“I dunno. The Kid and Billy saw you and yore two men ride out there that mornin’, and then they trailed yuh over to the Circle Spade, to see if yuh arrested Rance. After yuh left there and headed back for town, Billy said they got the idea of skinnin’ out the brand and stealin’ the saddle—tryin’ to make it look worse for Rance.”
“I thought that was the way of it.”
“But how did you know it wasn’t a bullet from the car that killed the horse?”
“That was a cinch. The cut is pretty deep there, Reimer, and any bullet fired from the car door at a horse outside the right-of-way fence would naturally range upward. The bullet that killed the horse was fired from slightly above the animal, ranging downward. And what holdup man would ever leave his horse in full view of the train?”
Butch rubbed his sore head and groaned a few times.
“That’s the hell of makin’ it too strong,” he said.
Hashknife walked to the kitchen door, opened it, and said to Sleepy:
“Bring in yore company.”
The Kid and Butch glared at each other.
“Butch says you’re a liar,” grinned Hashknife.