“No-o-o. We got left here, thassall. Cattle-train went away and left us sittin’ on a sidewalk, but we ain’t set down much since.”
“Don’t worry about us,” assured Sleepy. “Instead of soldiers of fortune, we’re cowpunchers of disaster. The only time we ever seen peace was one day when Hashknife found it in the dictionary. The question before us right now, is this: What will we do with these two bodies?”
Jack shook his head.
“I don’t know. There’s too much to be explained.”
“Can’t you two men take charge of them?” asked King.
“With the sheriff and every cattleman in Lo Lo Valley believin’ that we’re spies of the sheep interests?” grinned Hashknife. “We were down at Ed Barber’s inquest and backed out of there with guns in our hands. We’d look well takin’ these two men to Totem City and turnin’ ’em over to the coroner.”
“What makes them think you are spies?” asked King.
“I dunno,” laughed Hashknife. “They’ve got to lay the deadwood on somebody, ’cause somebody told you that old Ed Barber was the man who had blocked yore efforts before, King. Accordin’ to what I can learn, he sat in a cabin up there, where he could watch the slopes into Sunland Basin. Any time the sheep got above a certain level, he signaled the cattlemen, who corked the pass. Now, somebody squealed on the old man.”
“That’s how it is, eh?” King squinted thoughtfully. “Do they blame you for shootin’ the old man?”
“Mebbe not the actual shootin’. Yuh see, they blame you for that.”