"I said we tried to use her as a grindstone," said Webb, "but it didn't work." "Weak case, boys; weak case," said Sherwood. The little group, their eyes wide, their nostrils distended, waited accusingly for Webb to proceed. After an interval, the sheriff, staring critically at the lighted end of his cigar, went on in a drawling voice: "Yes, we, couldn't get a hole through her to hang her axle on. We blunted all our drills. Every Sunday we'd try a new scheme. Finally we laid her flat under a tree and rigged a lightnin' rod down to the centre of her. No use. She tore that lightning all to pieces." He looked up at them with a limpid, innocent eye, to catch John Sherwood gazing at him accusingly. "John Webb," said he "you forget that I came out here in, '48. On your honour, do you expect _me_ to believe that yarn?" "Well," said Webb, gazing again at his cigar end, "no--really I don't. The fact is," he went on with a perfectly solemn air of confidence, "the fact is, I've lived out here so long and told so many damn lies that now without some help I don't know when to believe myself." "Do we get that drink?" insisted Calhoun Bennett. "Oh, Lord, yes, you always get a drink." "Well, come on and _get_ it then--you, too, of course, Mr. Sherwood." The gambler arose, and began leisurely to fold his paper and to put away his spectacles. "I see you got Mex Ryan off, Cal," he observed. "You either had extraordinary luck, or you're a mighty fine lawyer. Looked like a clear case to me. He just naturally went in and beat Rucker half to death in his own store. How did you do it?" "I assure yo' it was no sinecure," laughed the tall, dark youth. "I earned my fee." "Yes," grumbled Webb, "but he got six months--and I got to take care of him. Cluttering up my jail with dirty beasts like Mex Ryan! Could just as easy have turned him loose!" "That would have been a little too much!" smiled Bennett. "It was takin' some risk to let him off as easy as we did. It isn't so long since the Vigilantes." "Oh, hell, we can handle that sort of trash now," snorted Webb. "Who was backing Mex, anyway?" asked Rowlee curiously. "Better ask who had it in for Rucker," suggested the fourth member of the group, a man who had not heretofore spoken. This was Dick Blatchford, a round-faced, rather corpulent, rather silent though jovial-looking individual, with a calculating and humorous eye. He was magnificently apparelled, but rather untidy. "Well, I do ask it," said Rowlee. But to this he got no response. "Come on, ain't you got that valuable paper folded up yet?" rumbled Webb to Sherwood. They all turned down the high-pillared veranda, toward the bar, talking idly and facetiously of last night's wine and this morning's head. A door opened at their very elbow, and in it a woman appeared. II