Jordan kept his regretful eyes a moment longer on his empty coffee cup.
"There ain't a pile to tell," he answered at last. "I suppose you heard about what happened to the chap you beat up at Morgan's place the other day?"
"Who knows that I beat him up?" asked Silent sharply.
"Nobody," said Jordan, "but when I heard the description of the man that hit Whistling Dan with the chair, I knew it was Jim Silent."
"What about Barry?" asked Haines, but Jordan still kept his eyes upon the chief.
"They was sayin' pretty general," he went on, "that you needed that chair, Jim. Is that right?"
The other three glanced covertly to each other. Silent's hand bunched into a great fist.
"He went loco. I had to slam him. Was he hurt bad?"
"The cut on his head wasn't much, but he was left lyin' in the saloon that night, an' the next mornin' old Joe Cumberland, not knowin' that Whistlin' Dan was in there, come down an' touched a match to the old joint. She went up in smoke an' took Dan along."
No one spoke for a moment. Then Silent cried out: "Then what was that whistlin' I've heard down the road behind us?"