Sharkey smiled blandly; the informant looked disappointed, yet confident.
“I couldn’t have believed that of Dick,” he added, regretfully.
“Well, clear out now,” said Sharkey. “Mr. Thurston and I will want to be alone. You say Jack Rover and two others have gone out to search? Well, we can’t do more till they bring us in some news. Let us know at once when they return.”
Ben Thurston had collapsed onto a chair, then raised himself, and was leaning eagerly forward now. He met Sharkey’s glance of hardly concealed contempt.
“That’s right,” he murmured, “It has been Dick Willoughby’s work. I knew Don Manuel was dead.”
“And what about your boy?” asked the sleuth curtly.
“Oh, yes, poor Marshall! I forgot about him. But perhaps he’s only wounded. We’ll send to Bakersfield for a doctor.” And he half rose from his seat.
“You’ll just wait patiently here,” replied Sharkey, as he pushed Thurston back into his chair. “All that is possible for the present is being done.”
And the rôles were now reversed—it was the bodyguard who slowly and meditatively paced the room.
Meanwhile Dick Willoughby had ceased from his ruminations, and was beginning to take practical steps for getting Marshall’s body home. He had no thought of coroner’s regulations that a corpse should be left undisturbed till the proper official investigation had been made. He had got his riata ready, and was just going to sling the body across his saddle and tie it there, when the rhythmic thud of clattering hoofs smote upon his ear. Thank God! Help was coming. There would be others to assist him in his gruesome task. So Dick patiently waited while the sound grew nearer and nearer, until at last the three cowboys dashed round the bend.