scolouration other than grime. But now that the two hands were side
by side the difference in the right hand was most apparent.

Certainly it was badly bruised across the knuckles and the skin was
broken, too. Furthermore, there was that odd lumpiness about the
knuckles of the first and second fingers, a lumpiness that gave the
knuckles almost the appearance of being double.

He picked up the dead hand and gingerly fingered the lumpy knuckles.
Then, in a flash of thought, it came to him. The hand was broken.

He raised his head and looked across the room. And as it chanced he
looked across the packed shoulders and between the peering heads of
the crowd straight into the face of McFluke and the black eye adorning
that face.

He rose to his feet and pushed his way through the crowd to the side
of the sheriff.

"Can I ask a question?" said he to the officer.

"Shore," nodded the sheriff. "Many as you like."

"Thompson," Racey said, but watching McFluke the while, "did Dale have
any trouble here with anybody besides the stranger?"

"Not as I know of," came the reply after a moment's hesitation.

"He didn't have any fuss with anybody," spoke up Luke Tweezy.

"I was talking to Thompson," Racey reminded the lawyer. "When I want
to ask you any questions I'll let you know."

"Huh," Luke contented himself with grunting, and subsided.

"No fuss a-tall, Thompson?" resumed Racey.

"Nary a fuss."

"And you was here alla time Dale was here?"

"I was here before Dale come, and I was still here when Dale--went
away."

"In the same room with him?"

"In this room, yeah. In the same room with him alla time. Shore."

"Then if Dale had had a riot with anybody else but the stranger man
you'd 'a' knowed it."

"You betcha. He didn't have no trouble, only with the stranger."

"Did anybody else have any trouble with anybody while you was here?"

At this Thompson frowned. Where were Racey's questions leading him?
Was it a trap? Knowing Racey as he did, he feared the worst. He
would have liked to leave the questioned unanswered. But this was
impossible. As it was, he was delaying his answer longer than good
sense warranted. Both Jake Rule and Kansas Casey were staring at him
fixedly. Racey regarded him steadily, a slight and sinister smile
lurking at the corner of his mouth.

"Well," prompted Racey, "you'd oughta be able to tell us whether there
was any other fights while you was here?"

"They wasn't," plunged Thompson.