“O-o-oh, yea-a-ah! Shore; I’ll have the Doc cut ’em out for yuh. Well, I’m goin’ to eat. Yuh ain’t et yet, have yuh? Yeah? Well, I’ll see yuh later, Collins. Goin’ to have the inquest to-morrow mornin’. Hell of a lotta good it’ll do. See yuh later.”
Cultus was in the War Dance Saloon, watching a stiff poker game at midnight. None of the posse were there; they were tired enough to go to bed early. A freight brakeman came in to get a glass of beer, and Cultus heard him talking with the night bartender.
“They shore had one big fire in Broad Arrow this evenin’,” the brakeman said. “Burned down one side of a street for three blocks, but they managed to control it. Courthouse, couple saloons, feed store and some vacant buildings. Pretty hot, while it lasted.”
“Burned the old courthouse, eh?” asked the bartender.
“Nothin’ left of it. Nobody hurt.”
“What started it, do you suppose?”
“Nobody seems to know. Them old buildings get pretty dry.”
Cultus smiled thinly. With the papers stolen from the Medicine Tree Bank, and the county courthouse a mass of ruins, there was left no evidences of any cow-ranch mortgages in Painted Valley!
Nearly every one in Painted Valley came to the inquest. Buck Gillis had been known by everybody in the county, and they wanted his murderer punished. Jim Kelton brought Jane to town. He didn’t realise what the burning of the courthouse meant, until he talked with Joe Brown and Sam Harker, who were in the same fix as Kelton. Harker had talked with a lawyer, who assured him that there was not a scrap of paper left to show that the Medicine Tree Bank had ever held a mortgage on the O Bar B.
Jim Kelton didn’t know whether to be glad or not. He was too honest to take advantage of the situation, and talked with John Freeman about it. Freeman was unable to tell him what to do, except that the bank could not hold him for anything, unless the stolen mortgages were recovered.