“Yeah?” Hashknife seemed greatly amused. “You go back and tell Spot Easton to come and get us, will you?”
“I’m the sheriff!” snapped Blue.
“That’s sure a deplorable fact,” agreed Hashknife, “and one of the main reasons why we refuse to get ourselves arrested. We’d have a sweet time ever gettin’ out of jail, whether we were innocent or guilty.”
“If you could prove—” began Blue, but Hashknife interrupted him.
“Prove it? Why, we’d have a fine chance. I suppose we’d have to stay in jail until the first term of court, eh?”
“Unless the judge would turn you loose.”
“Judge Pelley’d jist about do that,” grunted Skelton. “He knows about as much law as my old pinto horse, and he’d send his mother to jail for a quart of booze. Him and Spot Easton are thicker’n thieves.”
“I’ve got to do m’ duty,” wailed Blue. “I ain’t noways responsible for what Judge Pelley would do, am I? You’re resistin’ an officer of the law, if you only know it.”
“Ain’t nobody resisted you—yet,” Hashknife reminded him softly, “but if you don’t crawl to your horses and rattle your hocks out of here, I’ll nail your pants to the floor and leave you there to starve.”
“Come on,” urged Hagen. “There’s a difference in bein’ brave and bein’ a —— fool, Jake. I never knowed a two-barrel gun yet what wasn’t easy on the trigger. Come on.”