Racey Dawson, conscious that both Jack Harpe and Luke Tweezy were watching him covertly, rolled a meticulous cigarette. He scratched a match on the chair seat, held it to the end of the cigarette, and stared across the pulsing flame straight into the eyes of the Marysville lawyer. Tweezy's gaze wavered and fell away. Racey inhaled strongly, then got to his feet and lazed across to the bar where Jake Rule, with Kansas Casey at his elbow, was perfunctorily questioning McFluke. The latter's hard, close-coupled blue eyes narrowed at Racey's approach.
Racey, as he draped himself against the bar, was careful to nudge
Casey's foot with a surreptitious toe.
"Jake," said Racey, "would I be interruptin' the proceedings too much if I made a motion for us to drink all round?"
"Not a-tall," declared the sheriff, heartily.
Racey turned to McFluke.
When their hands had encircled the glasses for the third time, Racey, instead of drinking, suddenly looked across the bar at McFluke who was industriously swabbing the bar top.
"Mac," he said, easily, "when that stranger ran out the door how many gents fired at him?"
"Punch Thompson," replied McFluke, the sushing cloth stopping abruptly. "You heard him tell the coroner how he fired and missed, didn't you?"
"Oh, I heard, I heard," Racey answered. "No harm in asking again, is there? Can't be too shore about these here—killin's, can you? Mac, which door did the stranger run through—the one into the back room or the one leadin' outdoors?"
"Why, the one leadin' outdoors, of course." McFluke's surprise at the question was evident.