“Well?” he managed to say, between puffs.
“Well, ——!” snorted Tex. “I just finished losing the eight thousand dollars I got for that shipment to Frisco.”
Barnhardt’s eyebrows lifted slightly and he sucked heavily on his extinguished pipe, staring steadily at Tex. Then:
“You lost it all, eh? Playing poker with Neal?”
Tex nodded wearily. Barnhardt leaned back in his old chair, squinting narrowly at the ceiling.
“That’s a lot of money, Tex,” he said thoughtfully. “It puts you in pretty bad, don’t yuh think?”
“Sure. That’s why I came over here, Lee.”
“Is that so? Thinking, of course, that I can square it for yuh,” Barnhardt laughed wryly. “It’s quite a job to explain away eight thousand dollars, Tex. I don’t know why you didn’t bring that check to me.”
“They made it out in my name,” said Tex, as if that might mitigate the fact that he had used eight thousand belonging to the X Bar 6 outfit.
“That didn’t cause it to belong to you,” reminded Barnhardt. “They can jail yuh for that, Tex. It’s plain embezzlement. I’ve got to account for that eight thousand dollars.”