t.

There was a growl from the others. They were slowly turning their
interest from the game to Cartwright.

"What d'you mean a ride?"

"Got another hundred," said Cartwright calmly, "that when the morning
comes it won't find Sinclair in the jail."

At once they were absolutely silenced, for money talks in an eloquent
voice. Deliberately Cartwright counted out the two stacks of shimmering
twenty-dollar gold pieces, five to a stack.

"One hundred that he don't hang; another hundred that he ain't in the
jail when the morning comes. Any takers, boys? It had ought to be easy
money--if everything's square."

Whitey made a move, but finally merely raised his hand and rubbed his
chin. He was watching that gold on the table with catlike interest. A
man _must_ know something to be so sure.

"I'd like to know," murmured the man of the freckles disconnectedly.

"Well," said Cartwright, "they ain't much of a mystery about it. For
one thing, if the sheriff was plumb set on keeping them two, why didn't
he take 'em over to Woodville today, where they's a jail they couldn't
bust out of, eh?"

Again they were silenced, and in an argument, when a man falls silent,
it simply means that he is thinking hard on the other side.

"But as far as I'm concerned," went on Cartwright, yawning again, "it
don't make no difference one way or another. Sour Creek ain't my town,
and I don't care if it gets the ha-ha for having its jail busted open.
Of course, after the birds have flown, the sheriff will ride hard after
'em--on the wrong trail!"

Whitey raised his slender, agile, efficient hand.

"Gents," he said, "something has got to be done. This man Cartwright is
giving us the truth! He's got his hunch, and hunches is mostly always
right."

"Speak out, Whitey," said the man with the freckles encouragingly. "I
like your style of thinking."

Nodding his acknowledgments, Whitey said:

"The main thing seems to be that Sinclair and Arizona is old hands at
killing. And they had ought to be hung. Well, if the sheriff ain't got
the rope, maybe we could help him out, eh?"

34

The moment her husband was gone, Jig dropped back in her chair and
buried her face in her arms, weeping. But there is a sort of sad
happiness in making sacrifices for those we love, and presently Jig was
laughing through her tears and trembling as she wiped the tears away.
After a time she was able to make herself ready for another appearance
in the street