this tenderfoot Ray, and because Ray’s inexperienced and wants money enough to marry his best girl, he won’t sell for a thousand dollars and Shaughnessy doesn’t want to pay any more than he has to. He’s got to have the ground to put the deal through. When he can’t get it decently he turns around and goes after it crookedly, which is the way he knows best, anyhow.

“He gets that seventy-five hundred that can be identified, then he and one of his pals, either Pinder or ‘Crook’ MacPharlane, drive down there into that side road with a buggy. Shaughnessy gets on the high point to signal when the stage is coming, and the other man sticks her up, and they go back and plant the money in Ray’s cabin, then write the anonymous letter. The watch charm I found is the only thing that was bad for them. I recognized it the minute I found it because I’ve seen it on Shaughnessy’s chain a hundred times. After our talk with Ray it was all plain. They framed up on the boy to get him out of the way and to buy his mine for a thousand dollars when he became so desperate and helpless that he’d sell his right eye to clear himself, and they do it under the bluff of friendship, damn ’em! Doesn’t it look that way to you, Hillyer?”

For a long time the district attorney pondered and then said, “Yes, considering the past record of that gang, and the clean record of Ray, it does; but—I’m afraid that what you’ve learned, and what we know, doesn’t constitute proof enough to either convict Shaughnessy and an unknown man or to clear Ray. And the worst of it is I don’t at this moment see how we can get more evidence against Shaughnessy or actually learn who his confederate, the actual robber, was. They’re so clever that they have absolutely covered their tracks. What do you suggest, David?”

“Why, just this. That you give me a week or ten days to do a little nosing around in my own way. Then, if I can get what you call ‘evidence enough,’ it’s easy going. If I don’t, why in any case you can state that, owing to disclosures which it’s not necessary to divulge, and with the consent or concurrence, or whatever you call it, of the court, you are convinced of Ray’s innocence and—turn him loose. You could do that, couldn’t you?”

For a time the prosecuting attorney considered, and finally shrugged his shoulders as he said, “Yes, I could; but it might defeat me for my next election. However, that makes no difference. I wouldn’t convict an innocent man if I could help it, even if I never again held a public office.”

“Hillyer, you’re a white man,” David exclaimed 

 Prev. P 12/19 next