Page:Mulford--The Bar-20 three.djvu/228

216 eyes and he saw no enmity in either. "Then who did?" he demanded.

Johnny shrugged his shoulders. "Quien sabe?" he asked. "There's a lot of people down here that would have more reason to do a thing like that, even for strangers, than I would. You ain't loved very much, from what I've heard. I don't want any more enemies than I got; but I'm tellin' you, flat, that I ain't goin' back with you; an' neither would you, if you was in my place, in a strange town. Here," he said, letting the hammer down and tossing the gun at the sheriff's feet, "take your gun. I'm glad you ain't hurt; an' I'm cussed glad I ain't. But somebody's shore goin' to be th' next time you pull a gun on me on a guess. You want to be dead shore, Corwin. We've had enough of this. Did you get any trace of them two?"

The sheriff watched his opponent's gun go back into its holster and slowly picked up his own. "No; I ain't," he admitted, and considered a moment as he sheathed the weapon with great care. "I ain't got nothin' flat agin' you," he said; "but I still think you had a hand in it. That's a good trick you worked, Nelson; I'm rememberin' it. All right; th' next time I come for you I'll have it cold; an' I'm shore expectin' to come for you, an' Idaho, too."

"That's fair enough," replied Johnny, smiling; "but I don't see why you want to drag Idaho in it for. He didn't have no more to do with it than I did."

"I'm believin' that, too," retorted the sheriff; "since you put it just that way. I haven't heard you say that you didn't do it. Before I go I want to ask you a ques-