“'Well,' he said, after looking down at the floor for a minute, 'I'll bet you boys think I'm a dem slack wad of an officer.'
“I didn't know what the devil he was driving at, and so I simply kept my mouth shut, but you bet your life I had my ears open, for there was something in his eye that I didn't like, and then when he said 'you boys' in that tone I began to think he might be on to the work we did the other night.”
“Well, what next?” Carson asked, sharply. “Well, he just leaned on the counter, about to slide down every minute,” Blackburn went on, “and then he began to laugh in a silly sort of way and said, 'Them Hillbend fellers are a slick article, ain't they?' Of course I didn't know what to say,” said the store-keeper, “for he had his eyes on me and was grinning to beat the Dutch, and that is the kind of cross-examination I fail at. Finally, however, I managed to say that the Hillbend folks had beaten the others to the jail, anyway, and he broke out into another knowing laugh. 'The Hillbend gang didn't have as fur to go,' he said. 'Oh, they are a slick article, an' they've got a slick young leader.'”
“What else?” asked Carson, who looked very grave and stood with his lips pressed together.
“Nothing else,” Blackburn answered. “Just then Wiggin, your boon companion and bosom friend, stopped at the door and called him.”
“Good Lord, and with Wiggin!” Garner exclaimed. “Our cake is dough, and it's good and wet.”
“Yes, he's a Wiggin man!” said Blackburn. “I've known he was pulling against Carson for some time. It seems like Braider sized up the situation, and decided if he was going to be re-elected himself he'd better pool issues with the strongest man, and he picked that skunk as the winner. I went to the door and watched them. They went off, arm in arm, towards the court-house.”
“Braider is evidently on to us,” Carson decided, grimly; “and the truth is, he holds us in the palm of his hand. If he should insist on carrying out the law, and rearresting Pete and putting him back in jail, Dan Willis would see that he didn't stay there long, and Wiggin would swear out a warrant against us as the greatest law-breakers unhung.”
“Oh yes, the whole thing certainly looks shaky,” admitted Blackburn.
“I tell you one thing, Carson,” Garner observed, grimly, “there are no two ways about it, we are going to lose our client and your election just as sure as we stand here.”