"Oh, yes, they've got it all cut and dried just how it happened. They make me think of a pack of wolves that's got a weak one down; he's outnumbered and can't fight back, so jump him! tear him! They're roarin' at me to 'do somethin'--Tinhorn Frank, Symes, Parrott, the whole outfit of 'em. Say, Dago, I wasn't raised to fight women." "Does your chivalry extend to the lady doc?" "No, by gum! it don't," replied the sheriff, with a promptness which made the other laugh. "If I knew any way short of choking her to get the truth I'd do it." "You mean to try?" "To choke her?" "To get the truth." "I'm goin' to appeal to her first." The Dago Duke laughed sardonically. "You think it won't work?" "Not for a minute." "I'll see what bull-dozing will do, then." "Better save your breath." "Why?" "It's a question of veracity. She'll see that. Her word against mine. Even you must admit, Dan, that I haven't her spotless reputation. A communicant of the church versus the town drunkard. She'd merely say that instead of Gila monsters I was 'having' assassins. This chronic cloud under which I live has its drawbacks. The fact that I haven't had a drink in six weeks wouldn't have the slightest weight if she chooses to persist in her denial that she met these men." "I suppose you're right," the sheriff admitted reluctantly, "and if this wind keeps up we won't even have tracks to back up your story." "Besides," added the Dago Duke, "if there is not great friendship between them there is, at least, no open quarrel to furnish a plausible reason for her silence. We would only make ourselves absurd, Dan, by any public charge. But there is some way to get the truth. Try your methods and then--well, I'll try mine." This was in the forenoon. That evening the Dago Duke leaned against the door-jamb of the White Elephant Saloon and watched Dan Treu coming from Dr. Harpe's office with failure written upon his face. His white teeth gleamed in a smile of amusement as he waited for the sheriff. "Don't swear, Dan. Never speak disrespectfully of a lady if you can help it." "Dago," said the sheriff, with his slow, emphatic drawl, "I wish she was a man just for a minute--half a minute--one second would do." "She laughed at you, yes?" "She laughed at me, yes? Well, I guess she did. She gave me the merry ha! ha! I told her you had seen two men on horseback pass her out there in the hills, that I had seen the mark of her buggy wheels and the tracks of the two horses on the run and that the print of moccasins led from the sheep-wagon into the brush. She looked at me with that kind of stare where you can see the lie lying back of it and said-- "I didn't see anybody. I've told you that and I'll swear to it if necessary." "'Look here, Doc,' I says, 'if you don't tell that you saw these men we'll tell it for you.'" "That's when she laughed, cackled would be a better word, it sure wasn't a laugh, you'd call ketchin', and says--