"Yes; but say, isn't it a good joke upon old Meagreson that he has been paying us all to prove this Poynter a counterfeiter and murderer, while all the time he really belonged to the gang?" chuckled Sprowl.
"Bet ye! But come now, old fellow," added Redlaw, insinuatingly, "who is the old coon, anyhow? I know you can tell a fellow, if you will."
"Maybe I will, when you tell me what for you want the house fired," significantly answered Sprowl.
"Well, give me an idee, anyhow," urged Polk. "I'll tell you to-morrow, sure."
"Honest?"
"I said so, didn't I?" sharply.
"Well, don't get your back up about it and I will give you a hint, anyhow. You see, I knew him in Kentucky, and again in Illinois, where he helped run the business, after Sturdevant—"
"What!"
"Fact. I done a little in that line myself, on the sly, and we were thrown together consid'able, as he furnished the "queer." But I got the pull on him in a little scrape in which a certain man named Duaber, was concerned.
"There was a love-affair mixed up with it, I believe, and while Meagreson got the sack, Duaber got the girl. So a lot of charges were trumped up, much as we've served this Poynter, you know, only it ended in the poor devil's being lynched in earnest.