Billy Wingo stiffened where he sat. Hazel Walton in jail! For an instant he couldn't realize it. His fingers closed on Guerilla's forearm.
Guerilla jerked away the arm. "You don't need to cut my arm in two," he remonstrated, tenderly fingering the member in question. "I didn't have nothing to do with it. Lord A'mighty, Bill, I'll bet you squeezed a muscle out of place."
"My mistake," apologized Billy. "I forgot myself for a minute."
"Then I don't want to be around when you remember yourself. I——"
"What evidence is there against Hazel?" Billy cut in sharply.
"In the first place there's the knife that killed Rafe," said Guerilla, seating himself beside his friend in the shadow of the rock. "Butcher knife with T.W. on the handle that Hazel admitted was hers when they showed it to her. But she said Dan Slike had taken the knife—stuck it in his boot when he left. Then there was Rafe's own gun which Hazel had lying on her kitchen table, showing he'd been there. She admitted that too, but said he'd attacked her, and she'd managed to get hold of his gun after the clock fell on him, and drive him out."
"Rafe attacked her, huh? And she drove him out?" Billy leaned back against the rock in order to steady his shaking body. When he spoke, he found some difficulty in keeping his voice down. "He attacked her and she drove him out! Then what in hell is she arrested for—defending herself?"
"Now, listen, Bill, you know me. I believe anything that girl says, no matter what. But there are some other people harder to convince. The district attorney, and he's got a good many others stringing their chips with his, says how this story of Rafe's attacking her ain't true. That Rafe wouldn't hurt her on a bet, because he liked her too much. And to back that up, here's Rafe's foreman, Jonesy, steps up and swears Rafe told him he was going to see Hazel last night and ask her to marry him. Hazel says Rafe was drunk when he came to see her, and Jonesy says he wasn't. So there's that."
"Weren't there any tracks round Rafe's body to show——"
"You know yourself there was a li'l freeze last night and the ground stiffened up some, and I guess the district attorney and the three others who found Rafe were so flustered they walked all over the ground round Rafe and wiped out every sign there was."