“You didn’t hear anything to make you think they guess where Juniper and Benson air?”
“Only vhat she said. She told them to vatch your joint. And there was some talk about putting some one in blace of one of your vaiters, so that he could act as a sby.”
“Well, we can block that, now that we’re on. I don’t think they can find Benson and Joe.”
“No. They’ll be safer right where I’ve got ’em. I ain’t scared yet. Buffalo Bill has been watching this place straight along, but not saying anything about it; we know that. Let him watch. He’ll not catch me napping.”
“He is yit. But of course he won’t stand for lawbreakin’ and jailbreakin’. So long’s he thinks I’m on the square, Shepard ain’t goin’ to make trouble; but----”
A man who had come into the saloon, instead of stopping before the bar, had come on back, and now approached the small room where Gopher Gabe and his fiddling lieutenant were conferring.
White-eyed Moses took a look through the crack of the door.
“Well, that’s all right. Jest you keep your face straight, and say that you hain’t been near the Eagle House. I’ll fix him.”
Matt Shepard, square-jawed, big-framed, honest, and gritty, but a man of the type known as a “mixer,” came up to the door of the room, then pushed it open, and walked in, looking at the proprietor and at White-eyed Moses.
“Hello, Mose!” he said, taking a seat quite as if he felt at home. “Where you been keepin’ yerself lately?”
“Oh, all roundt. In the usual blaces,” was the fiddler’s answer.
“You wasn’t over t’ the Eagle House a while ago? Think straight now!”
“It was said that you was spyin’ on Cody!”
White-eyed Moses threw out his hands in vehement disclaimer.
“Well, I ain’t goin’ to ask you to swear to it,” said Shepard. “If a man’s word can’t be believed, I wouldn’t believe his oath. You’ve heard, o’ course, of the escape of Juniper. Everybody has. So, what do you think of it?”
“I’m goin’ to talk straight, Gabe,” he said to him. “I’ve always been your friend, you know.”
“Well, it’s like this: You’re bein’ suspected. First, they say that you’re in with the thieves and thugs that have been workin’ overtime round this camp lately. Then they say that you know something about this plan by which I was induced to let Juniper Joe slip through my fingers.”