the mornin’. Gittin’ so I can’t git a good night’s sleep no more.”
“Yo’re still drawin’ down yore wages reg’lar, ain’t yuh?”
Old Aaron wiped his nose with the back of his hand at this query from Ferris.
“Sorta reg’lar, Hobe,” Gallup answered with a wise little smile. “All due to me, though. Any man that can git fifteen hundred a year out of this county has earned it. If you folks ever start raisin’ my wages I’m goin’ to quit cold.”
While he talked, Gallup had been examining the dead man’s clothes and his gun.
“This bird sure knew what he was doin’,” he muttered. “Ain’t a mark on him to identify him. Queer old gun he used. Well, we got men enough here. I guess I’ll swear you in and git done right now.”
“We’re shy one, Aaron,” said Hobe. “Where’s Johnny? Ought to have him, he’s so up on these things.”
“Him and Tony’s over to the Bud. They’ll be comin’ soon as the news gits round.”
“I got enough,” Aaron answered. “Johnny Dice ain’t law-abidin’ no more, anyhow.”
Without further delay he began swearing them to the truth. Before he had finished the jingle of spur chains below caught Scanlon’s ear. “There’s someone now.” He went to the stairs and looked down. “Say, Johnny, you’re just in time. Need another man up here.”
“Surest thing, old dear. What’s the limit?”
“No limit. It’s a dead man. Gallup’s here.”
“Do I know him?” demanded Johnny.
“No one’s ever clapped eyes on him ’cept Vin. But he don’t know nothin’, either.”
Johnny had stopped to shake the rain from his hat. He turned now to Madeiras. “Come on, Tony. What you grumblin’ about?”
Tony smiled. “I t’ought Scanlon say Gallup ees daid.”
“You sound disappointed. What you cookin’ up for old Aaron?”
“You forget my name, Johnny. I am a Madeiras. There ees lots of Madeiras.”
“Still thinkin’ ’bout that, eh? You best tell your people not to borrow no money from Aaron. He’s a money hound, boy. I tell yuh he knows those gents on the greenbacks personal.”
Tony tapped his chest. “Somet’ings we don’t forget, Johnny.”
They were upstairs by this time. Aaron scowled at the Basque, but he chose him in preference to Johnny.
“One of you is all I need,” the old man muttered. Johnny was defeated, but not stilled.
“They certainly keep you busy, don’t they, Aaron?” he asked provokingly.
“That’ll be enough talk from you, Johnny,” Gallup snapped. “If you want to stay in the room you keep still.”
“Serves me right. The idea of a loose character like me tryin’ to edge in on the law! Ain’t no hard feelin’s on my part, Aaron.”
The old man ignored this sally.
“Now, Vinnie, you tell us how you found this man,” he began in a more or less official manner.
Vin explained how he had come up to close the windows, and so forth.
“You hain’t touched nothin’?”
“No, I call downstairs right away I see he ees daid.”
“Humph! Nobody here knows this man, either, eh?” He cleared his throat importantly. “Well, gentlemen, there don’t seem to be no use wastin’ any more time. This man came here intendin’ to kill himself. It ain’t accidental-like for a man to go round without some mark of identification on him. He cut off every sign by which he might be traced. He’s got his watch and his money; so it wa’n’t robbery. And you all see where the powder burned his forehead. The gun’s there on the floor, just where he dropped it, too. Guess that makes the answer plain. Best you bring in the usual verdict; death by his own hand, this day and date. That agreed?”
A muttered chorus of assenting grunts greeted him as he began making out the death certificate.
“Say, Aaron,” Johnny interrupted. “There’s somethin’ under the bed. The man’s hat, I reckon.”
Aaron glanced at him over the rims of his glasses.
“Why don’t you wait a little longer? You ain’t tongue-tied, be yuh?”
“You told me to shut up.”
“Little good comes from tellin’ you.”
The old man grunted as he crawled beneath the bed to recover the hat.
“It’s a hat, all right,” he grumbled. “His hat, no doubt. Ain’t a mark on it, though.” He held it up for his jury to gaze at it. “Jest about proves what I contend. The man wanted to die unidentified.”
Tony Madeiras’s eyes bulged as he saw the hat Gallup held aloft. Pushing his way forward he took the hat in his hand. Gallup watched him closely.
“Son of a gun!” Madeiras exclaimed slowly and turned to face his friends. “I change my min’ about those daid man. I know thees hat!”
“What?” exclaimed Johnny.
“Sí. I know thees hat. Only t’ree, four days ago I see eet.”
“Yeh!” There was open doubt of the Basque puncher’s word in the coroner’s voice. “You remember a hat without a band or mark on it that you saw three or four days ago? It ain’t even a grown-up hat. It’s just a little runt of a thing. But you remember it, Madeiras?”
Tony’s eyes narrowed as he answered the old man. “I said I remember theese hat.”
“Well, you’ve got some memory, bosco.”
Big Hobe put his hand upon Gallup’s shoulder as the coroner gave tongue to the western term of contempt for the Basque.
“Listen here, Aaron. You won’t make no friends for yoreself with that kind of talk. This Diamond-Bar bunch don’t exactly like to hear Tony called a bosco. It ain’t good for the health to say it more than once. You git that? Now if Tony allows he remembers that hat it ain’t up to you to call him a liar.”
“That’s all right, Hobe,” Tony smiled. “Maybe some time he find out my people have pretty damn good memory. What he thinks, I don’t care. But for you, Hobe: last Monday I was on the North Fork. Evening time I come down to the river. Theese man be there. He have plenty hair on hees face then. Big whiskers. He spik Spanish. Ask lots of question. Me, I ask some, too. He come long ways theese man.”
“You find out his name?”
“Tony Madeiras
