“I reckon you are the same Hashknife Hartley that Casey spoke about. We thought he was stretchin’ it a little.”
“What did he say?” smiled Hashknife.
“Oh, a lot of things. We was talkin’ about rustlers and all kinds of bandits, and of fellers we knew that were wanted by this sheriff and that sheriff and by U. S. marshals. Casey says:
“‘It all depends on who wants yuh. Now, if Hashknife Hartley, the feller I’ve been lyin’ to yuh about, wanted me, I’d either throw away my gun and yell like ——for him to come and get me, or I’d turn sailor and head for the tip end of South America.’”
Hashknife laughed and lighted the cigaret he had been rolling.
“He likely exaggerated a lot,” he said. “I’m not an officer of the law—never have been. Never arrested any one in my life.”
“Casey said the same thing—about the arrests. He said there wasn’t anybody left to arrest. He sure boosted yuh to us.”
“Well, don’t believe half of it,” laughed Hashknife, as he swung the horse around and joined Sleepy, who had been examining his animal for possible injury, and they rode back toward Totem City.
It was a little later that morning when old Doctor Owen closed the door of the Arrow bunk house and walked to his horse and buggy at the front gate. He was an angular, grave-faced man, well past middle age, an old family doctor sort of person.
He carefully placed his well-worn medicine case in the buggy, carefully wiped his glasses on an immaculate handkerchief before taking the halter off his horse. For twenty years Doctor Owen had been doing this same thing in the same way.