“How’s tricks?” asked Sleepy.
“Tricks?”
Barney squinted at the rim of the wheel, as he felt of the joint with a thumb.
“There ain’t no tricks in this trade; it’s all —— hard work and disappointment. Hear they put the Swede in jail.”
Barney rubbed his hands on his hips and, reaching for Sleepy’s sack of tobacco, squatted down beside them.
“I dunno who killed Quinin Quinn, but it’s a dead immortal cinch that Swede Sam never did.”
“Where’d that .30-30 rifle come from, do you figure?” asked Hashknife.
Barney shook his head and puffed violently.
“I never seen the gun,” he said. “Quinn tol’ me that he’d been shot at three or four times in the last year. ’S far as that’s concerned, so has old Skelton.”
“Any idea why?” asked Sleepy.