“You’ll find I’ve got evidence aplenty, Mac,” the sheriff answered mildly. “No hard feelings, you understand. All in the way of business. Have I got yore word if I don’t put the cuffs on you that you’ll go with me to Wagon Wheel quietly?”
“Yes. We’re not desperadoes, Aleck. We are just plain hill ranchmen. If you’d just mentioned it we’d have come in without any posse to guard us.”
“H’mp!” The sheriff made no other comment. He glanced at Falkner by way of comment on McCoy’s criticism. “I’m leavin’ three of the boys here, Mac. Be back here myself in a few hours, I reckon. If I don’t get back I’ve arranged for you to make a start for town about two o’clock. That agreeable to you?”
“Any time that suits you,” McCoy answered.
The sheriff was back within the specified time limit. He brought with him Rogers and Yerby. From a remark he dropped later McCoy learned that Cole had been arrested earlier in the day at Wagon Wheel.
“You are makin’ quite a gather, Aleck,” said Rogers. “There are several other ranchmen up here you’ve overlooked. How about them?”
“I’ve got all I want for the present, Brad,” the sheriff replied.
His manner was not reassuring, nor was the fact that he had picked out and arrested just the six men who had been engaged in the night raid.
Silcott, temperamentally volatile, was plainly downhearted. McCoy manœuvred so that he rode beside him when they took the road.
“Don’t you worry, Larry,” the older man said in a cheerful voice, but one so low that it carried only to the ears of the man it addressed. “He can’t make his case stick, if we all stand pat on our story.”