“It is true. They wouldn’t dare tell it that way if it wasn’t true. Tracks show for themselves. And they knew that good men would be reading those tracks.”
The prisoner rose and walked a little before he made answer. When he spoke at last it was in a more serious tone.
“You see, I’ve got inside information. I know several things you don’t know, that give a different meaning to all this evidence and all these tracks.”
“Well,” said Gwinne, “you need it. A horse’s track leads from the dead man to Garfield—a track that lacks one shoe.”
“My horse had lost a shoe,” said Johnny.
“Yes. You tacked one on him at Sam Gray’s store. But that is not the worst. The worst is that there are three of them and only one of you.” Johnny felt of his neck again, delicately. “By your tell there isn’t any man in the world to help out your bare word. If you have any fresh dope, spill it.”
“I happen to be in a position to state certainly, at first hand, something which modifies the other evidence,” said Dines slowly and confidentially. “I happen to know positively that I didn’t murder that man. That’s exclusive. You only hear me say it—but I know it. So you mustn’t be hurt if I’m not convinced. If the horse tracks say I’m the killer—the tracks are wrong, that’s all. Or wrongly read. You will be best served if you either accept the full assurance of my guilt, and so base your deductions on that, or else accept my innocence as sure, and read sign with that in mind. It gets you nowhere to fit those tracks to both theories. Such evidence will fit in with the truth to the last splinter, like two broken pieces of one stick. It won’t fit exactly with any lie, not the cleverest; there’ll be a crack here, a splinter left over there, unaccountable. For instance, if my accusers are right, the dead man’s horse went down Redgate ahead of me; my tracks will be on top of his wherever we took the same trail.”
“Exactly. That’s what they say. They might have been mistaken. It is hard and stony ground.”
“They may have been mistaken, yes. Someone else will see those tracks. Now you listen close. Listen hard. If it turns out that Jody Weir and his two pardners, coming down Redgate on a run to give the alarm, rode over and rubbed out all tracks made by my horse and the dead man’s horse, wherever they crossed each other—then that’s another mistake they made. For when I left Forbes there were only two fresh tracks in the cañon—tracks of two fresh-shod horses going up the cañon, keeping to the road, and made yesterday. I’m sorry they didn’t take me back to Garfield. I would have liked a peek at those tracks myself.”
“But it rained, and it rained hard.”