“Now Judge, you know I picked you because you would let me do whatever I pleased, and I don’t mean to be disappointed with you. Half the men at the inquest think that Kit Rhodes did come back to do that shooting, and you know Conrad and the very smooth rat of the Charities Society are accountable for that opinion. The Mexican who dragged in Kit’s name is one of Conrad’s men; it all means something! It’s a bad muddle, but Kit Rhodes and Cap Pike will wander back here some of these days, and I mean to have every bit of evidence for Kit to start in with. He suspected a lot, and all Granados combined to silence him––fool Granados!”
“But, just between ourselves, child, are you convinced Rhodes did not make the statement liable to be construed into a threat against Mr. Singleton?”
“Convinced nothing,” was the inelegant reply of his new ward. “I heard him say enough to hang him if evidence could be found that he was north of the line that morning, and that’s why it’s my job to take note of all the evidence on the other side. The horses did not kill themselves. That telegram concerning it did not send itself. Papa Phil did not shoot himself, and that telephone wire did not cut itself! My hunch is that those four things go together, and that’s a combination they can’t clear up by dragging in the name of a man who never saw the horses, and who was miles south in Sonora with Cap Pike when the other three things happened. Now can they?”
CHAPTER VII
IN THE PROVINCE OF ALTAR
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There was a frog who lived in the spring: Sing-song Kitty, can’t yo’ carry me, oh? And it was so cold that he could not sing, Sing-song Kitty, can’t yo’ carry me, oh? Ke-mo! Ki-mo! Dear––oh my! To my hi’––to my ho––to my––– |
“Oh! For the love of Mike! Bub, can’t you give a man a rest instead of piling up the agony? These old joints of mine are creakin’ with every move from desert rust and dry camps, and you with no more heart in you than to sing of springs,––cold springs!”
“They do exist, Cap.”