"Not quite," denied Racey. "Not the way you went about it. Nawsir. Well, gents," he resumed, "what I heard in that corral showed plain enough there was something up. Dale wouldn't sell, and they were bound to get his land away from him. So they figured to have Nebraska Jones turn the trick by playin' poker with the old man. When Nebraska—They switched from Nebraska to Peaches Austin, plannin' to go through with the deal at McFluke's from the beginning. And that was where Tweezy come in. He was to get the old man to McFluke's, and with the help of Peaches Austin cheat Dale out of the ranch."
"That's a damn lie!" cried Tweezy.
"I suppose you'll deny," said Racey, "that the day I saw you ride in here to Farewell—I mean the day Jack Harpe spoke to you in front of the Happy Heart, and you didn't answer him—that day you come in from Marysville on purpose to tell Jack an' Lanpher about the mortgage having to be renewed and that now was their chance. I suppose you'll deny all that, huh?"
"Yo're—yo're lyin'," sputtered Luke Tweezy.
"Am I? We'll see. When playin' cards with old Dale didn't work they caught the old man at McFluke's one day and after he'd got in a fight with McFluke and McFluke downed him, they saw their chance to produce a forged release from Dale."
"Who did the forging?" broke in the Judge.
"I dunno for shore. This here was found in Tweezy's safe." He held out a letter to the Judge.
Judge Dolan took the letter and read it carefully. Then he looked across at Luke Tweezy.
"This here," said he, tapping the letter with stiffened forefinger, "is a signed letter from Dale to you. It seems to be a reply in the negative to a letter of yores askin' him to sell his ranch."
The Judge paused and glanced round the room. Then his cold eyes returned to the face of Luke Tweezy who was beginning to look extremely wretched.