CHAPTER XII--TOLLEY'S TALE

Hunt had a feeling that he was present at one of those tense scenes of a Western cinema drama, where the heroic gunman holds the villain under the muzzle of his lethal weapon.

He might have leaned from his horse again and plucked both Joe Hurley's gun and that of the divekeeper from their holsters. But he thought twice about that. Neither of the men was in the mood to brook interference. Besides, the parson was keenly alive to the mystery manifested in Tolley's words regarding Nell Blossom and the man called Dick the Devil.

Nobody else was near enough to have overheard what passed between Tolley and Joe Hurley. None of the other Passonians, amused by Nell's wild escapade, drew nearer, and Betty had ridden on to the hotel, refusing to betray the least interest in such a rude scene.

"Speak up, Tolley!" commanded Hurley again. "You've been telling us Dick Beckworth went to Denver to deal faro at a gambling house there. Now you come out with such a thing as this--mixing Nell's name up in some blamed lie about Dick's being killed."

"He was killed. It was murder--or mighty close to it. And that gal----"

He halted again. There was something in Joe Hurley's eyes that stopped him.

"Suppose you start this thing right," said the mine owner more quietly. "I understand Dick Beckworth left town the morning old Steve and Andy McCann broke out, the same as usual, this spring?"

"And the same morning that gal left me and the Grub Stake flat, and went kitin' off," retorted Tolley.

"Well, let's hear the particulars."

"I didn't know Nell had gone at first." He winced, having spoken the girl's name again, because of the darting threat from Hurley's brown eyes. "When Dick told me he was off I didn't scarce believe him. But then I seen him and that--er--gal riding down to the ford. I thought they was up to some game. Anyway, I thought I could talk Dick into coming back. He was the best dealer I ever had."

"Well?" snapped Hurley.

"I saddled a hoss and went after them. They'd followed the wagon track to the top of the cliff. But I thought they'd took the river trail. When I got a piece along the road, I heard something go _bam_--a fall of rock, or something, down the cliff. I hurried my nag and come around a turn where I could see. I looked up--never thought to look ahead along the edge of Runaway River, I see her--Nell--looking over the edge of the cliff.

"I see then I was follering the wrong lead," pursued Tolley. "I didn't think much about the slip I'd heard--not then. I wanted to get at Dick. So I turned back, got to the foot of the wagon track up the cliff yonder," he pointed, "and hurried after them.

"When I got up there neither of 'em was in sight. I hustled along the road and went clean past the fork of the Hoskins' trail. Never thought of either of 'em going to that dump," grumbled Tolley.

"Well, I give it up after a while. I thought I'd lost too much time, starting out wrong at first as I had. They was too fast for me. So I rode back. It wasn't till then, when I come to that place I'd seen Nell looking over from, that I saw how big a lump had broke off the edge of the Overhang."

Hurley sucked in his breath sharply. "Go on!" was all he said.

"I looked down there. I seen how big the slide was. And I seen something more. There was something sticking out of that heap of stuff on the river bank. I couldn't be sure, but I thought it was the hind parts of a hoss, only upside down.

"I pushed my hoss along the river trail again and come to the heap of stuff that had come down the cliff. It hadn't come down alone."

Hunt, listening as closely as Hurley, had no idea how his friend felt; but for his own part his flesh crawled at the inference he drew from Tolley's tale. The man let his last words sink into their minds for fully a minute before he went on.

"It hit me right where I lived. Something bad had happened. It hadn't happened to the gal. So I figgered it must be Dick.

"And I wasn't mistook," continued Tolley with a certain satisfaction in his tone. "I'd been right when I thought there was a hoss in that pile of gravel. There was--but not much of it stickin' out. However, I clawed down to the saddle, undid it, and hauled it out. It was Dick's all right. I got it now stuck into the bottom of my big safe."

"But where was Dick?" demanded Hurley.

"How should _I_ know?" retorted the other. "Maybe under the heap--but I didn't think so. I reckon he was throwed clean into the river. And you know what the current of Runaway River is!"

Hurley groaned.

"Wait!" said Hunt suddenly. "The man you call Dick might not have gone over the cliff with the horse. You did not see the accident."

"He didn't come back to town. And he wouldn't have gone on afoot to Hoskins or any place else," Tolley said surlily. "Nobody ain't seen him around yere from that day to this."

"And you lied about Dick and kept it under your hat all this time?" was Hurley's comment.

"Well, I had a right, didn't I?" blustered Tolley.

"Every right in the world." The mining man spoke evenly now, coldly. "And you've got a better right to keep the story to yourself right along."

"What d'ye mean?"

"What I say. Keep your mouth shut about it. Don't let me hear of you opening your yawp the way you did just now. I don't half believe this yarn, anyway. You couldn't tell _all_ the truth about anything, Tolley. The truth isn't in you. But sometimes a half-truth does more harm than a whole lie. You stick to your first story about Dick the Devil going to Denver. Understand?"

"I don't understand why I should do what you say, Hurley."

The latter patted the butt of his own gun. "Notice that?" he said with a deadly fierceness that shocked Hunt. "If you repeat this yarn, I'll come after you. And if I come after you, Tolley, I'll get you!"

He went back to the waiting Bouncer and mounted into the saddle without another word or a glance at Tolley. But Hunt, his nerves strained to a tension he had never before experienced, watched the owner of the Grub Stake sharply. Hurley's disregard of the fellow amazed the man from the East. He did not realize that Tolley was so unstrung that he could not have hit the broad side of a barn if he had drawn his gun. But Joe Hurley knew it.

The two young men rode on to the door of the hotel, both silent. Cholo Sam was watching Betty's pony. The girl had dismounted and gone up to her room.

"Joe, what is going to be the end of this?" asked Hunt in a low voice.

"I don't know, Willie."

"Will you speak----"

"To Nell? Not on your life!"

"But the truth will come out some time. Who was that Dick?"

Hurley told him. He went further and told of the interest the cabaret singer had shown in the gambler for some time previous to Dick's disappearance--before Nell had gone to Hoskins to sing in the Tin Can Saloon.

"It--it looks bad," faltered Hunt.

"Bad is no name for it."

"The girl should be questioned."

"Not by me!" cried Hurley. "I don't think Tolley will run the risk of speaking to her about it," he added.

"He has already," said Hunt.

He explained about what he and Betty had overheard pass between Nell Blossom and the owner of the Grub Stake the evening previous.

"Great saltpeter!" gasped Hurley. "Then that's why Nell cut that caper just now. She didn't do it just for deviltry. She was warning Tolley on her own hook."

"Joe, there must be no bloodshed over this. If one man has died, that is enough," Hunt said sternly. "We must get at the truth."

"Not me!" cried Hurley again. "I wouldn't tackle Nell for a farm."

"And--and you are so close to her--know her so well?" murmured Hunt.

"That ain't no never-mind," the mining man said earnestly. "That girl's got teeth, I tell you."

"But she is in danger. She must be questioned."

"Great saltpeter! You wouldn't get nothing out of Nell Blossom--nothing that she didn't want to tell."

"She should be convinced that her greater danger lies in silence."

"Convince Nell? What did I tell you, Willie? You couldn't make her do a thing, or even see a thing, that she did not want to do or see."

"There is one thing I can do," said Hunt finally.

"What's that, Willie?" and his friend sighed.

"Find me a pickax and shovel."

"What's that?"

"A pickax and a shovel. At once."

"Great----Say, that's a new one. I never thought of getting an idea into Nell Blossom's stubborn head with those tools. But it might work at that," and Hurley rode off to get the instruments of labor, but without a smile.