Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/106

 "What for?"

"That Indian business. Weasel Tail's still alive, but he's pretty bad."

"What the hell do they want me for?" Tom demanded, aggrieved. "The ornery devil tried to murder me!"

"I know that, but"

"Besides which," said Tom, raising his voice, "he killed one good beef animal and got away with it. I went back and saw the carcass that morning. I'm telling you, Jake, if Allison thinks any jury in this country would convict me for what I did, he's welcome to try. But he's got to get me first."

He was furiously angry; his voice rose, his jaw was thrust forward. Jake took him by the arm and led him further from the pens.

"Look here, Tom," he said pacifically. "I'm kinda in a hole about this. If I let you out of the state now I'm in trouble. I was thinking"

"Give me my ticket. The rest's up to me, isn't it?"

But Jake would not give him his ticket, and in a savage temper he turned and went back to the pens. That was the last Jake was to see of him for some time; the flickering flares, the timid milling of the cattle at the foot of the chute, the incredibly slow ascent, a pandemonium of noise and great terrified bodies, and Tom, sullen but efficient, prodding them and at intervals staring down the road.

When the Sheriff finally came he was not to be found.

Allison left his car in the road, and came heavily across to the pens. A big man, an ex-puncher of the old days who had come up from Texas with the early herds, Allison was popular with all the cowboys in his county. But he was not a soft man, and they knew it. They guessed his errand when they saw him, and after the manner of their kind, tacitly united against him. And because he knew them, he smiled grimly as he surveyed their expressionless faces.

"Tom McNair here?"

"No. What's Tom been doing?"

"I guess you know all right. Where is he, if he isn't here?"