entific way of sayin' that you've got buzzers in your
attic."

Texas smiled, showing his teeth in wan sarcasm.

"You wouldn't say that if I had my gun, Jim. It ain't like you to pour
out your blackguardisms on a man what ain't armed."

"I ain't blackguardin' you none," said Webster easily. "It's the naked
truth, an' you know it. Takin' your gun was part of my official duty.
Personally I could have talked to you without trampling down any of the
niceties of etiquette, but officially I had to have your gun."

Rankin's face lengthened with a deep melancholy. With this expression he
intended to convey the impression that he was suffering a martyrdom. But
the sheriff's acquaintance with Texas was not recent.

"An' now that you've got the gun," said Texas, after an embarrassed
silence, "what's the next thing on the programme?"

"Takin' your gun," said the sheriff heavily, "was a preliminary; like
they say in the sporting papers. The big event is that you're goin' to
say your adoos to Socorro without bein' allowed to make any farewell
announcement. The reason is that you an' Socorro is incongruous--like a
side-saddle on a razor-back hog. Socorro won't stand for you a minute
longer. You're a Public Favorite which has lost its popularity an' which
has become heterogeneous to the established order of things. In other
words, you're an outlaw; a soft-spoken, lazy, good-for-nothin'
road-agent. An' though Socorro ain't never had anything on you before,
it knows you had a hand in robbin' the express office last night. An'
it's----"

"You're a damn ----"

"----like playin' a king-full against three deuces that you done the
trick. You was seen goin' toward the station about an hour before Budd
Tucker found Ridgely, the agent, stretched out on the floor of the
office, a bullet from a .45 clean through him. An' there's five thousand
dollars in gold gone, an' no trace of it. An' there's been no strangers
in town. An' here's your gun, showin' plain that it's been shot off
lately, for there's the powder smudge on the cylinder an' the barrel.
That's a pay streak of circumstantial evidence or I ain't sheriff of
Socorro!"

Rankin's eyes had flashed with an unusual brilliancy as the sheriff had
spoken of him being seen going toward the station previous to the
finding of the agent's body, but they glazed over with unconcern during
the rest of the recital. And as the sheriff concluded, Rankin gazed
scornfully at him, sneering mildly: