Part 31 (1/2)
”I'll bet a thousand dollars he is at the bottom of this whole thing,”
Mackenzie added angrily.
The sheriff flushed. ”You gentlemen are ent.i.tled to your opinions just as I'm ent.i.tled to mine. You haven't even proved he took Mr. Cullison's hat; you've merely showed he may have done it.”
”We've given you a motive and some evidence. How much more do you want?”
Curly demanded.
”Hold your hawses a while, Flandrau, and look at this thing reasonable.
You're all prejudiced for Cullison and against Fendrick. Talk about evidence! There's ten times as much against your friend as there is against Ca.s.s.”
”Then you'll not arrest Fendrick?”
”When you give me good reason to do it,” Bolt returned doggedly.
”That's all right, Mr. Sheriff. Now we know where you stand,” Flandrau, Senior, said stiffly.
The hara.s.sed official mopped his face with a bandanna. ”Sho! You all make me tired. I'm not Fendrick's friend while I'm in this office any more than I'm Luck's, But I've got to use my judgment, ain't I?”
The four adjourned to meet at the Del Mar for a discussion of ways and means.
”We'll keep a watch on Fendrick--see where he goes, who he talks to, what he does. Maybe he'll make a break and give himself away,” Curly said hopefully.
”But my father--we must rescue him first.”
”As soon as we find where he is. Me, I'm right hopeful all's well with him. Killing him wouldn't help Ca.s.s any, because you and Sam would prove up on the claim. But if he could hold your father a prisoner and get him to sign a relinquishment to him he would be in a fine position.”
”But Father wouldn't sign. He ought to know that.”
”Not through fear your father wouldn't. But if Fendrick could get at him some way he might put down his John Hanc.o.c.k. With this trouble of Sam still unsettled and the Tin Cup hold-up to be pulled off he might sign.”
”If we could only have Fendrick arrested--”
”What good would that do? If he's guilty he wouldn't talk. And if he is holding your father somewhere in the hills it would only be serving notice that we were getting warm. No, I'm for a still hunt. Let Ca.s.s ride around and meet his partners in this deal. We'll keep an eye on him all right.”
”Maybe you're right,” Kate admitted with a sigh.
CHAPTER VII
ANONYMOUS LETTERS
Sheriff Bolt, though a politician, was an honest man. It troubled him that Cullison's friends believed him to be a partisan in a matter of this sort.
For which reason he met more than half way Curly's overtures. Young Flandrau was in the office of the sheriff a good deal, because he wanted to be kept informed of any new developments in the W. & S. robbery case.
It was on one of those occasions that Bolt tossed across to him a letter he had just opened.
”I've been getting letters from the village cut-up or from some crank, I don't know which. Here's a sample.”