“Hell, but you’re gettin’ mighty smart—fur a teamster.”
Harrigan’s self-control was tottering. The three words, “for a teamster,” were three fates that he unleashed to destroy himself, and the moment he uttered them he knew it. Better to have cursed Cameron from the Knoll to Tramworth than to have stung his very soul with that last speech. But, strangely enough, Curious Jim smiled serenely. Harrigan saw, and understood.
They drove slowly down the trail in the cold, dreary afternoon, jolting the muffled shape beneath the blanket as they lumbered over the corduroy crossing the swamp. Pete the Indian meant little enough to Cameron, but—
He pulled up his horses and stared at Harrigan’s feet. The Irishman glanced at him, then down. A lean, scarred brown hand lay across his foot. “Christ!” he shrieked, as he jumped to the ground. The horses bounded forward, but Cameron pulled them up, talking to them gently.
“I was goin’ to ask you to get down and pull it back a piece,” he called to Harrigan, who came up, cursing at his loss of nerve. “The dum’ thing’s been pokin’ at my legs for a half an hour, but I guess you didn’t notice it. The old wagon shakes things up when she ain’t loaded down good.”
Again Harrigan felt that Jim Cameron was playing with him. He, Fisty Harrigan, the bulldog of the Great Western, chafed at his inability to use his hands. He set his heavy jaw, determined to hold himself together. What had he done? Why, nothing. Let them prove to the contrary if they could.
They found the sheriff at the hotel. In the privacy of his upstairs room he questioned them with easy familiarity. As yet no one knew nor suspected what brought them there, save the thick-set, ruddy, gray-eyed man, who listened quietly and smiled.
“Got his rifle?” he said suddenly, still smiling.
“It’s in the wagon. I brung it along,” replied Cameron.
“Denny, will you step down and get it?” The sheriff’s tone was bland, persuasive.