“Well, I heard him blackmail Larkin for five hundred dollars back by the corral fence. An’ Larkin knew what he had to do as soon as Caldwell showed up. Didn’t yuh see him turn yaller at the table?”
As a matter of fact Larkin’s perturbation at that time had been puzzling and inexplicable to Juliet. Also the disappearance of the two men immediately after supper had mystified her. But without admitting this to Stelton she asked:
“What was it all about?”
“I don’t know exactly, Miss Julie, but it worked in somethin’ he done back in Chicago a year or so ago. From what I heard ’em say, Larkin just dodged the calaboose. Now there ain’t no disgrace in that—that’s really credit—but that 91 don’t clear him of the crime noways. Why, I even heard ’em talk about two thousand dollars that Larkin give this Caldwell a couple of years back.”
“How did you learn all this?” she asked.
“I was a goin’ back to the corral for a rope I left hangin’ on a post there, an’ I heard ’em talkin’.”
“And you listened, I suppose,” remarked Julie contemptuously.
“Mebbe I did,” he retorted, stung by her tone. “But you can be thankful for it. I’d be plenty mad if you throw’d yourself away on a man like-a-that. A hoss that’ll kill one puncher’ll kill another. Same with a man.”
“What are you saying, Mike?” cried the girl, frightened out of her attitude of aloof reserve. “Kill a man! He’s never killed a man, has he?”
“He didn’t say so in so many words, no ma’am, but that talk o’ their’n was mighty suspicious.”