"Then they've probably come to gun Jim. I'll stay right with him for a day or two if I can."
"What for?" demanded Roubideau bluntly. "You're not in this thing. You've got no call to mix up in it. The boy saved Polly, an' I'll go this far. If I'm on the spot when he meets Champa or Roush—an' I'll try to be there—I won't let'em both come at him without takin' a hand. But he has got to choose his own way in life. I can't stand between him an' the consequences of his acts. He's got to play his own hand."
"Did Dave Roush an' Mysterious Pete seem pretty friendly?"
"Thicker than three in a bed."
"Looks bad." Billie came to another phase of the situation. "How does it happen that Snaith's outfit have let Jim stay here without gettin' after him? Nothin' but a necktie party would suit 'em when we left in the spring."
"Times have changed," explained Roubideau. "This is quite a trail town now. The big outfits are bringin' in a good deal of money. Snaith can't run things with so high a hand as he did. Besides, there are a good many of the trail punchers in town now. I reckon Wally Snaith has given orders not to start anything."
"Maybe Roush an' Champa have been given orders to take care of Jim."
Jean doubted this and said so. "Snaith doesn't play his hand under the table. But, of course, Sanders may have tipped 'em off to do it."
Clanton joined them presently and the three men walked downtown. The gay smile dropped from Jim's face the moment he stepped down from the porch. Already his eyes had narrowed and over them had come a kind of film. They searched every dark spot on the road.
"Let's go to Tolleson's," he proposed abruptly.