‘You found him, didn’t yuh. No use of me lyin’.’
‘Well, for God’s sake!’ blurted Lem. ‘Old man Lane ain’t guilty a-tall.’
‘But who tied Pete on the horse?’ asked Lem. ‘That part of it ain’t explained.’
‘Nan and Rex,’ said Hashknife. ‘They found the body in the corral, and wanted to get rid of it. That’s what made me sure Paul Lane never killed him, Lem. If he had, he’d have hid the body—not left it there to cinch him for murder.[’]
‘If there hadn’t been any more shootin’, I might have believed old man Lane guilty; but there was too much shootin’ goin’ on. The fact that Dave Morgan would inherit the 6X6 made me suspect him; but he couldn’t do it all alone. He had to have help, but I didn’t know who to suspect.[’]
‘I never thought of Joe Cave until Lem fired him for bein’ drunk.’
‘Wasn’t anythin’ about that, was there?’ asked Lem.
‘A puncher,’ said Hashknife slowly, ‘don’t usually get drunk that early in the mornin’, and they don’t usually take a chance on losin’ a good job. It kinda looked to me as though Joe wanted to lose that job; so I rode out of town to see how he acted after he got away from town. He sobered up too quick. He had to be fired in order to make it look right. Yuh see, he was due to take over this saloon.’
‘Morgan said yuh ought to be killed,’ said Joe wearily.
‘What did you and Morgan quarrel about down in the sheriff’s office, Joe?’