"——like playin' a king-full against three deuces that you done the trick. You was seen goin' toward the station about an hour before Budd Tucker found Ridgely, the agent, stretched out on the floor of the office, a bullet from a .45 clean through him. An' there's five thousand dollars in gold gone, an' no trace of it. An' there's been no strangers in town. An' here's your gun, showin' plain that it's been shot off lately, for there's the powder smudge on the cylinder an' the barrel. That's a pay streak of circumstantial evidence or I ain't sheriff of Socorro!"
Rankin's eyes had flashed with an unusual brilliancy as the sheriff had spoken of him being seen going toward the station previous to the finding of the agent's body, but they glazed over with unconcern during the rest of the recital. And as the sheriff concluded, Rankin gazed scornfully at him, sneering mildly:
"I couldn't add nothin' to what you've just said." He idly kicked the gray dust that was mounded at his feet, standing loose and inert, as though he cared little what might be the outcome of this impromptu interview. And then, suddenly, his blue eyes twinkled humorously as he raised them to meet the sheriff's.
"Give you time you might tell me where I spent the money," he said drily. "There's no tellin' where your theorizin' might end."
The sheriff ignored this, but he eyed his prisoner meditatively.
"There's been a rumor," he said coldly, "that you've got cracked on my daughter, Mary Jane. But I ain't never been able to properly confirm it. I meant to tell you some time ago that while I ain't had no objection to livin' in the same town with you, I'm some opposed to havin' you for a son-in-law. But now, since the express robbery, it won't be necessary for me to tell you not to nose around my house, for you're goin' to ride straight out of Socorro County, an' you ain't comin' back any more. If you do, I reckon you'll discover that Socorro's present leniency ain't elastic enough to be stretched to cover your home-comin'."
"I ain't sayin' nothin'," said Texas, glancing with pensive eyes to a point far up the sun-baked street where his gaze rested upon a pretentious house in a neatly-fenced yard where there were green things that gave a restful impression. "Circumstantial evidence is sure convincin'." he sighed deeply. "I reckon you knowed all along that I thought a heap of Mary Jane. That's the reason you picked me out for the express job."
He scowled as his eyes took in the meagre details of Socorro's one street. Because of long association these details had become mental fixtures. Socorro had been his home for ten years, and in ten years things grow into a man's heart. And civic pride had been his one great virtue. If in the summer the alkali dust of the street formed into miniature hills of grayish white which sifted into surrounding hollows under the whipping tread of the cow-pony's hoofs, Texas likened it unto ruffled waters that seek a level. The same condition in another town would have drawn a curse from him. If in the winter the huge windrows of caked mud stretched across the street in unlovely phalanx, Texas was reminded of itinerant mountain ranges. The stranger who would be so unwary as to take issue with him on this point would regret—if he lived. The unpainted shanties, the huddled, tottering dives, the tumble-down express station—all, even the maudlin masquerade of the High Card Saloon—were institutions inseparable from his thoughts, inviolable and sacred in the measure of his love for them.
And now! Something caught in his throat and gave forth a choking sound.
"But I reckon it's just as well," he said resignedly. "I sure ain't of much account." He hesitated and smiled weakly at the sheriff. "I ain't croakin'," he said apologetically; "there's the circumstantial evidence." He hesitated again, evidently battling a ponderous question. "You didn't happen to hear Mary Jane say anything about the express job?" he questioned with an expression of dog-like hopefulness. "Anything that would lead you to believe she knowed about it?"