"Shut up, you and your 'I's' and 'He wouldn't' and 'I hadda!' If you've told me that tale once since you came here you've told me forty times. Get up and get out! Yore horse is tied at the corral gate. I roped him on my way in. C'mon! Get up! or will I have to crawl yore hump again?"
But McFluke did not get up. Instead he scrabbled sidewise to the wall and shrank against it. His eyes were wide, staring. They were fixed on the doorway behind Mr. Pooley.
"I didn't do it, gents!" cried McFluke, thrusting out his hands before his face as though to ward off a blow. "I didn't kill him! I didn't! It's all a lie! I didn't kill him!"
Fat Jacob Pooley whirled to face three guns. His right hand fell away reluctantly from the butt of his sixshooter. Slowly his arms went above his head. Racey Dawson and his two companions entered the room. The eldest of these companions was one of the Piegan City town marshals. He was a friend of Jacob Pooley's. But there was no friendliness in his face as he approached the register, removed his gun, and searched his person for other weapons. Jacob Pooley said nothing. His face was a dark red. The marshal produced a pair of handcuffs. The register recoiled.
"Not those!" he protested. "Don't put handcuffs on me!"
"Put yore hands down," ordered the marshal.
"Look here, I'll go quietly. I'll—"
"Put yore hands down!" repeated the inexorable marshal.
Jacob Pooley put his hands down.
Racey and the other man were handcuffing McFluke, who was keeping up an incessant wail of, "I didn't do it! I didn't, gents, I didn't!"