“If it’s just the same to you, Mr. Sprague, I’d a heap ruther not,” he said.
Sprague reached out and turned the lapel of Tarbell’s coat, exposing the small silver star of a deputy sheriff.
“You took an oath when you got that, Archer; and Mr. Maxwell pays you for wearing it.”
Tarbell threw up his head defiantly. “Deputy or no deputy, I ain’t goin’ to name no names,” he began slowly. “But here’s what I found out: I been in twenty-three saloons and dives since you told me to go chase, and I counted thirty-one railroad men in ’em. Not all of ’em was drinkin’ or gamblin’, but some of ’em was.”
Sprague turned to Maxwell.
“You see, I knew what I was talking about.”
The superintendent was shaking his head.
“As openly as that!” he exclaimed. “I must have been the blindest fool in all this hill country!”
Tarbell chipped in quickly. “It ain’t been that bad for very long. But it’s just as Mr. Sprague says; it’s spreadin’ like murrain on a dry range. I saw men in them places this evenin’ that I’d a swore never got off the water-wagon. I ain’t namin’ no names.”
“Mr. Maxwell isn’t asking you to give anybody away,” the expert qualified. And then: “Had your supper?”