This was too much for Sonora; he flew into a paroxysm of rage.
“Well, for a first-class liar...!”
“You bet!” corroborated Trinidad, relapsing, despite his anger, into his pet phrase.
For some minutes the dejected suitors continued in this strain, now arguing and then condoling with one another, the boys, meanwhile, proceeding to clear the school-room of the benches, casks and planks, lifting or rolling them back into place as if they were made of paper.
All of a sudden Sonora’s face cleared perceptibly. Turning swiftly to the Sheriff, who sat tilted back in a chair before the fire, he said with unexpected cheerfulness of voice:
“Why, Johnson’s dead. He got away, an’—”
“Yes, he got away,” remarked Rance, dully, shaking the ashes from his cigar, which answer, together with the peculiar look which Sonora saw on the other’s face, made him at once suspicious that something was being held back from them which they had a right to know. It came about, therefore, that, with a hasty movement towards the Sheriff, his eyes glaring, his voice husky, Sonora demanded:
“Jack Rance, I call on you as Sheriff for Johnson! He was in your county.”
Instantly the cry was taken up by the others, but it was Trinidad who, shaking his fist in Rance’s face, supplemented:
“You hustle up an’ run a bridle through your p’int o’ teeth or your boom for re-election’s over, you lily-fingered gambler!”