“If I’d fire wheat and shoot a man down from cover, what good would my word be?”
“That’s so.” The sheriff’s eyes swept up and down him. “Still, I’ll ask for yore word. Reed believes in you. I don’t reckon you did this job. Will you stay where I can reach you for a few days? I might need you as a witness.”
“Yes.”
The sheriff was surprised, not at the promise, but at the sense of reliance he put in it. It came to him that, if this young fellow gave his word, he would keep it at any cost. Since this was scarcely reasonable, he tried to reject the conviction. He recalled his court experience in listening to witnesses. Some of the most convincing were liars out of whole cloth, while honest ones with nothing to conceal were at times dragged sweating through a tangle of incompatible statements.
“Better go to the bunkhouse and wait there. I’ll fix it with Forbes so you can sleep there to-night,” Daniels said.
Tug walked to the bunkhouse and sat down on the porch. After a time the car returned with the men. They had not been able to find any one hiding in the brush or hurrying to escape.
Daniels took charge of the man-hunt. “We’ll tackle this job on horseback, boys,” he said. “This fellow will make for the railroad. He’ll jump a train at a station or a water-tank if he can. We’ll patrol the points where the cars stop.”
The foreman came down to the bunkhouse. Evidently he had his orders. “Boys, the sheriff’s in charge of this job now. You’ll do as he says.”
Dusty spoke up. He and others had been looking with open and menacing suspicion at the paroled prisoner. That young man sat on the porch, chair tipped back on two legs, smoking a cigarette with obvious indifference to their hostility. The coolness of his detachment from the business of the hour was irritating.
“What about this bird here?” Dusty wanted to know. “Is he a prisoner, or ain’t he?”