‘We didn’t need yore help,’ said Dave Morgan. ‘You haven’t even tried to find young Lane. Things like this don’t require a sheriff, Lem.’
‘Things like this require a little brains and horse-sense,’ retorted Lem. ‘And there ain’t a damn one of you fellers that qualify. You was jist smart enough to send old man Lane into the hills.’
‘If it hadn’t been for that fool kid——’
‘Smart, I’d call it,’ said Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs.
‘Hello, Napoleon,’ smiled Lem. ‘How come you in town?’
‘He’s scared to stay on the ranch with a corpse,’ laughed Spike. ‘Wouldn’t even stay there along with Dell Bowen and Bert Roddy.’
‘All right,’ grunted Briggs. ‘I don’t crave no dead folks. Every person’s got a hobby. Mine’s to keep a long ways ahead of the dead.’
‘You got a rig we can take the body to Cañonville in?’ asked Lem.
‘Shore,’ nodded Spike. ‘Got a hack.’
‘All right; c’mon and drive it.’