford reddened. “I haven’t known Dakota long of course,” he defended. “Perhaps I erred in saying we were friends. Acquaintances would better describe it I think.”
Allen’s eye narrowed again with an emotion that Langford could not fathom. “I always had a heap of faith in Dakota’s judgment,” he said. And then, when Langford’s face flushed with a realization of the subtle insult, Allen said gruffly:
“You say Doubler’s dead?”
“I don’t remember to have said that to you,” returned Langford, his voice snapping with rage. “What I did say was that Duncan saw him killed and came to me with the news. I sent him for you. Since then my daughter has been over to Doubler’s cabin. He is quite dead, she reported,” he lied. “There can be no doubt of his guilt, if that is what bothers you,” he continued. “Duncan saw him shoot Doubler in the back with Doubler’s own rifle, and my daughter heard the shot and met Dakota coming from Doubler’s cabin, immediately after. It’s a clear case, it seems to me.”