“Uh-huh. It’s shore been a hard time for her, Hartley,” Honey lowered his voice. “She was engaged to marry Joe Rich, and he got drunk on his weddin’ night. Didn’t show up. Then Peggy aims to go East with Laura Hatton. Yuh see, Jim wasn’t awful well heeled with money. He owes the Pinnacle bank quite a lot; so he borrows five thousand from Ed Merrick, who owns the Circle M, and gives Ed his note.
“Ed gives him the money, and Jim starts home with it. And that’s the last anybody ever seen of the money. Joe Rich was aimin’ to pull out of the country; so he comes out to tell Peggy good-bye. And Joe was the one who found Jim Wheeler. Hozie Wheeler and Lonnie Myers comes ridin’ along just a little later, and found Joe with Jim.
“And when the sheriff finds out about the missin’ money, he tries to make Joe wait for an investigation, and Joe pops him through the gun arm. That’s the last we saw of Joe. There’s a reward for him, and the sheriff has been ridin’ the hocks off his horse, but ain’t found nothin’. So yuh can see it’s been awful tough for Peggy.”
Hashknife had been standing on one foot like a stork, holding the other foot out to the blazing fire, while Honey sketched his story. Sleepy hunched down, his back to the fire, his damp hair straggling down over his forehead.
“I wonder,” he said, “if it ain’t stopped rainin’ enough for us to go on to town? We don’t want to miss that train, Hashknife.”
“Joe Rich was the sheriff,” said Honey, as an afterthought. “But he resigned the mornin’ after he got drunk. They made a sheriff out of his deputy. Jim Wheeler knocked Joe down that mornin’, but Joe didn’t do anythin’, they say.”
“And it hadn’t ought to take long to fix that bridge,” said Sleepy. “This rain would put the fire out.”
“What kind of a jigger was this Joe Rich?” asked Hashknife curiously.
“Jist salt of the earth, Hartley.”
“Uh-huh,” thoughtfully. “And got so drunk he forgot to get married, eh?”