“Better than anybody else,” smiled Hashknife. “Here,” he handed a key to Dan Leach. “There’s two more cells empty. Put Collins in one and Merrick in the other.”
“Well, I’ll be darned!” That was about as near as Fred Coburn ever came to using profanity.
Uncle Hozie was pawing at Hashknife, masticating violently and staring at Joe Rich and Peggy.
“Wh-what about him?” demanded Uncle Hozie, pointing at Joe.
“Oh, don’t bother ’em,” grinned Hashknife. “Listen, you folks. I’ve got the whole story. Dutch Siebert is hog-tied at the Circle M and we found Joe Rich in a cellar under the house, where he’s been since the day he rode out of town.
“Joe Rich didn’t get drunk on his weddin’ night. He took two drinks of liquor with Len Kelsey in the Arapho saloon, and Len slipped him some knockout drops. Joe knew he hadn’t been drunk, but there wasn’t any way to prove it. Merrick practically forced Joe to appoint Kelsey and it was Merrick’s idea to discredit Joe in order to make Kelsey sheriff. Merrick wanted to own the law.
“Well, he done a rattlin’ good job of it. In fact, he overdone his job. That bridge wasn’t hit by lightning; it was set on fire to let Merrick get off that express car after he had robbed the safe. Collins and Dutch Siebert were there with the horses, and they set the fire. The brakeman ran into ’em and they killed him. Anybody with any sense would have known it couldn’t be a one-man job. The man who robbed that safe couldn’t have killed the brakeman, because he was put out of the way before the train stopped.
“And Joe Rich did not rob Jim Wheeler. That was done by Siebert and Collins, after Merrick had given Wheeler just one thousand dollars. Merrick made out two notes, and Jim Wheeler thought one was a duplicate. He read his own—and signed Merrick’s, which read ‘five thousand.’ But Jim Wheeler lost his note, and I found it under the sidewalk, over there by the Pinnacle Saloon. I don’t know how they found it out, but I reckon they did, because last night they mistook Slim Coleman for me and batted him over the head.
“But they overdone the evidence part at both the train and at the bank. I didn’t know Joe Rich, but from what I could learn he was intelligent—too danged intelligent to wear those leather cuffs, lose a knife with his initials on it and all that. Merrick and Jack Ralston caught Joe that first day. That is, they downed his horse, and took him to the Circle M. They had to skin that animal to keep anybody from seein’ it was Joe’s horse.
“And here’s the particularly devilish part of it all. They were tryin’ to pile up a big reward, soak Joe with a murder charge and make it dead or alive. Know what that means? It means that they were going to kill Joe and get that money, make heroes out of themselves and live happy for a long time on the money they’ve got in that cellar. That’s the story, folks.”