Johnny got to his feet with the foreman.
“Listen, Hobe,” he said, “did I make a fool of myself last night, lightin’ into the old man thataway?”
Hobe rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “N-o-o-o,” he drawled. “One was bad as the other. He surprised me. He’d been havin’ such a good time with Doc all evenin’.”
“Huh? Doin’ what?”
Johnny’s face was white with an emotion that Ferris was at a loss to understand.
“Playin’ pinochle. I went outside to sit down after supper. The old man came out with me, and went across to Doc’s place. I sat out in front till the freight pulled up. Rain drove me in. Doc and him was still at it. I could see ’em through the window. I could tell he was winnin’.”
Johnny heaved a sigh of relief. That his solution of last night’s murder was knocked flat caused no rancor in his heart. Thank God, he had not given voice to his thoughts. Gallup would have laughed him out of town.
Ferris, far shrewder than he looked, had caught the signs of the anxiety which possessed Johnny. “Say, Johnny,” he inquired, “just what is it that y’u ain’t sayin’?”
Johnny winced at this directness, but he answered with a question seemingly irrelevant to it.
“Did you touch that dead man last night, Hobe?”