“You can’t prove anything!” bluffed Mr. Pooley.

“We were here beside the door listenin’ from the time McFluke said he was too comfortable to move out of here.”  Thus the marshal wearily.

Mr. Pooley considered a moment.  “Who snitched where Mac was?” he asked, finally.

“Nobody,” replied Racey, promptly.

“Somebody must have.  Who was it?”

“Nobody, I tell you.  McFluke had to go somewhere, didn’t he?  He couldn’t hang around Farewell.  Too dangerous.  But the chances were he wouldn’t leave the country complete till he got his share.  And as nothing had come off it wasn’t any likely he’d got his share.  So he’d want to keep in touch with his friends till the deal was put through.  It was only natural he’d drift to you.  And when I come here to Piegan City and heard you had hired a man to live on yore claim and then got a look at him without him knowing it the rest was easy.”

“But what,” inquired Mr. Pooley, perplexedly, “has Wells Fargo to do with this business?”

“Anybody that knows Bill Smith alias Jack Harpe as well as you do,” spoke up Mr. Johnson, grimly, “is bound to be of interest to Wells Fargo.”

CHAPTER XXXI

THE LAST TRICK

“I’d take it kindly if you gents would stick yore guns on the mantel-piece,” said Judge Dolan.

Jack Harpe and Luke Tweezy looked at each other.

“I ain’t wearing a gun,” said Luke Tweezy, crossing one skinny knee over the other.

“But Mr. Harpe is,” pointed out Judge Dolan.

Jack Harpe jackknifed his long body out of his chair, which was placed directly in front of an open doorway giving into an inner room, crossed the floor, and placed his sixshooter on the mantel-piece.

“What is this,” he demanded, returning to his place “a trial?”

“Not a-tall,” the Judge made haste to assure him.  “Just a li’l friendly talk, thassall.  I’m a-lookin’ for information, and I’ve an idea you and Luke can give it to me.”

“I’d like a li’l information my own self,” grumbled Luke Tweezy.  “When are you gonna make the Dales vacate?”

“All in good time,” the Judge replied with a wintry smile.  “I’ll be getting to that in short order.  Here comes Kansas and Jake Rule now.”

“What you want with the sheriff?” Luke queried, uneasily.

“He’s gonna help us in our li’l talk,” explained the Judge, smoothly.

“I think I’ll get my gun,” observed Jack Harpe.

He made as if to rise but sank back immediately for Racey Dawson had suddenly appeared in the open doorway behind him and run the chill muzzle of a sixshooter into the back of his neck.

“Never sit with yore back to a doorway,” advised Racey Dawson.  “If you’ll clamp yore hands behind yore head, Jack, we’ll all be the happier.  Luke, fish out the knife you wear under yore left armpit, lay it on the floor and kick it into the corner.”