“He didn’t get shot accidental,” says the sheriff, deliberate-like.
“Oh!” grunts Windy. “’Sassed somebody, eh?”
“Nope. He was crossin’ around at the lower end of Devil’s Dooryard and got a rifle-bullet plumb through his shoulder.”
Windy squints at the sheriff and then at us. Then he rubs his nose, kinda thoughtful-like, and says—
“Well, I reckon you can talk a little more, sheriff.”
“Baldy says that he was knocked plumb hazy, but he seems to remember hearin’ a voice say, ‘Maybe you’ll keep off the Circle Dot Range after this.’”
“That’s a lie!” snaps Windy, dropping his hand to his gun.
“Now, now, don’t get in a hurry,” says the sheriff. “I’m just saying what Baldy said. Yuh can’t blame me for what somebody else said, can yuh?”
“Yuh hadn’t ought to repeat scandal,” says Hashknife. “Now, we’ll tell it to somebody, kinda exaggeratin’ it a little, and they’ll tell it to somebody else, kinda exaggeratin’ it a little, and by and by she gets to be a regular whale of a statement.”
“I’m just tellin’ what Baldy said,” insists the sheriff. “He says he thinks he heard that, and—”