"Are you game?"
"I'll do it, Race." Rexhill spoke solemnly. "We might as well fry for one thing as another." Grimacing, he shook the hand which the other offered him. "When will you start?"
"Now," Moran answered promptly. "I'll take three or four men with me, and we'll hang around Wade's ranch until we get him. He'll probably be nosing around the range trying to locate the gold, and we shouldn't have much trouble. When we've got him safe...." His teeth ground audibly upon each other as he paused abruptly, and the sound seemed to cause the Senator uneasiness.
"By the way, since I've turned near-assassin, you might as well tell me who shot Jensen." Rexhill spoke with a curious effort. "If Wade gets you, instead of you getting Wade, it may be necessary for me to know all the facts."
Moran answered from the window, whither he had stepped to get his hat, which lay on the broad sill.
"It was Tug Bailey, Senator. Here comes Helen now. You needn't tell her that I was tied up all night." He laid Wade's quirt on the desk. "He left that behind him."
Rexhill grunted.
"Yes, I will tell her," he declared sulkily, "and about the Jensen affair, if I've got to be a rascal, you'll be the goat. Give Bailey some money and get him out of town before he tanks up and tells all he knows."
Helen came in, looking very sweet and fresh in a linen suit, and was at first inclined to be sympathetic when she heard of Moran's plight, without knowing the source of it. Before she did know, the odor of liquor on his breath repelled her. He finally departed, not at the bidding of her cool nod, but urged by his lust of revenge, which, even more than the whiskey, had fired his blood.
"Intoxicated, isn't he? How utterly disgusting!"