"Say," he said, "I heard you scream. You thought it was you I swore at. You're wrong there. But you are some little prophetess,--_you_ are! The job's gone, and Herrara's got away with the evidence, and the jig's up! But it wasn't you I cussed at--not--at--all! Come on, Pike. This new ventilator in my head is playing hell its own way. Come on--let's go by-bye!"
"There ain't no such animal," decided Kit Rhodes seated on the edge of the bed in Pedro Vigil's adobe. His head was bandaged, his face a trifle pale and the odor of medicaments in the shadowy room of the one deep-barred window. "No, Captain, no man, free, white and twenty-one _could_ be such a fool. Can't Singleton see that if Conrad's story was true he'd have the constable after me for assault with intent to kill? He's that sort!"
"Well, Singleton thinks Conrad would be justified in having you prosecuted, and jailed, and fined, and a few other things, but for the reputation of Granados they let you down easy. You know it's _the_ dovery for the Pass-up-the-fists of this section, and what the Arizona papers would do would be comic if they ever got hold of the fact that Singleton picked a new bird for the dove cage, and the dratted thing changed before their eyes to a fractious game rooster swinging a right like the hind leg of a mule! No, Bub, we're orderly, peaceable folks around here, so for the sake of our reputation Singleton has prevailed on his manager to be merciful to you, and Conrad has in true pacifist spirit let himself be prevailed upon."
"Which means," grinned Kit, "that I'm to be put off my guard, and done for nicely and quietly some moonless night when I take the trail! And he reports me either drunk or temporarily insane, does he? Well, when the next time comes I'll change that gentleman's mind."
"Shucks, Bub! Thank a fool's luck that your skull was only scratched, and don't go planning future wars. I tell you we are peace doves around here, and you are a stray broncho kicking up an undesirable dust in our front yard. Here is your coin. Singleton turned it over to me and I receipted for it, and we have enough between us to hit the Sonora trail, and there's not a bit of use in your hanging around here. You have no evidence. You are a stranger who ambled in, heard a sensational newspaper report of anti-ally criminal intent, and on the spot accused the highly respectable Granados rancho of indulging in that same variety of hellishness! Now there is your case in a nutshell, Bub, and you wouldn't get the authorities to believe you in a thousand years!"