“I’m not,” said Johnny. “I’m sorry about the dead man, of course. But I didn’t know him, and you can’t expect me to feel like you do. I’m right as rain—but I can’t say as much for you. You look like you’d been dragged through a knothole.”
“No sleep. I went back to Garfield, made medicine, and hurried back here. Seventy-five miles now, after a day’s work and not much sleep the night before. I thought you’d be having your prelim, you see, or I’d have waited over. Didn’t know that Judge Hinkle was out of town.”
“Any news?”
“Yes,” said Hobby, “there is.”
He held out his hand. Johnny took it, through the bars.
“You don’t think I killed your friend, then?”
“I know you didn’t. But, man—we can’t prove it. Not one scrap of evidence to bring into court. Just a sensing and a hunch—against a plain, straight, reasonable story, with three witnesses. You are It.”
“Now you can’t sometimes most always ever tell,” said Johnny. “Besides, you’re tired out. Get you a chair and tell it to me. I’ve been asleep. Also, you and I have had some few experiences not in common before our trails crossed yesterday. I may do a little sensing myself. Tell it to me.”
“Well, after Caney’s crowd told us Adam was killed in Redgate, Uncle Pete and a bunch went up there hotfoot. They found everything just about as Caney told it. There was your track, with one shoe gone, and Adam’s horse with the bridle dragging—till he broke it off—”
“And where those two tracks crossed,” interrupted Johnny, “those fellows had ridden over the trail till you couldn’t tell which was on top.”