“I let him know then that I had brought the chief to see him. Ha, ha—it was almost worth getting killed to be able to tell him that. He raised his foot and kicked me in the face, and riddled me again. He’s got plenty to swing for, Kelsey. Not me alone, either. Johnny knows I’m right about that. Due to me that man Traynor came to the Rock. I don’t know how it happened, but Gallup or Kent killed him.”
Johnny and Kelsey flashed a glance at each other.
“Oh, Lord!” Gale moaned. “I can’t breathe. Where’s that bottle?”
“Give him all he wants,” Ritter called to Johnny. “It won’t put him under.”
Johnny had been staring at the man’s ragged chest, but he had to turn his head away as the stimulant began to have an effect on Gale’s heart.
“I got to talk quick, don’t I?” Tobias asked. “Gallup ground me into the dirt for years. I made up my mind to get square with him some time. He was too cautious. I knew he had covered up something in his past. It must have been two years before I got on the trail of what it was.
“I was on the Reservation one day. Thunder Bird was getting married again. He was all decked out. Around his neck he had a chain of beads, and hanging on the middle of it was a piece of a white man’s silver watch chain. It was Mexican made, I guess—I’d only seen the like of it once before; Gallup had such a chain, and it always looked to me as if it had been broken off.
“I asked the chief where he got those links. He was on edge in a second. I mentioned Gallup’s name. That floored him. I found out afterward that he had not been in town for years, that he had no idea of Gallup’s nearness. I made a good friend of the Indian. It took me a year or more to piece together the story of Gallup’s past; but I got it. That was three years ago.
“I managed it so that Thunder Bird got a look at Kent and Gallup. He recognized them at a glance.
“I got busy hunting for Traynor. Took me until a month ago to find him. When he came I was on the Reservation. I talked to him, and part of what I’m going to tell you I got from him, the rest from the chief. Now, for God’s sake don’t let me pass out until I’ve finished.”