Mr. Saltoun nodded.  “A gent can’t do anything on guesswork,” he said, bromidically.  “Facts are what count.”

“You’ll find before we get to the bottom of this business,” observed Racey, sagely, “that guesswork is gonna lead us to a whole heap of facts.”

“I hope so,” Mr. Saltoun said, uncomfortably conscious that the death of Dale might seriously complicate the lifting of the mortgage.

Racey was no less uncomfortable, and for the same reason.  He felt sure that the killing of Dale had been inspired in order to settle once for all the future of the Dale ranch.  No wonder Luke Tweezy had been so positive in his assertion that Old Man Saltoun would not lend any money to Dale.  The latter had been marked for death at the time.

Despite the fact that Tweezy and Harpe were at last being seen together in public, thus indicating that the “deal,” to quote Pooley’s letter to Tweezy, had been “sprung,” Racey doubted that the murder formed part of Jacob Pooley’s “absolutely safe” plan for forcing out Dale.  While in some ways the murder might be considered sufficiently safe, the method of it and the act itself did not smack of Pooley’s handiwork.  It was much more probable that the killing was the climax of Luke Tweezy’s original plan adhered to by the attorney and his friends against the advice and wishes of Jacob Pooley.

“Guess we’d better go on to McFluke’s,” was Racey’s suggestion.

They went.

“Looks like they got back mighty soon from chasing the stranger,” said Racey, when they came in sight of the place, eying the number of horses tied to the hitching-rail.

“Maybe they got him quick,” Mr. Saltoun offered, sardonically.

They rode on and added their horses to the tail-switching string in front of the saloon.  Racey did not fail to note that none of the other horses gave any evidence of having been ridden either hard or lately.  Which, in the face of Thompson’s assertion that the men he left behind had ridden in pursuit of the murderer, seemed rather odd.  Or perhaps it was not so odd, looking upon it from another angle.

The saloon, when they had ridden up, had been quiet as the well-known grave.  It remained equally silent when they entered.

McFluke, behind the bar, wearing a black eye and a puffed nose, nodded to them civilly.  In chairs ranged round the walls sat an assortment of men—­Peaches Austin, Luke Tweezy, Jack Harpe, Doc Coffin, Honey Hoke, and Lanpher.  The latter was nursing a slung right arm.  They were all there, the men mentioned by name by Thompson as having been in the place when Dale was killed.

“What is this, a graveyard meetin’?” asked Racey of McFluke, glancing from the assembled multitude to McFluke and smiling slightly.  It was no part of wisdom, thought Racey, to let these men know of his encounter with Thompson.  He had Thompson’s story.  He was anxious to hear theirs.

‘"A graveyard meeting,’” repeated the saloon-keeper.  “Well, and that’s what it is in a manner of speaking.”