“That’s all, Len; that I can’t walk. He will understand.”
“I hope he will. Is there anythin’ else?”
“No; just that.”
Len left the room, and in spite of the throbbing ankle Nan fell asleep, feeling sure that Amos Baggs would understand and be human enough to give her a few days of grace.
CHAPTER XVIII: SHREWD QUESTIONS
A short time after Hashknife had been ordered from Baggs’s office and had talked with the sheriff, he ran across Johnny Harris of the JP outfit, who imparted the information that Len had taken his boy out to the Box S. Johnny had seen Nan go to Baggs’s office and had also seen Len go there.
“I dunno what happened,” he told Hashknife, “but I saw Len go bustin’ into the office like he was goin’ to eat Baggs up. In a danged short time the girl comes out, lookin’ back, and then comes Len kinda backin’ out. The kid never did get all the way in. They piled into the buckboard with Whisperin’, and away they went, except Len, who piled on to his bronco and led the way.”
Hashknife got a grin out of this. He realised that Len had been the cause of Baggs’s scalded look about the face. That was the second time that Len had chastised Baggs. It was no wonder that Baggs was not in a gentle frame of mind.
After Johnny Harris left him, Hashknife sat on the sidewalk and tried to reason out the situation. Finally he gave up and went back to the sheriff’s office, where he tried to get the sheriff’s reactions on a few things. But Ben Dillon was not reacting just at present.
“Anyway,” he told Hashknife, “I don’t see why you’re so danged concerned. Yuh act as though you was sheriff, instead of me. If somebody wants to shoot Amos Baggs, that’s their business.”