“Quinliven is involved bad and big and sure. He offered to take your cattle for the full number on the tally book. No cowman would do that. The calves on that tally are sold, lost, strayed, stolen, eaten, skinned, and gone with the wild bunch. Quinnie, he wanted to get little Ducky out of the country. “That shooting scrape was all fake; so you wouldn’t suspect him and Banker Bennett of standin’ in. Real sincere people don’t empty their guns and not hit anybody--it ain’t respectable. But Bennett he intended to make that water hole the explanation of your bein’ found dead and promiscuous. That’s what he proposed to me.” “Oh, goils, pinch me!” “Baca is involved by being your uncle’s lawyer, and yet not knowing how your uncle extracted that nice little income from Saragossa County; and by being your lawyer and not finding out. And old Beck and Scanlon are involved by their conscientious scruples in not wanting the last rag off your back.” Ducky remonstrated. “Hi! You put that last in to make it easy--like the Englishman who always added ‘and barks like a dog’ to all his riddles, to make ’em harder. You’re throwing the long arm of coincidence out of socket. It won’t wash, my Angular-Saxon friend! You’re a good old superdreadnought and the best hand at a standing high guess I’ve ever seen--but we can’t go to court waving any wild, wet tale like that.” “Court? Oh, Jemima! Who said court? Let Tavy Baca pick the jury and you couldn’t convict one of that push on his own written confession. The right hunch is goin’ to be the best evidence, where we settle this case--and that’s out of court.” “Do you mean to use force?” “Thank you, I shouldn’t wish any pie. Why, Ducky dear, some of that outfit would lock horns with Julius K. Cæsar if he looked ogle-eyed at ’em. Tavy Baca especially is a cold proposition--the worst west of a given point. Only one skunk in the firm. That’s Bennett. No, sir; if you want to touch that tainted money----” “I do. Let me leave no chance for misapprehension. I want to roll in it! I want to puddle my paddies in it!” “Then you’ve got to guess quick and guess right and guess hard; you’ve got to mean what you think, and dig in your toes when you pray! To handle this contract you have got to have the hunch, the punch, the pep and the wallop!” “But, even if you’re right----” “If you say that again I’ll quit you!” declared Jones indignantly. “Don’t say dem crool woids to me!” begged Ducky. “You’re horribly right----but where are you going to begin? It’s like climbing a glass wall.”