The misty eyes of Sandersen brightened a little and grew hard. There was a great deal of fighting spirit in the man, and his easy victory of that morning had roused him to a battling pitch.
"Looks to me like you ain't running this here party, Arizona," he said dryly. "If there are any directions to give Cold Feet, I'll give 'em. It was me that took him!"
No direct answer could Arizona find to this true statement, and, as always when a man is at a loss for words, his temper rose, and his fists clenched. For the first time he looked at Sandersen with an eye of savage calculation. He had come to hope of a tidy little fortune. He had found it snatched out of his hand, and, as he measured Sandersen, his heart rose. Twenty-five-hundred dollars would fairly well equip him in life. The anger faded out of his eyes, and in its place came the cold gleam of the man who thinks and calculates. All at once he began to smile, a mirthless smile that was of the lips only.
"Maybe you're right, Sandersen, but I'm thinking you'd have to prove that you took Cold Feet.'
"Prove it?"
"Sure! The boys wouldn't be apt to believe that sleepy Sandersen woke up and took Cold Feet alive."
Instantly the gorge of Sandersen rose, and he began to see red.
"Are you out to find trouble, Fatty?"
The adjective found no comfortable lodging place in the mind of
Arizona.
"Me? Sure I ain't. I'm just stating facts the way I know 'em."