“Well,” confessed Johnny gravely, “he sure scared me into tellin’ yuh all I knew.”
“You look like a feller that scares easy,” grinned Hashknife. “I’ll betcha all three of you fellers would run from a shadow.”
“Well, yuh can’t do much damage to a shadow, yuh know. We’d like yuh to know that if yuh need three fellers that are strong in the muscle and weak in the head, yuh might call on us.”
“Thanks, Grant. I reckon Nanah and Marion are cookin’ dinner, and if I was you, I’d stick around for the meal. Marion wants to thank yuh for offerin’ accommodations to us on the round-up.”
“George Bonnette done that, Hartley. ’S funny Tex Alden didn’t offer to take care of yuh.”
“I reckon he’s sore about Jimmy bein’ here.”
“M-m-m-m-m-m. Hartley, no matter what yore personal opinion is of Tex Alden, he’s a white man, and a —— of a good cow-hand. Mebbe he’s kinda off-color on account of carin’ a lot for that girl, but he’s a square shooter—all the time.”
“Yeah? He ordered Jimmy Legg to get out of the country. That night Jimmy was shot, just after he had left Marion Taylor, at the front of the Blue Wells hotel. A little later on, a shot from the hill out there almost got him again.”
“I know that,” Johnny shook his head. “If I was goin’ off at half-cock, I’d nod toward Tex, wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose I would, Grant—but I don’t.”