"Barb wasn't home."
Hawk was conscious of the evasion. "Was Stormy's talk true?" he demanded curtly.
"I expected to ask Barb whether he wanted to put my wire back. I was going to give him a chance."
"It wouldn't be hard to guess how that would come out. Where was he?" asked Hawk, with evident disappointment.
"They said he was in Sleepy Cat. I rode in and missed him there. He'd gone to the mines. I took the train up to the Junction, There I accidentally got switched off my job and came home."
"How'd you get switched off?" asked Hawk, resenting the outcome.
Laramie's manner showed he disliked being bored into. He leaned forward with a touch of asperity and looked, straight at his visitor: "By not 'tending strictly to my own business, Abe."
Hawk knew from the expression of Laramie's eyes he must drop the subject, and though he lost none of his bantering manner, he desisted: "They didn't have a warrant for me down at the marshal's office, did they?"
"They were short of blanks," retorted Laramie coolly.
"How you fixed for flour?"