"Partner," he drawled, "it looks to me like them reasons could be spoke personal to me. Suppose you step outside and we talk shop?"
Arizona smiled. It took a man of some courage and standing to refuse such an invitation without losing caste. But for some reason Arizona was the last man in the world whom one could accuse of being a coward.
"Sandersen," he said coldly, "I don't mean to step on your toes. You may be as good a man as the next. The reasons that I got agin' you ain't personal whatever, which they're things I got a right to think, me being an officer of the law for the time being. If you hold a grudge agin' me for what I've said, you and me can talk it over after this here job's done. Is that square?"
"I s'pose it's got to be," replied Sandersen. "Gents, does the word of your fat friend go here?"
Left to themselves, the posse probably would have refused Arizona's advice on general principles, but Arizona did not leave them to themselves.
"Sure, my word goes," he hastened to put in. "The sheriff and all of us work like a closed hand—all together!"
There was a subtle flattery about this that pleased the sheriff and the others.
"Reckoning it all in all," said sheriff, "I think we better figure you out, Sandersen. Besides they ain't anything to keep you and Cartwright and the rest from rigging up a little posse of your own. Sinclair is up yonder in the hill waiting—"
Suddenly he stopped. Sandersen was shaken as if by a violent ague, and his face lost all color, becoming a sickly white.
"And we're going to find him by ourselves. S'long Sandersen, and thanks for dropping in. No hard feelings, mind!"