McFardell shook his head, and Lightning saw the ominous snapping of his eyes.
“Why should I help out police work?” he said. “Guess I haven’t a thing to lose through cattle thieves.” He laughed. “Why, my stock wouldn’t mean a thing to the craziest bunch of rustlers ever rode the prairie. Anyway, I don’t see where Dan Quinlan’s duffing his yearlings.”
“Yet he’s passed in a hundred an’ fifty in one year an’ registered a brand. Say”—Lightning’s eyes were just a shade anxious—“a boy don’t need to register a brand if he ain’t keepin’ right to the business. Maybe this year he’ll pass in more. Wher’ do they come from? I’d say they don’t grow on the hill-tops, an’ you surely can’t fish ’em in the criks.”
“No.”
McFardell smoked on thoughtfully for some moments. Lightning’s rough argument was not without its effect upon a mind that had been carefully police trained. But there was something else puzzling. Was the cattleman genuine in his anxiety in coming to discuss the situation with him?
“Maybe it’s as you say, Lightning,” he said after awhile. “I’ve heard all this before in Hartspool. At least, I’ve heard them talking. But I don’t fancy jumping in to worry out things for other folk. Why should I? I got all the work, an’ more than I need, right here. No. It’s police work, and I’m not yearning to help the Police.” Suddenly his eyes lit with a feeling that swept him along with it. “No, by God, I owe the Police nothing. Not a thing. You know there’s things a man can never forget. You’re a cattleman. You gave your whole life up to—cattle. I was a policeman, and gave my whole life up to the job. Guess I’d sooner do police work than anything I know. If I may say so, I’m dead cut out for it. I did it for years, and made good all along the line. I’d a name for good work, and saw Easy Street coming my way as a result. I allow I wanted nothing better. Then came bad luck—plumb bad luck and nothing else. No fault of mine. Just luck. In a moment discipline got busy. I—— Psha! It don’t matter. Here I am—‘fired.’ And with a ‘bobtail’ discharge. I’m sore on the Police, boy. I wouldn’t do a thing to help their work, unless—unless——”
“You could get back to ’em with—a clean slate.”
Lightning was smiling fiercely, and his whiskered jaws broke into renewed activity upon his tobacco. He took full credit to himself for the channel into which he believed he had headed their talk.
“That’s how I’d feel,” he said insinuatingly. “Say, it’s sort of hittin’ the other fellow a boost plumb in the neck. But I’d say it would be mighty elegant settin’ the Police Commissioner squealin’.” He laughed, and watched a smile dawn in McFardell’s eyes. “It would be a real swell play to be able to roll in to Calford with a stacked deck of cyards in your pocket. ‘See right here, Commish, I ken lay my hands right on a bunch of hoss thieves, and pass ’em down to penitentiary. Do you need ’em? Well, play the game. Set me right back where I was, and wipe out the darn thing you got against me. I’d say that’s a play that looks a’mighty good to me. Gee, it would be elegant!’”
The old man’s glee was consummate acting, and its very crudity carried conviction. McFardell was completely deceived, and the thought took hold of him against his better judgment. It was helped tremendously by the long winter, most of which he had passed in Hartspool, and the knowledge of the growing depletion of his finances, and the laborious prospects which the coming summer opened up. But he shook his head at the man who was tempting him.