Hashknife grinned widely and began rolling a cigaret.
“Before we go too far,” he said slowly, “would yuh mind tellin’ me how many hundreds that roan bronc was worth?”
“Not a —— hundred! Fact of the matter is, he wasn’t worth six bits. But that don’t tell me nothin’.”
Hashknife and Sleepy gawped at each other. It was unusual. In fact it had never happened to them before. Old Sam Hodges grinned. The sheriff had just told him enough to whet his interest in the matter. He instinctively liked the looks of these two cowpunchers, and old Sam was a pretty good judge of human nature.
“Somebody,” said Hashknife mysteriously, “shot that horse.”
“——, that wasn’t hard to see!” snorted the sheriff.
“When I was on him, goin’ as fast as he could go.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We went to Turkey Track sidin’, like we said we would, but the train was gone. We started back, like we intended to do, if the train wasn’t there. And when we crossed the river, some folks started throwin’ lead at us. By golly, they sure did heave the old shrapnel at us.
“They chased us all the way to that little ranch on the creek, where we busted into the house and the six-gun parade turned around and went away. About a mile from the ranch, one or two of them bullets hived up in the roan, and we had to do the last mile on one horse. Now, I dunno how you folks do things around here, but I think it’s a —— of a way to treat strangers.”