“Tcha’! Drunk or sober it don’t make any difference. I tell you the whole camp’s on edge over that gal. It only needs a word to set things hummin’. It’s that gal! She’s a Jonah, a Hoodoo to us all—to this place. She’s got rotten luck all over her—and you brought her here. You needn’t try an’ sling mud at me fer handing them the rot-gut the boys ask for. Get that woman out of the place and things’ll level up right away.”
The man’s rudeness still seemed to have no effect.
“But all this doesn’t seem to fit in with—with this affair to-night,” the Padre argued. “You said it began, you thought, over the four women you allow in here.”
Beasley was being steadily drawn without knowing it. His swift-rising spleen led him farther into the trap.
“So it did,” he snapped. Then he laughed mirthlessly. “Y’ see some one suggested those gals pay a ‘party’ call on your Golden Woman,” he said with elaborate sarcasm. “And it was because Mr. Curly Saunders sort o’ fancies he’s got some sort of right to that lady he butted in and shot up the Kid.”
“Who suggested it?” asked the other quickly, his mild gray eyes hardening.
“Why, the Kid.”
The Padre looked the saloon-keeper squarely in the eye.
“And who put it into that foolish boy’s head?” he asked slowly.