Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/30

18 been talking to a newspaper reporter about Sam, and he knew that he had been indiscreet. Not until the door had closed on the doctor's departure did he draw his chair up beside the warden's desk and whisper eagerly: "I found out all about him, Warden. He was jobbed—Daneen. One o' the boys down 'n our office was onto the whole game, an' he 's tellin' about it. He talks too much, that boy. He 'll get himself into trouble. But he was jobbed—Daneen. He was jobbed."

The warden nodded, sat back from Johns's excited whisper, lit a cigar, and said indifferently: "Sure. That 's what I told you."

"He was jobbed. Gerter found him asleep 'n under a tree, when he went down to look over the wreck, an' he woke him up, an' he said he had n't heard nothin', an' they gathered him in on suspicion. Then some fellow named Gahn, that nobody never seen round here before, got into the case an' swore he 'd seen Sam foolin' round the bridge an' kickin' the rails, an' they had the damnedest jury you ever seen—a reg'lar lot o' court-house bums, with that crook Dietz fer foreman—an' them an' Purvis soaked him. Gahn's lit out since." He dropped his voice still lower. "The track-walker told one o' the boys—he was up fer a witness—an' he told him Gahn was a railroad detective he 'd knowed back East. He 'd made out he was a ranch-hand—Gahn did—walkin' from Sandy City to Big Golden lookin' fer work. He done it to get the reward. An' they soaked Daneen."