Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/53

 they gravely considered the plight of Wallace and Simpson. They were full of indignation at Kane's charge, which they knew to be nothing but malicious lying in an attempt to save his reputation.

Coburn said he'd hunt up the judge—he was nothing more than a justice of the peace—and try to get them out on bail. He wouldn't put it past that weak-stomached marshal, he declared, to fish up a pair of knucks and swear he took them off Simpson. Joe and Pete were for cracking the calaboose and delivering the prisoners, which would not have been much of a job, as it was only a little board box with bars made of old wagon tires over the window and door.

The boss was against any more kicking up, saying they had started enough trouble for one outfit that night. They were milling it over, and getting nowhere, when Wallace stuck his face cautiously in between the leaves of the swinging doors through which he so lately had disappeared under the disgrace of arrest. A big grunt of relief went up from the chests of the Bar-Heart-Bar at sight of Wallace's homely inquiring face. He spotted them, and beckoned them out.

"Well, he turned you loose, did he?" the boss inquired, peering around in the gloom of the drizzling night for Simpson.

"No, he changed places with us for the time bein'," Wallace chuckled. "Tom slammed him in his own private little jail and locked him up. His keys is on the roof."

"The hell he did!" said the boss. "Where's Tom?"

"Waitin' down at the barn."