Having the full measure of the man he had snared, from past experience with him, Childress did not hesitate to order Poison to heel, and then he loosened his lariat.
Duncan O'Hara stretched his arms and rubbed his shoulders and chest, where the rope had cut. "You shore sprung a surprise snappin' that string around me, pard. When did you bust off from the straight and narrow?"
"I don't get that question," declared Childress, "any more than I do your midnight corral making."
"I mean when did you get outside the law?"
"So far as you're concerned in this deal, I'm not outside the law," returned the sergeant. "What's the game?"
O'Hara found a seat on a tree stump and relighted his faithful pipe.
"This here's a plant," he began, "and as pretty a one as a jealous four-flusher ever worked out. You listen to me and I'll spill it to you on the level. I ain't forgettin' what you done, pullin' me out of that skin-tight hole of a necktie party down in the States."
"I'm listening," said Childress shortly. "Give me all of it."
"For a runnin' start then, I've become range boss for the Rafter A outfit, and I'm wise to everything. They're convinced that you've been runnin' their stock down to the 'Medicine Line' and gettin' away with it. Naturally you're too plumb wise to let them get the goods on you, so Fitzrapp is in for manufacturin' the evidence and puttin' the hawse-thief brand on you for fair. I'm just drawin' good wages and takin' bad orders.
"Tom Fitzrapp says," Duncan O'Hara continued, "'Take a bunch of our two-year-olds and corral them in that there Yankee's ravine. A rope will do the corralin' trick.' There are the beauties." He gestured to the shadowy forms of the horses. "All of them rope-wise and saddle-broke, worth a big roll of anybody's money. I was makin' the corral with my lariat when you came snooping along at an hour when you had ought to been doin' nothing more strenuous than snorin'. Early in the mornin', it's writ on the program, Fitzrapp and MacDonald and a witness are goin' to swoop down on the Open A cup, uncover the evidence and nab you dead to rights. You'll get twenty years, if the old man doesn't shorthorn your term by lendin' you the loads of his gun."