"Issue all the —— warrants yo're a mind to!" cried Archer. "I ain't talkin'!"
"Now look here," said Loudon. "Turn yore tongue loose an' it won't go so hard with yuh. We know who's behind yuh. What's the use o' yore swingin' for them? Have sense, man. There's enough evidence against yuh to lynch yuh forty times."
"Bring on yore bale o' rope," snarled Archer. "I ain't worryin' none. If yuh know who's behind me, what's the use o' askin' me anythin'?"
The contumacious Archer had the rights of the matter, and Loudon realized it.
"We'd ought to lynch him," declared Johnny Ramsay with conviction.
"Not in Marysville, young man," said the Judge. "Having, as it were, been the means of preventing Archer's escape, I can not allow him to be hung without due process of law. I shall be delighted to commit him to the calaboose. Archer, you confounded rascal, I shall attach your dance hall until I recover the price of that horse you sold me! I thought you were a friend of mine, and you make me a receiver of stolen property. The best animal I ever bought, too. Damit, sir! I shall try you separately for each horse!"
"He might mebbe escape or somethin'," dubiously suggested Chuck Morgan.
"Chuck, the individuals whom I commit do not escape," the Judge said, severely. "And in the case of Archer I shall take particular pains to see that he does not break jail. Have no doubts on that score."
He broke off and cursed Archer with wholly unjudicial fervour.
"Damit!" he continued. "If I hadn't known that the rascal wanted the horse in order to conceal evidence, I'd have sold it back to him to-night. The five Barred Twin Diamond horses in his corral are no longer there. They vanished yesterday. But the sorrel won't vanish. He'll stay right in my corral till wanted. Gentlemen, last night someone endeavoured to steal him. Luckily, I was watching and with a couple of shots I drove off the would-be thief.