Part 42 (1/2)
It was me that took him!”
No direct answer could Arizona find to this true statement, and, as always when a man is at a loss for words, his temper rose, and his fists clenched. For the first time he looked at Sandersen with an eye of savage calculation. He had come to hope of a tidy little fortune. He had found it s.n.a.t.c.hed out of his hand, and, as he measured Sandersen, his heart rose. Twenty-five-hundred dollars would fairly well equip him in life. The anger faded out of his eyes, and in its place came the cold gleam of the man who thinks and calculates. All at once he began to smile, a mirthless smile that was of the lips only.
”Maybe you're right, Sandersen, but I'm thinking you'd have to prove that you took Cold Feet.'
”Prove it?”
”Sure! The boys wouldn't be apt to believe that sleepy Sandersen woke up and took Cold Feet alive.”
Instantly the gorge of Sandersen rose, and he began to see red.
”Are you out to find trouble, Fatty?”
The adjective found no comfortable lodging place in the mind of Arizona.
”Me? Sure I ain't. I'm just stating facts the way I know 'em.”
”Well, the facts you know ain't worth a d.a.m.n.”
”No?”
It was growing clearer and clearer to the fat man that between him and twenty-five-hundred dollars there stood only the unamiable figure of the long, lean cowpuncher. He steadied his eye till a fixed glitter came in it. He hated lean men by instinct and distrusted them.
”Sure they ain't. How you going to get around the fact that I did take Cold Feet?”
”Well, Sandersen, you see that they's twenty-five-hundred dollars hanging on the head of this Cold Feet?”
”Certainly! And I see ten ways of spending just that amount.”
”So do I,” said Arizona.
”You do?”
”Partner, you've heard me talk!”
”Arizona, you're talking mighty queer. What d'ye mean?”
”Now, suppose it was me that brought in Cold Feet, who'd get the money?”
”Why, you that brought him in?”
”Yep, me. And suppose I brought him in with two murders charged to him instead of one.”
”I don't foller you. What's the second murder, Fatty?”
”You!”
Sandersen blinked and gave back a little. Plainly he was beginning to fear that the reason of Arizona was unbalanced.
He shook his head.