It flashed through the mind of Bull that it would be useless to tell what he knew of Pete.  Obviously nobody would believe what he could tell of how Reeve had met and shot down Uncle Bill Campbell.  For Bill Campbell was a historic figure as a fighter in the mountain regions, and surely his face must be bright even at this distance from his home.  That he could have walked beyond the sphere of Campbell’s fame in five days never occurred to Bull Hunter.

“I dunno nothing good,” he confessed.

There was a change in the sheriff.  He descended from the floor of the veranda with a stiff-legged hop and took Bull by the arm, leading him down the street.

“Son,” he said earnestly, walking down the street with Bull, “d’you know anything agin’ this Pete Reeve?  I want to know because I got Pete behind the bars for murder!”

“Murder?” asked Bull.

“Murder—­regular murder—­something he’ll hang for.  And if you got any inside information that I can use agin’ him, why I’ll use it and I’ll be mighty grateful for it!  You see everybody knows Pete Reeve.  Everybody knows that, for all these years, he’s been going around killing and maiming men, and nobody has been able to bring him up for anything worse’n self-defense.  But now I think I got him to rights, and I want to hang him for it, stranger, partly because it’d be a feather in my cap, and partly because it’d be doing a favor for every good, law-abiding citizen in these parts.  So do what you can to help me, stranger, and I’ll see that your time ain’t wasted.”

There was something very wheedling and insinuating about all this talk.  It troubled Bull.  His strangely obscure life had left him a child in many important respects, and he had a child’s instinctive knowledge of the mental processes of others.  In this case he felt a profound distrust.  There was something wrong about this sheriff, his instincts told him—­something gravely wrong.  He disliked the man who had started to ridicule him before many men and was now so confidential, asking his help.

“Sheriff Anderson,” he said, “may I see this Reeve?”

“Come right along with me, son.  I ain’t pressing you for what you know.  But it may be a thing that’ll help me to hang Reeve.  And if it is, I’ll need to know it.  Understand?  Public benefit—­that’s what I’m after.  Come along with me and you can see if Reeve’s the man you’re after.”

They crossed the street through a little maelstrom of fine dust which a wind circle had picked up, and the sheriff led Bull into the jail.  They crossed the tawdry little outer room with its warped floor creaking under the tread of Bull Hunter.  Next they came face to face with a cage of steel bars, and behind it was a little gray man on a bunk.  He sat up and peered at them from beneath bushy brows, a thin-faced man, extremely agile.  Even in sitting up, one caught many possibilities of catlike speed of action.

Bull knew at once that this was the man he sought.  He stood close to the bars, grasping one in each great hand, and with his face pressed against the steel, he peered at Pete Reeve.  The other was very calm.