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.”
The room was in an uproar following the finish of the story. They wanted to get outside where there was more room to talk. But Hashknife knew they were going to do more than talk. They were clattering down the stairs when Hashknife touched Joe on the arm.
“Get down there,” he said softly. “Yo’re the sheriff yet, Joe—Kelsey’s disqualified. Stop ’em at the door. They’ll listen to yuh, kid.”
Joe ran from the room and they heard him going down the steps. Peggy was looking at Hashknife, her eyes filled with tears, as she held out her hands to him.
“Oh, it was wonderful,” she said. “But I knew you would do something wonderful; I knew it, Hashknife.”
“Yeah,” he said bashfully. “It worked out pretty good.”
“Oh, I don’t know how you did it, Hashknife. Everybody was against Joe. Why did you think he was innocent? What made you think it was a plot against him?”