“In my own jail,” said Olson angrily. “Oyster Shell, Eskimo Swensen and Johnny Grant came over to my office last night. They were drunk, and insisted that I had stolen their horses. And they wanted to look in the cells, the —— fools! Jist because they was drunk I let ’em look, and they accidentally locked me in.
“I told ’em where to find the keys, but they went on out and never came back. That’s why nobody could find me last night. I never knowed there was a hold-up, until Porter showed up this noon. And somebody turned our horses loose, too. Mebbe it was that drunken bunch from the AK. Anyway, we’re goin’ over and tell ’em about it, yuh betcha.”
Marion turned away, shaking with laughter, while her father and the other two of the Double Bar 8 choked back their laughter. They knew the gang from the AK very well indeed. But it was no laughing matter to the two officers.
“I can arrest them three drunks for interferin’ with an officer,” declared Olson hotly. “They interfered with the law when they locked me in. I was badly needed, I tell yuh.”
“Sure yuh was,” choked Buck. “If they hadn’t locked yuh up you’d ’a’ had all three of them robbers in jail now.”
“Mebbe. Anyway, I’d have been on their trail.”
“Where’d yuh git the new dog?” asked Porter.
“New dog?” queried Buck. “That one? Huh! We raised him.”
“Never seen him before.”
“Lotsa things you never seen before.”