Tony’s jaw set at the word arrest. Johnny met the threat with a smile, but he did not take Gallup’s words as easily as he appeared to take them.
“You can’t shut me up any other way,” he explained for the coroner’s benefit, “so you’re goin’ to have Roddy throw me in jail, eh? You politicians certainly stick together, don’t you? I’d like to see that scarecrow sheriff go up against a real man.”
“If you flatter yourself that you’re one, you hang around.”
It was on Johnny’s tongue to make a fitting retort, to dare Gallup to bring up his reserves, but wisdom of a sort checked the hot words. He had set himself to do a certain thing. Shooting it out with Jasper Roddy would not accomplish it.
Tony’s eyes were smiling now—a smile as guileful as his race was old. That Basque smile under fire is one of the little ways by which the children of the far Pyrenees announce that they are not Mexican. That smile is something to consider if you are involved personally. Johnny caught it and understood.
Gallup was waiting for an answer. Johnny found one of little truth, but it caught old Aaron.
“Other business, my dear Mr. Gallup, forbids my doin’ battle with you and yours today. But some other day, dear sir!” Johnny’s tone was too extravagantly polite. “That little gun-play last evenin’ still absorbs my attention, Aaron. I could almost tell you who killed that man.”
The seriousness with which Johnny stated this fooled even Tony.
Gallup’s eyes wavered ever so little as Johnny stared into them. “Let’s hear his name,” Aaron demanded uneasily.
“You ask that—you of all men?” Johnny exclaimed, piling on the coals now that he had Aaron on edge.