"I don't see what right you've got to ask that; I guess that's a matter between two men."
Carney fastened his piercing eyes on the speaker's, and shot out with startling suddenness: "Seth Long has been murdered—do you know that?"
"What—what—what're you saying?"
Hadley's mouth remained open; it was like the gaping mouth of a gasping fish; his eyes had been startled into a wide horrified wonder look.
"Seth—murdered!" then he grinned foolishly. "By God! you Westerners pull some rough stuff. That's not good form to spring a joke like that; I'm a tenderfoot, but——"
"Stop it!" Carney snarled; "do you think I'm a damned fool. Seth has been shot through the heart, and you were the last man with him. I want from you all you know. We've got to catch the right man, not the wrong man—do you get that, Hadley?" The fierceness of this toniced the man with a hang-over, cleared his fuzzy brain.
"My God! I don't know anything about it. I left Seth Long at the police shack, and I don't know anything more about him."
There was a step on the stairway. Carney turned as Jeanette came through the door. He went to meet her, and turned her back into the hall where he said: "Steady yourself, girl. Something has happened."
"I know—I heard you; I'm steady." She put her hand in his, and he pressed it reassuringly. Then he whispered:
"I'm going to leave you with these two men while I get Dr. Anderson, and I want you to see if either of these men leaves the room, or attempts to hide anything—I can't search them. Do you understand, Jeanette?"