“Not for mine,” protested another. “Soak him in a cell before anybody finds out he’s here.”
“Good idea! C’mon.”
They hustled him through the office, down a corridor to a cell, where they locked him in, still handcuffed. He stared blankly at them—his mind whirling. What was it all about, he wondered?
Another man came in—the cowboy who had stood on the edge of the sidewalk.
“Wasn’t that Ben Allen?” he asked.
“It shore was,” growled one of the men, who wore a deputy’s badge.
“What did the fool come back here for?”
“Quién sabe, Jim? I reckon the jury was right when they judged him crazy. He argued with them that he was sheriff of this county. Bob was to take him to the asylum yesterday, yuh know, but somehow he got Bob’s gun away, shot him twice, and made a getaway with Bob’s star, rifle, and six-gun.”
“And then the danged fool came back!”
“Merely provin’ that he is crazy.”