CHAPTER XXI--THE DRAMA OF A LIE

The tense silence that followed Smithy's half-sobbing speech marked the poignancy of the moment and the utter stupefaction of his hearers. To all but Joe Hurley and Hunt such an accusation as this aimed at Nell Blossom was entirely unlooked for. If the crowd understood anything at all, they understood that Boss Tolley, if he had started the scandal, courted annihilation!

Indeed the first question fired at Smithy following his statement was:

"Why didn't you fill 'em with lead, Smithy?"

"I didn't have no gun," replied the grocery clerk. "And Tom Hicks downed me before I could get at Tolley."

"Did he say it, Smithy?" demanded Colorado Brown.

"'Twas him says he knows all about it. Says that Nell killed Dick Beckworth."

They talked. But it was Joe Hurley who acted. He threw down the hand of cards he held.

"Mike," he said to the Mexican, Miguel Santos, "you know I ain't in the habit of betraying cold feet. But I got some business to tend to. Colorado," he added to the proprietor, "I'll settle when I come in again. I'm in a hurry."

With the quickness of a cat he slipped through the crowd about the table and Smithy and shot for the door. But the parson was at his elbow before he could get through the portal.

"You'd better keep out of this, Willie," Hurley said between his teeth. "There's goin' to be the devil to pay in a minute."

"It is as much my business as it is yours, Joe," said Hunt, in step with his long stride on the side-walk where they headed toward the Grub Stake. "And we must do something before those fellows back there wake up."

"What?" was Joe's startled ejaculation.

"That stupid Smithy has started something. Some of those fellows will be out after us in a minute, and if they get to the Grub Stake before we straighten things out, there will be trouble."

"Trouble? Youbetcha there'll be trouble! And you'd better keep out of it, Willie."

"I mean to stop it," said Hunt softly.

But Joe Hurley did not hear him. He turned abruptly and burst into the main entrance of the Grub Stake. It did not take Joe Hurley's trained glance to see that something had happened here. Hunt sensed, too, that if there had already been trouble, more of the same kind was expected.

The girl who usually presided at the door--the girl who parked your gun if you wanted to play, or your spurs if you wanted to dance and gave you checks in return for them--had got out of the way. Several of the gaming tables were empty. There was not a man standing in front of the bar, and Boss Tolley's assistants behind the "rosewood" had "stepped out."

Hunt knew at first glance that some of the toughest men in the camp were gathered here--either about the remaining tables or with Boss Tolley at the far end of the bar by the door of his tiny office where the safes stood. That office, Joe had told the parson, was an arsenal. There was a bodyguard around the dive keeper of at least six men.

Joe Hurley saw that all this group was armed. A flash of the several men at the gaming tables assured the mining man that they might be neutral, save perhaps the dealers for the house. But he realized that Tolley's gang was primed for mischief. It was a wonder that Smithy, the poor fool, had got out of the place alive!

Hunt had pushed ahead of Joe the moment they stepped inside the door. They were both big men, and Joe's advantage of height could not hide the parson's bulk. In a flash, before a word was spoken, Joe took two long strides sideways and got behind the first table, which was empty. And he, by this act, left Hunt out of the line of any bullet aimed by the gang standing at the end of the bar at himself.

A gun had not yet been drawn, however, on either side. Nor had a word been spoken by either Tolley and his gang or by the two men who had entered so suddenly. Still, not a man in the barroom missed the significance of Joe Hurley's strategic move.

Sam Tubbs, withered old scarecrow that he was, had been facing the door at a near-by table. It was evident that Steve Siebert, the returned desert rat, had been treating Tubbs to more liquor than was good for him. But Sam had some wit left.

Joe's action forecast the popping of guns--instantly! Sam had seen too many such brawls to play the part of "innocent bystander" if he could help it. He let his feet slide out from under him, shot down in the chair on the small of his back, and passed out of sight under the table with all the celerity of an imp in a pantomime.

Steve Siebert, however, did not even remove his pipe from his lips, but wheeled in his chair and glared from Joe to Tolley and his bodyguard. The old man swung a heavy, old-style six-gun low on his hip. But he did not touch it--then.

