Weston stumbled. He caught himself, but the movement saved him from the necessity of an answer.
"Wall," the sheep-herder went on, almost running in order to keep up with the pace Weston had set, "I met Happy in Cody t’ other day, and Happy said old man Quinn had pinched the fourth puncher that druv his sheep––"
"What?" shouted Weston. He swung around so suddenly that the sheep-herder ran full tilt against him.
"What?" Weston shouted again. He seized the amazed and terrified Sheepy, and held him by the arms in a vise that made the man wince. "Say that again."
"S-say what?" faltered Sheepy.
"What about the fourth? Tell me!"
With every word Weston, his eyes ablaze, his lips drawn back over strong white teeth, gave the old sheep-herder a convulsive shake.
"W-why," the old man quavered, "Happy, he said that a feller down in Oklahomy, name of Burns, went and give himself up to old man Quinn. He said he was the feller the old man was after–that he was the fourth who done the business with the sheep. But because he owned up the jedge give ’im only six months––"
Weston suddenly pushed the sheep-herder from him, his face working convulsively. "Then I wasn’t in it!" he cried. "Sandy said I was, but I wasn’t!"
Offering no further explanation to his astonished hearers, he turned toward the McKenzie shack on a run; and for a couple of hours they saw no more of him.