"Why didn't you?" asked Van Horn nervously.
Stone dallied with his glass: "I watched the hole all day. He didn't come out. That was enough, wasn't it?"
"No," snapped Van Horn.
"Well, I'll tell you, Harry; next time you and the old man want a job done, do it yourself. I never liked Laramie: I didn't care for getting too close to the hole he tumbled into. After he was hit, he stuck to his horse a little too long to suit me," said Stone shrewdly.
Van Horn's retort was contemptuous and pointed. He laughed: "Afraid of him, eh?"
Stone regarded him malevolently: "Look here!" he exclaimed harshly, "I'll make you a little proposition. When I get shaved we'll ride over to the Crazy Woman and you c'n look in the hole for yourself."
The uncertainty irritated Van Horn. When Stone, newly plastered, emerged from the barber shop, Van Horn took him with his story to Doubleday whom they found in his room, chewing the stub of a cold cigar and looking over a stock journal. He did not appear amiable, nor did his face change much as the news was cautiously conveyed to him. When Van Horn announced he would ride out with Stone to examine the road hole, Doubleday, whose expression had grown colder and colder, broke in:
"Needn't waste any time on that," he said with a snap of his jaw.
Stone snorted: "Maybe you think he wasn't hit."
"Hit!" exclaimed Barb. "Hit!" he repeated, raising a long forefinger with deep-drawn disgust. "He's sittin' in that room across the hall right now——"