I hear any more talk from you, out you go. This is your crowd, but the law is the law, and I ain’t goin’ to stand no impudence from you.”
Doc Ritter and Jackson Kent came in as Gallup admonished Johnny. The coroner nodded to Kent.
“Maybe you can put some sense into him,” he said, pointing to Johnny Dice.
“What’s the matter, Johnny?” asked Kent. “We just heard a man had killed himself up here.”
“Nothin’ the matter with me. Gallup’s runnin’ things here. And he ain’t makin’ no hit with it, either. Hobe had to call him a minute ago.”
“Mr. Gallup’s a good man, boys. Don’t rear and tear too much. Jest what is wrong, Aaron?”
When Gallup had finished explaining; the Diamond-Bar owner did his best to restore harmony.
“Now you go on, Tony, and tell the coroner what you know,” he said, pleadingly. “We don’t want no run-in with the law.”
“That’s sense,” Gallup seconded. “If you saw this man, and talked with him, tell us what he said.”
“Well, he say—er—he say——” Johnny Dice was coughing so violently that Tony could not go on. The Basque turned on his pal questioningly. Johnny was bent nearly double; but Tony caught the wink and the slight shake of the head which were meant for him. He started to speak again:
“Well, he say how ees the cattle? How ees the water? How ees the sheep? How ees——”
“I don’t care about that,” Gallup growled. “Did he say anythin’ that has any bearin’ on this case? We ain’t interested in anythin’ else.”
“No—I guess not. All he say ees how ees these, how ees that?”
“Then all this talk’s been for nothin’. What do you say, men? Are you satisfied it’s suicide or not? Raise your hands if you are.”
Tony saw that Johnny was telling him to say yes. When the Basque’s hand went up, Gallup turned to Doc Ritter.
“Here’s your papers, doc. Take the body any time you want to.”
Aaron scrawled his signature and handed the certificate to the town’s doctor and undertaker.
Gallup read aloud:
“Party unknown. Died this 4th of October by his own hand; no reason given. The foregoing being the sworn verdict of the jury convened by me on this day and date.
“(Signed) Aaron Gallup,
“Coroner of Shoshone County, State of Nevada.”
Aaron paused to glance at his listeners. “There it is, gentlemen; in my own hand.” He smiled superiorly. “Somebody count the man’s money and we’ll adjourn.”
He glanced at Kent, but the old man was staring at the body.
“You oblige me, Jackson?” Gallup asked.
“No,” he muttered; “let Doc do it. I don’t fancy counting a dead man’s money.”
Old Aaron smiled. “All right,” he drawled patiently. “Guess Doc ain’t so finicky. He knows that dead men don’t hurt no one.”
CHAPTER IV
FOOT-LOOSE
The crowd began trooping downstairs as Doc put the body back on the bed and covered it. Johnny Dice shook his head as he turned to follow his friends. There was something wrong about this affair. He felt it long before he was able to put his fingers on anything definitely suspicious. His tilt with Gallup was of no consequence. The old man disliked him because he refused to take the coroner seriously. And then, too, Johnny and Tony had been stringing along for some years. Aaron had foreclosed a small mortgage on one of Tony’s relatives. That made bad blood between them.
Johnny’s suspicions crystallized as Doc lifted the body. He saw a bit of evidence that no man on earth could contradict. His nerves began to tingle. This man had not killed himself!
Gallup caught the grim smile on Johnny’s face.
“What you waitin’ for?” he asked.
Johnny continued to smile provokingly. “Ain’t no one sittin’ up for you at home, is there, Aaron?”
The old man’s face went scarlet at this continued heckling.
“By God,” he cried, “I wisht I was twenty years younger! You’d stop your insolence.”
“That’s so, Aaron. I forgot that. I’m sorry.”
Johnny meant it, too. The old man was an almost helpless target. Johnny stooped to hide his chagrin and picked a little curl of wool from the floor.
The action had been unpremeditated, but as his fingers closed upon the tuft of wool it became charged with importance. Too late. Johnny tried to palm it. Aaron saw him.
“What’s that you’re pickin’ up?” he demanded.
“A piece of the golden fleece—I mean the creosoted fleece,” Johnny said with a laugh. “Want it?”
“’Course not, you idiot.”
“You’d better go downstairs, Johnny,” Kent advised. “You and Gallup remind me of a pair of clawin’ cats. If you ain’t got no respect for old age, you ought to have for the law, and them that represents it.”
Something in Kent’s tone made Johnny resent this advice.
“Respect for the law?” he asked. “I’m plumb hostile to law when it gits as stupid as this. I pick up that bit of wool, and what does it mean to him? Nothin’! Well, it ought to.”
“How so?” Gallup snapped.
“There ain’t been no sheepman in here tonight. It’s wet outside. The wind ain’t blowin’ wet wool into this room. How’d that piece of fleece git here? And while I’m about it, no one has proved to me that this gent killed hisself. I could have slipped up here and bumped him off while he slept, held the gun close enough to singe hair, too. Droppin’ it on the floor as I went out wouldn’t take no brains at all.”
“What you think don’t interest me,” old Aaron said hotly. “Vin was downstairs. He’d have known if any one came up here.”
“You run along, Johnny,” Kent again urged.
“Somehow I just don’t like bein’ told to mind my own business thataway,” Johnny flared, losing his own temper. “I want to tell Doc and the rest of you that that man couldn’t have killed hisself—leastwise, not like this.”
“Couldn’t?” Doc Ritter echoed.
“That’s what I said—couldn’t! That bird was a left-handed gent. Left-handed men ain’t shootin’ themselves in the right temple! ‘By his own hand’!” Johnny repeated
