“Aw, gwan!” Happy Jack rose up to avenge the insult.  “Yuh needn’t compare me to Andy Green.  I ain’t a liar, and I can lick the darned son-of-a-gun that calls me one.  I ain’t, and yuh can’t say I am, unless yuh lie worse’n Andy.”

“Calm down,” urged Weary pacifically.  “Jack said yuh could lie; he didn’t say—­”

“By gracious, you’d think I was necked up with a whole bunch uh George Washingtons!” growled Andy, half-indignantly.  “And what gets me is, that I tell the truth as often as anybody in the outfit; oftener than some I could mention.  But that ain’t the point.  I’m telling the truth now, when I say somebody ought to hike down to their camp and see what this old skunk has done with Dan.  I’d bet money you’d find him sunk in the river, or cached under a cut-bank, or something like that.  If he’d kept his face closed I wouldn’t uh give it a second thought, but the more I think uh the story he put up, the more I believe there’s something wrong.  He’s made way with Dan somehow, and—­”

“Yes.  Sure thing,” drawled Pink wickedly.  “Let’s organize a searching party and go down there and investigate.  It’s only about a three or four days’ trip, through the roughest country the Lord ever stood on end to cool and then forgot till it crumpled down in spots and got set that way, so He just left it go and mixed fresh mud for the job He was working on.  Andy’d lead us down there, and we’d find—­”

“His friend Dan buried in a tomato can, maybe,” supplied Jack Bates.

“By golly, I’ll bet yuh could put friend Dan into one,” Slim burst out.  “By golly, I never met up with no Dan that packed fifty-dollar bills around in his gun-pocket—­”

“Andy’s telling the truth.  He says so,” reproved Weary.  “And when Andy says a thing is the truth, yuh always know—­”

“It ain’t.”  Cal Emmett finished the sentence, but Weary paid no attention.

“—­what to expect.  Cadwolloper’s right, and we ought to go down there and make a hunt for friend Dan and his fifty-dollar bills.  How many were there, did yuh say?”

“You go to the devil,” snapped Andy, getting up determinedly.  “Yuh bite quick enough when anybody throws a load at yuh that would choke a rhinoscerous, but plain truth seems to be too much for the weak heads of yuh.  I guess I’ll have to turn loose and lie, so yuh’ll listen to me.  There is something crooked about this deal—­”

“We all thought it sounded that way,” Weary remarked mildly.

“And if yuh did go down to where them two wintered, you’d find out I’m right.  But yuh won’t, and that old cutthroat will get off with the murder—­and the money.”

“Don’t he lie natural?” queried Jack Bates solemnly.

That was too much.  Andy glared angrily at the group, picked up the wolfer’s rope, turned on his heel and walked off to where his horse was tied; got on him and rode away without once looking back, though he knew quite well that they were watching every move he made.  It did not help to smooth his temper that the sound of much laughing followed him as he swung into the trail taken by the man who had left not long before.