"Ma'am," said Tom Osby; "I used to think you had some sense. You ain't."
"Why?"
"You can't think of no way but States ways, can you? I s'pose you think the police ought to catch a bad man, don't you?"
"Well, it's officer's work, going after a dangerous man. Wasn't this man dangerous?"
He noted her eagerness, and hastened to qualify. "Him? The Kid? No, I don't mean him. He's plumb gentle. I mean a real bad man—if there was any out here, you know. Now, not havin' any police, out here, the fellers that believes in law and order, why, onct in a while, they kind of help go after the fellers that don't. It works out all right. Now I don't seem to just remember which ones it was of our fellers that Stillson took with him the other day, along of your hurrying me out of town so soon after I got in."
"It was Mr. Tomlinson, and Mr. McKinney from the ranch, you know; and Curly wanted to go, but they wouldn't let him."
"Why wouldn't they?"
"Because he was a married man, they said. And yet you say this criminal is not dangerous?"
"He'd ought to been glad to go, him a married man. I've been married a good deal myself. But was them two the only ones that went?"
"They two—and Mr. Anderson."