“Mr. Reed sure came out. He didn’t do any complainin’ at all either. Just grabbed his bronc and whaled away from here. I took one look at you, and says to myself, ‘Here’s the prophet Elijah, wearin’ high-heeled boots.’
“And you kinda had a habit of switchin’ from good English to cow-town United States, Hawkworth. It was interestin’ to me. Some folks had kinda warned us against comin’ out to see you; but that would make me come if nothin’ else did. If a man or a woman is worth sayin’ things against, they’re worth meetin’.”
“And you’ve been worth talking to, Hashknife,” said Big Medicine warmly. “I hope your hunch, as you call it, will keep you in Hawk Hole for a long time. My definition of the word ‘gentleman’ has changed so greatly that I hesitate to use it; so I feel more safe in calling you my friend than a gentleman. I have a bottle of very old whiskey, older than you are, my friend, and I think it is a proper time to drink a health.”
“To you,” said Hashknife, and Big Medicine went after the bottle.
Pedro Torres was just vain enough over his knifethrowing ability to feel sure that he had killed the man who had humiliated him. Until he came back to Pinnacle there was not a doubt in his mind but that Hashknife Hartley had not lived long enough to know what had struck him.
But discreet questioning had brought him the information that Hashknife Hartley had evidently entirely recovered from his attack of rheumatism and was again enjoying good health.
And it was a distinct shock to hear that Sam Blair had been killed that night halfway between Pinnacle and the Tumbling H Ranch, and that a long-bladed knife had been found at the scene of the killing.
Torres rubbed his chin and considered things. He hated to admit to himself that he had miscalculated his throw, but how did his knife happen to be found near Blair’s body? The description of the knife, meager as it was, convinced Torres that it was the one he had flung at Hashknife from the shadows of the bathhouse.
But how had it been found beside a dead man, far removed from the yard of the Tumbling H? Torres rubbed his chin some more and decided that there was some hocus pocus in the wind. He had seen his victim fall. He questioned the slow-witted Garcia.