“Nothin’ painful—quite likely. If you was to turn up missin’ that ’u’d make too many missin’ folks.... So you hain’t a-goin’ to. Nope. We calc’late on havin’ you found—public like. Sure thing. Sheriff’s goin’ to find ye.”
“Sheriff Jenney?”
“That’s him.... We’re goin’ to kind of arrange this room a little—like you ’n’ that teacher feller’d been havin’ a nice leetle party here. Understand?... Plenty to drink and sich.” He drew his head back upon his distorted shoulders and looked up at them with eyes in which burned the fire of pure malice. Carmel turned away from him to determine from Evan’s face if he understood Bangs’s meaning. It was clear he did not.
“Don’t git the idea, eh?” Peewee asked, with evident enjoyment. “Wa-al, since we got a good sheriff and one that kin be depended on, things is different here. He’s all for upholdin’ the law, and he aims to make an example out of me.”
“Sheriff Jenney make an example of you!” Carmel exclaimed.
“Funny, hain’t it? But that’s the notion. You bet you.... Goin’ to kind of raid my hotel, like you might say, and git evidence ag’in’ me. Dunno’s he’ll find much. More’n likely he won’t.... But he’ll find you two folks—he’ll come rampagin’ in here and find you together as cozy as bugs in a rug.” Peewee stopped to laugh with keen enjoyment of the humorous situation he described. “He’ll find you folks here, and he’ll find how you been together to-night and all day to-morrer.... And plenty of refreshments a-layin’ around handy. Reg’lar party.”
“You mean Sheriff Jenney will come to this hotel—officially—and find Mr. Pell and myself in this room?”
“That’s the ticket.”
“Why—why—he’d have to let us go.”
“Sooner or later,” said Peewee. “Fust he’d take you to the jail and lock you up—disorderly persons or some sich charge. Drinkin’ and carousin’ in my hotel!... Course he’ll have to let you go—sometime. Maybe after the jedge gives you thirty days in the calaboose.”