The names and aliases of the guilty person were unfamiliar to those who gathered about the poster, but the description of the murderer's appearance was so suggestive, that Squire Bogern, one of the bystanders, found Jude, and requested him to read the poster.
"Well, 'twasn't me done it," sulkily growled the namesake of the apostolic treasurer.
"Ther' hain't nobody in Gopher that 'ud take a feller up fur a reward," replied the squire, studiously oblivious of Jude's denial; "but it's a nice mornin' fur a walk. Ye can't miss the trail an' git lost, ye know. An', seein' yer hevn't staked any claim, an' so hain't got any to dispose of, mebbe yer could git, inside of five minutes."
Jude was accustomed to "notices to quit," and was able to extract their import from any verbiage whatever, so he drank by and to himself, and immediately sauntered out of town, with an air of bravado in his carriage, and a very lonesome look in his face.
Down the trail he tramped, past claims whose occupants knew him well enough, but who, just as he passed, found some excuse for looking the other way.
He passed through one camp after another, and discovered (for he stopped at each saloon) that the man on horseback had preceded him, and that there seemed a wonderful unanimity of opinion as to the identity of the man who was wanted.
Finally, after passing through several of the small camps, which were dotted along the trail, a mile or two apart, Jude flung himself on the ground under a clump of azaleas, with the air of a man whose temper had been somewhat ruffled.
"I wonder," he remarked, after a discursive, fitful, but very spicy preface of ten minutes' duration, "why they couldn't find somethin' I hed done, instead of tuckin' some other feller's job on me? I hev had difficulties, but this here one's just one more than I knows on. Like 'nuff some galoot'll be mean 'nuff to try to git that thousand. I'd try it myself, ef I wuz only somebody else. Wonder why I can't be decent, like other fellers. 'Twon't pay to waste time thinkin' 'bout that, though, fur I'll hev to make a livin' somehow."
Jude indulged in a long sigh, perhaps a penitential one, and drew from his pocket a well-filled flask, which he had purchased at the last saloon he had passed.
As he extracted it, there came also from his pocket a copy of the poster, which he had abstracted from a tree en route.