“Well, mebbe not enough to arrest ’em on, but it’s enough for us to suspect ’em real hard, and to keep an eye on ’em, Scotty.”
“Yo’re sure gittin’ evidence,” applauded the sheriff. “Al, I’d be lost without yuh. You think faster than I do. I’d prob’ly think of these things after while, yuh see. And they prob’ly turned our broncs loose; so’s we couldn’t foller ’em, even if I got loose.”
“I was jist goin’ to mention that part of it, Scotty. Yuh see how things work out.”
“Yeah. You’d make a good sheriff, Al.”
“Sure. Mebby I will be. Unless somethin’ happens I’ll take a crack at the office next election.”
“Will yuh? I dunno what I’ll do. A feller gits kinda ’tached to a job like this, don’tcha know it? Yo’re prob’ly a better deputy than you’d ever be a sheriff. A feller has to have certain qualifications to be a sheriff, and it ain’t as easy as it looks. Buck was kinda sore at yuh, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, and he’ll get smart jist once too often. One of these days I’m goin’ to bend him plumb shut and rub his nose off agin’ his knee. I’ll jist stand so much from a hombre like him.”
“You sure hang on to yore temper well, Al.”
“Feller’s got to, when he’s a deputy. Yuh can’t go fightin’ every whippoorwill that wants a fight. It don’t look well, Scotty.”
The AK ranch was located well away from the hills, and about three miles southeast of Blue Wells. It was a typical Arizona ranch; the buildings were part adobe, but more elaborate and larger than those of the Double Bar 8. There was no patio to the AK, but the group of buildings were fenced in with barbed wire.