“It didn’t look like it, Sleepy, but my bronc is too tired to run away from trouble, and I’m too sleepy to shoot my way out of it. Anyway, I’m kinda losin’ my affection for these Lo Lo cattlemen.”
They stabled their horses at Totem City and went to a restaurant. Sudden Smithy was there with Sunshine. Sudden nodded curtly, and his face showed little enthusiasm when Hashknife and Sleepy sat down at his table.
Sunshine merely grunted and kept up a steady attack on his plate of food. Hashknife and Sleepy had noticed that there were quite a number of horses at the hitch racks: Evidence that all of the cowpunchers were not out at the dead-line. Sudden seemed slightly nervous and often squinted toward the front windows.
The waiter was just placing their food on the table, when in came Matthew Hale, the prosecuting attorney. He came straight to the sheriff, paying no attention to the other three men.
“Well?” said the sheriff coldly.
“I’ve been looking for you,” said Hale. “Several of the men are over in Hork’s place, and it’s beginning to look dangerous. You know as well as I do that you can’t keep King and Hartwell in jail without a specific charge against them. As far as I know there is nothing against them. They were not arrested by the law; merely kidnaped.”
“All right,” grunted Sudden angrily. “I suppose yuh want me to turn ’em loose, eh?”
“I merely want you to comply with the law, Sheriff. It seems to me, that with all this shooting going on, and dead men, whose deaths have not been investigated, there should be something for the sheriff’s office to do beside keeping men in jail, against whom there have been no charges made, who have never even been arrested.”
Sleepy innocently clapped his hands by way of applause.
It angered Sudden. He whirled on Sleepy, who met his glare with an expression of angelic innocence.