“George,” said the Sergeant appealingly, with up-raised, protesting hand, “don’t! Yu’ gimme a pain—honest, yu’ do. I’ll tell yu’ what I’m chargin’ yu’ both with, bein’ as yu’re from Missouri, an’ want to be shown.” And in no uncertain terms he proceeded to do so, and cautioned them.
“Why didn’t yu’ call on me an’ tell me yore business, as yu’re supposed ter do?” blustered Big George in injured tones. “I’d a-come with yu’ peaceable enough. I’ll make a statement ag’in yu’ two fellers ’bout th’ way I was man-handled.”
The policeman uttered a snort of ironical amusement.
“‘Come peaceable’!” he echoed. “Yes, yu’d a-come peaceable enough—yu’ve shown that. I’ve got th’ marks an th’ feel o’ yore little donnies on my throat yet. I don’t bear yu’ no grudge fur that, though. Yu’ go ahead, then, with yore statement, Mister Bloomin’ Lawyer, an’ I’ll come back at yu’ with a charge of ‘resisting arrest an’ assaultin’ a police-officer in th’ lawful execution of his duty,’ fur which yu’re liable to get two years extra. ‘Call on yu’ an’ tell yu’ my business’ indeed! An’ who’s to prove I didn’t?” he queried, with an ugly laugh. “If yu’ like to call it square why, all right. But if yu’ mean actin’ dirty, I’ll act dirty, too—an’ ahead o’ yu’ at that.”
The force of the other’s argument seemed to impress the big rustler considerably, and he remained silent.
“I’ve got yore record from over th’ Line, George,” the Sergeant continued. “It’s sure a peach.... Five years in th’ State ‘pen’ at Huntsville, Texas. Another five in Rawlins, Wyoming. An’ three in Sante Fé, New Mexico.... ‘Call on’ a rough-neck like yu’?” he repeated. “With such a record as that? In th’ dark—at close range—with a .45 on yore hip? ‘Call on yu’! ‘—an’ bring my knittin’. What’d yu’ bin doin’ th’ whiles? Shot me dead, most likely, or made some break that’d a-forced me to shoot yu’—just ’bout th’ last thing I wanted to happen. No, Mister George; for reasons yu’ll know later, yu’re worth more to me alive than dead. ‘Call on yu’!’ Not if I know it. I’d trust yu’ ’bout as much as I would a grizzly, a wolf, or a ‘diamond-back.’ Yu’ don’t get me like them two yu’ stretched down at Los Barancedes. Yep, I know all ’bout that, too. What’s that? On’y ‘greasers’? Mebbe—but if th’ Rurales’d a-caught yu’ they’d a-surely bumped yu’ off, greasers or not. Now, see here; look,” he concluded with a harsh ring in his raised voice, “yu’ get me, once an’ for all. Yu’re a prisoner. I know my duty as a Mounted Police-Sergeant, an’ I don’t have to get arguin’ th’ point with four-flushin’, tin-horn scum like yu’. An’ mind, now, what I said about that charge goes if yu’ make one more break, talkin’ back to me.”
A hasty search of the two men’s pockets, revealing nothing more dangerous than a jack-knife belonging to Scotty, he turned to Gallagher and bade him bring up the horses.
“Knot th’ lines ’round th’ horns o’ George’s an’ Scotty’s,” he said, “an’ string ’em together ’bout three foot apart with yore lariat, Barney. I want yu’ to trail ’em. I’ll come on behind.”
When all was in readiness he jerked out a curt order to the captives, to “Climb aboard an’ hold onta th’ jug-handle!”
“’Member,” he added warningly. “I’m close behind, so don’t be so foolish as to chance anythin’. First man that does’ll get hurt—bad.”