“You—you admit doing it?” gasped Merkle.
“Don’t need to, do I?” Rance laughed harshly.
“Will you sign a confession?”
“I’ll sign nothin’, Merkle. But I’ll take a shot at you, as sure as hell, if yuh don’t shut up about me. That’s a fair warnin’. Put up or shut up.”
“Why, I—I don’t know what to say, McCoy.”
“You’ve said about enough. C’mon, Chuckwalla.”
They tramped out of the office and headed for the Red Arrow Saloon. Some one told Billy DuMond that Rance was on his way, and DuMond went out via the back door. He had no liking to meet Rance McCoy again.
And then old Rance and Chuckwalla proceeded to get drunk. The old man drank recklessly, which was unusual for him. Slim Caldwell heard that the two men from the Circle Spade were drinking heavily, and he also had a report from Merkle and Hale.
Merkle wanted Slim to arrest Rance at once.
“He admitted his guilt, sheriff. Regardless of the money end of the proposition, I demand his arrest. I’m not interested in the financial end of the thing, anyway. He threatened me in my own office, and I have a witness. The sooner he’s behind the bars the better it will be for all of us.”