That, for a certainty, Christopher Foy had not killed Marr, was a positive bit of knowledge which Pringle shared only with the murderer himself and with that murderer’s accomplices, if any.  So much was plain, and Pringle felt a curiosity, perhaps pardonable, as to who the murderer really was.

Duty and inclination thus happily wedded, Pringle set himself to goad ferret-eyed Creagan and the heavy-jawed sheriff into unwise speech.  And inattentive Anastacio had a shrewd surmise at Pringle’s design.  He knew nothing of the fight at the Gadsden House, but he sensed an unexplained tension—­and he knew his chief.

“And this man, too—­what about him?” said Breslin, regarding Pringle with a puzzled face.  “Granted that the Major might have a motive for shielding Foy—­he may even believe Foy to be innocent—­why should this stranger put himself in danger for Foy?”

“Here, now—­none of that!” said Pringle with some asperity.  “I may be a stranger to you, but I’m an old friend of the Major’s.  I’m his guest, eating his grub and drinking his baccy; if he sees fit to tell any lies I back him up, of course.  Haven’t you got any principle at all?  What do you think I am?”

“I know what you are,” said the sheriff.  “You’re a damned liar!”

“An amateur only,” said Pringle modestly.  “I never take money for it.”  He put by a wisp of his frosted hair, the better to scrutinize, with insulting slowness, the sheriff’s savage face.  “Your ears are very large!” he murmured at last.  “And red!”

The sheriff leaped up.

“You insolent cur-dog!” he roared.

“To stand and be still to the Birken’ead drill is a dam’ tough bullet to chew,’” quoted Pringle evenly.  “But he done it—­old Pringle—­John Wesley Pringle—­liar and cur-dog too!  We’ll discuss the cur-dog later.  Now, about the liar.  You’re mighty certain, seems to me.  Why?  How do you know I’m lying?  For I am lying—­I’ll not deceive you.  I’m lying; you know I’m lying; I know that you know I’m lying:  and you apprehend clearly that I am aware that you are cognizant of the fact that I am fully assured that you know I am lying.  Just like that!  What a very peculiar set of happenstances!  I am a nervous woman and this makes my head go round!”

“The worst day’s work you ever did for yourself,” said the angry sheriff, “was when you butted into this business.”

“Yes, yes; go on.  Was this to-day or yesterday—­at the hotel?”

“Liar!” roared Lisner.  “You never were at the Gadsden House.”

“Who said I was?”

The words cracked like a whiplash.  Simultaneously Pringle’s tilted chair came down to its four legs and Pringle sat poised, his weight on the balls of his feet, ready for a spring.  The sheriff paused midway of a step; his mottled face grew ashen.  A gurgle very like a smothered chuckle came from Anastacio.  Creagan flung himself into the breach.

“Aw, Matt, let’s have the girl in here.  We can’t get nothing from these stiff-necked idiots.”