"Uh-uh. Well, you get somethin' to eat, and then throw a saddle on Dex and I'll give you a couple of letters to take to The Junction. And, come to think, you might as well keep right on fannin' it for Stacey and home. They can use you over to the ranch. The missus and me'll take care of Señor Jim."
"I take the letter," said Ramon, "but I am come back. I am with the
Señor Jim where he goes."
"Oh, very well, amigo. Might as well give a duck a bar of soap and ask him to take a bath as to tell you to leave Jim. Such is wastin' talk."
Chapter XXIV
The Genial Bud
"And just as soon as he can be moved, his wife aims to take him over to
Stacey."
So Bud told the Marshal of Criswell, who, for want of better accommodations, had his office in the rear of the general store.
The marshal, a gaunt individual with a watery blue eye and a soiled goatee, shook his head. "The law is the law," he stated sententiously.
"And a gun's a gun," said Shoop. "But what evidence you got that Jim
Waring killed Bob Brewster and his brother Tony?"
"All I need, pardner. When I thought Andy Brewster was goin' to pass over, I took his antimortim. But he's livin'. And he is bound over to appear ag'in' Waring. What you say about the killin' over by Stacey ain't got nothin' to do with this here case. I got no orders to hold Andy Brewster, but I'm holdin' him for evidence. And I'm holdin' Waring for premeditated contempt and shootin' to death of said Bob Brewster and his brother Tony. And I got said gun what did it."