“Exactly. Well, my trick is to tell the truth. The situation is very simple. That morning when from the pit mouth you warned me off the premises, I found Miss Armstrong very much worried because she had learned of your intention to shoot up the town, and could not persuade you to abandon so foolish a project. It then became my duty to prevent you doing what you proposed.”
“Do you think you can?”
“Of course; I knew it was no use attempting to reason with you, so the instant necessity was to get one man of common sense to counteract the stupidity of the bunk house. That I set out to do. I rode to Bleachers, called on Lawyer Ricketts, paid him five dollars down for whatever knowledge he could give me concerning the whereabouts of Mr. Armstrong. He could give me none that I did not already possess. He kept the five dollars, though. You saw me go off in the train. I merely went to the next town, to do some telegraphing that might be more or less secret from Ricketts. A detective agency will find Mr. Armstrong, and hand him two hundred dollars, asking him at the same time to make for home by the earliest train. Then, unless I’m much mistaken, Mr. Armstrong will see the idiocy of what you propose, and will prevent you from carrying out your scheme.”
Jim pondered over this announcement for some minutes. At last he broke the silence.
“What you say may be true, but I don’t believe a word of it. It’s more likely Ricketts is your boss, and you went in to report to him and tell him what we intended to do. Then he’ll see that Bleachers is prepared to meet us.”
“Yes; that would be a simple way of turning the trick. There are good points about it, but it happens not to be my way, as you will learn in a few days when Mr. Armstrong returns.”
Again Jim meditated for a while, and finally rose, walked to the further end of the room, and engaged for some minutes in earnest cogitation with his fellows, carried on in tones so low that Stranleigh could not hear. Resuming his seat, he spoke with deliberation—
“You want us to believe that you are a friend of Mr. Armstrong?”
“I don’t care whether you believe it or not. I can hardly be a friend of Stanley Armstrong, because I’ve never seen him.”