Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/107

 sort of man, small and light, with a great iron-gray mustache of which he was unjustly proud, was shuffling the cards with thoughtful, distracted air.

"You ain't errey detective, are you, Ed?" he asked, in a curiously apologetic, half-sneaking way.

"Detective? Holy mackerel! What put that in your head?"

"Some of the boys was sayin' you was."

"Wise bunch, ain't they?"

"They say you're up here on the range after somebody, and every guilty, saddle-gallded crook amongst 'em thinks he's the one. I'm the only man in this outfit that's got a clear conscience and can step out and look the world in the eye. Even that poor old cuss of a Alvino killed a man down in Santa Fe and had to gallop. But he had a case; the skunk took both of his wives away from him."

"I should say he had a case! Well, if I were a detective I wouldn't be after Alvino. You can put his mind easy on that."

Fred offered the deck for the cut, abstracted from the game, mind-wandering, ill at ease.

"I thought maybe some of them fellers that put money in this company sent you out to track it down," he said.

"I'm here on my own hook, Fred."

Fred studied his hand, according to his rule, led an ace, fishing for the ten.

"You ain't related to one of them English lords, Ed?"

"No more than you are, Fred."