Joe's attitude was as wary as that of a puma about to spring. He crouched. By one quick motion he could overturn the table, drop behind it, and use it as a bulwark. But he must move quickly enough to escape, perhaps, seven bullets from as many guns.

It was Joe Hurley who first spoke.

"Tolley!" he said fiercely but clearly, "I warned you what I'd do if you repeated that lie about the girl. You remember, well enough, you hound! Stand out from those bootlickers of yours and take your medicine."

The challenge got no response from Tolley but a grimace like that of a wolf in a trap. He did not make a motion to draw his own gun. He was too wise to do that in any event, for he knew he could not beat Joe to it! And then--what did he subsidize these gunmen for if not for such an emergency as this?

"Open your trap, you hound!" commanded Joe. "If you won't fight, speak!"

"Wait a moment."

The parson had actually not halted at all when he entered with Joe Hurley. He had merely slowed up. He was approaching Tolley and his men down the long length of the bar. But when he spoke Tom Hicks half drew his gun.

"Mr. Tolley," Hunt said in the same clear but quiet voice, "will undoubtedly explain and apologize for what we understand he has said about the young woman in question. Come now, Mr. Tolley! you are ready to take back your words, aren't you? You have no more proof, have you, of your--er--mis-statement than you had several weeks ago when you discussed the affair with Mr. Hurley in my hearing?"

"What are you butting in for?" returned Tolley with a threatening growl.

"For the sake of peace, Mr. Tolley," explained the parson determinedly.

"Get back, Willie!" Joe ordered from the background.

He dared not draw his gun, for if he did Hunt would be right in the line of fire again. With a single motion Tom Hicks could get into action.

"You derned buttinsky!" spat out Tolley vengefully. "Mind what you are doing, or you'll stop lead."

"That will not make a lie the truth, Mr. Tolley," rejoined Hunt, now squarely between the group of desperadoes and Joe Hurley's position.

"You mean to say I'm a liar?" blustered Tolley.

"I mean to say that the story you have repeated about the young woman and the man you say has disappeared has no foundation in fact and that you have in your possession no proof to back your statement. If that is calling you a liar, Mr. Tolley, then consider yourself so called!"

There was a little stir among the listeners at the tables--a stir of approval, and one voice ejaculated:

"What's it all about?"

Evidently not all of these men now present had been at hand when Smithy had taken offense at Tolley's words earlier in the evening which precipitated this situation. Hunt, without raising his voice at all, continued:

"I take it that you have no new evidence of a crime having been committed? You did not see the man fall? You merely saw the young woman at the summit of the declivity? Later you recovered a saddle you recognized from the fallen rubbish? Am I right? Isn't that the extent of your evidence?"

"Well! Look yere! I reckon I know what I am talkin' about----"

"But you do not talk about what you know," interposed Hunt. "To my personal knowledge--and that of Mr. Hurley--the missing man was not buried under that heap of rubbish with his horse."

"Then he went into the river!" cried Tolley.

Here Joe Hurley put in a very pungent word:

"And that might easily be true. If you found his horse and removed the saddle, you might have found the man, too, Tolley, and removed some of his harness."

"What's that?" was the startled demand.

"From the first," Joe said sternly, "I suspected you, Tolley. Your dust won't hide what you have done. You are altogether too sure the man is dead--after first reporting that you had heard from him in Denver.

"In fact, you are too anxious to cast suspicion on another person. Your conscience--if you have such a thing--is troubling you, Tolley. At least, your fears have made you try to invent a lie that doesn't work out just the way you expected it to."

"I'll show you----"

"You'll show me nothing, Tolley!" retorted Hurley. "You'll listen--and these other gentlemen. You got the man's saddle. It is just as probable that you found his body, as well as that of the horse. And he was known to wear a money-belt around his waist. He was likewise known to be well-fixed when he left Canyon Pass. He'd been doing well here. You knew it, if anybody did. You confess that you rode after the man. And you confess that you got his saddle. Confess the rest of it, you dog. What else have you got in your safe that belonged to----"

Boss Tolley threw caution to the winds at this juncture. Hurley's scathing denunciation pricked to life in him such personal courage as he possessed. He flung himself forward with a howl of rage and whipped the gun from the holster at his hip.

"Get down, Willie!" shouted Hurley and flung the table on its edge with a crash, dropping behind it.