"But he didn't try to escape," Morgan protested. "He was so drunk he didn't know whether he was coming or going."
Conboy looked at him disfavoringly, as if to warn him to be discreet in matters of such remote concern to him as this.
"Tut, tut! no niggers in Ireland," said he, shaking his head with an expression between a caution and a threat.
CHAPTER IV
THE OPTIMIST EXPLAINS
Not more than two hours after the tragedy at the Elkhorn hotel, of which he was the indirect cause, Calvin Morgan appeared at Judge Thayer's little office. The judge had finished his preparation for the cattle thief's case, and now sat ruminating it over his cob pipe. He nodded encouragingly as Morgan hesitated at the door.
"Come in, Mr. Morgan," he invited, as cordially as if introductions had passed between them already and relations had been established on a footing pleasant and profitable to both.
Morgan smiled a little at this ready identification, remembering the torn page of the hotel register, which all the reading inhabitants of the town who were awake must have examined before this. He accepted the chair that Judge Thayer pushed toward him, nodding to the bone-wagon man who came sauntering past the door at that moment, the long lash of his bullhide whip trailing in the dust behind him.