“Sit down and tell us why you think Mr. Brandon ought to have the pistol,” Jake remarked. “I go to Santa Brigida now and then, but you haven’t offered to lend it me.”
Payne sat down on the steps and looked at him with a smile. “You’re all right, Mr. Fuller. They’re not after you.”
“Then you reckon it wasn’t me they wanted the night my partner was stabbed? I had the money.”
“Nope,” said Payne firmly. “I allow they’d have corralled the dollars if they could, but it was Mr. Brandon they meant to knock out.” He paused and added in a significant tone: “They’re after him yet.”
“Hadn’t you better tell us whom you mean by ‘they’?” Dick asked.
“Oliva’s gang. There are toughs in the city who’d kill you for fifty cents.”
“Does that account for your buying the pistol when you came here?”
“It does,” Payne admitted dryly. “I didn’t mean to take any chances when it looked as if I was going back on my dago partner.”
“He turned you down first, and I don’t see how you could harm him by working for us.”
Payne did not answer, and Dick, who thought he was pondering something, resumed: “These half-breeds are a revengeful lot, but after all, Oliva wouldn’t run a serious risk without a stronger motive than he seems to have.”