as in some kind of deal
with the z'Srauff, too. The Rangers gathered up eight of them, who can
swear to the preparations and to the fact that Kettle-Belly had z'Srauff
visitors on different occasions before the shooting."

"That's what we want," Stonehenge said. "Something that'll connect this
murder with the z'Srauff."

"Well, wait till you hear what I've got," Parros told him. "In the first
place, we traced the gun and the air-car. The Bonney brothers bought
them both from z'Srauff merchants, for ridiculously nominal prices. The
merchant who sold the aircar is normally in the dry-goods business, and
the one who sold the auto-rifle runs a toy shop. In their whole lives,
those three boys never had enough money among them to pay the list price
of the gun, let alone the car. That is, not until a week before the
murder."

"They got prosperous, all of a sudden?" I asked.

"Yes. Two weeks before the shooting, Kettle-Belly Sam's bank account got
a sudden transfusion: some anonymous benefactor deposited 250,000
pesos--about a hundred thousand dollars--to his credit. He drew out
75,000 of it and some of the money turned up again in the hands of
Switchblade and Jack-High and Turkey-Buzzard. Then, a week before you
landed here, he got another hundred thousand from the same anonymous
source and he drew out twenty thousand of that. We think that was the
money that went to pay for the attempted knife-job on Hutchinson. Two
days before the barbecue, the waiter deposited a thousand at the New
Austin Packers' and Shippers' Trust."

"Can you get that introduced as evidence at the trial?" I asked.

"Sure. Kettle-Belly banks at a town called Crooked Creek, about forty
miles from Bonneyville. We have witnesses from the bank.

"I also got the dope on the line the Bonney brothers are going to take
at the trial. They have a lawyer, Clement A. Sidney, a member of what
passes for the Socialist Party on this planet. The defense will take the
line of full denial of everything. The Bonneys are just three poor but
honest boys who are being framed by the corrupt tools of the Big
Ranching Interests."

Hoddy made an impolite noise. "Whatta we got to worry about, then?" he
demanded. "They're a cinch for conviction."

"I agree with that," Stonehenge said. "If they tried to base their
defense on political conviction and opposition by the Solar League, they
might have a chance. This way, they haven't."

"All right, gentlemen," I said, "I take