The Heart of the Range Part 50

"Because the case ain't come to a hearing yet. That's why. You oughta know that, Luke. Yo're a lawyer."

"Alla same--" began Luke.

"Alla same nothing!" declared Judge Dolan. "_After_ eviction proceedin's have been started, and if you don't have any luck in getting them women off the place, then you can apply to this court for redress. I'll set a date for a hearing. _After_ the hearing, if you got a notion in yore numskull that I ain't doing you right, you can apply to the Piegan City court for all the ---- mandatory injunctions you feel like and be ---- to you. Is they any further business you got with me, Luke, or any more points of law you wanna be instructed on?

'Cause if they ain't, here's you, there's the door, and right yonder is outside."

Luke Tweezy departed abruptly.

Dolan laughed harshly as the door slammed. "He can't bluff me, the chucklehead. He knew he couldn't sue out a mandatory injunction yet, knew it d.a.m.n well, but he didn't think I knew it, d.a.m.n his ornery soul."

"Oh, he's slick, Luke Tweezy is," said Racey Dawson, "but like most slick gents he thinks everybody else is a fool."

"He makes a mistake once in a while," grunted Dolan.

At which Racey looked up sharply. "A mistake," he repeated. "There's an idea. I wonder if he has made any mistake."

"Who ain't?" nodded Dolan. "Luke's made plenty, I'll bet."

"I dunno about plenty," doubted Racey. "One would be enough."

Dolan rasped a hand across his stubbly chin. "One would be enough," he admitted. "If you could find the one."

"It wouldn't have to be a mistake having to do with this particular case, either, would it?"

"Not necessarily. Of course it would be better to trip him up on this case, but if you can get hold of something else Luke has done that can be proved anyways shady it would be four aces and the joker. Luke would have to pull in his horns about this mortgage. And if I know Luke, he'd do it. He's got nerve, but it ain't cold enough nor witless enough to go up against the sh.o.r.e thing."

"If only McFluke would talk. He knows the ins and outs of this business."

Dolan nodded. "Sh.o.r.e as yo're a foot high Dale gave him that black eye."

"And sh.o.r.e as _yo're_ a foot high he downed Dale."

"I guess likely. But circ.u.mstantial evidence is amazing queer. You can't ever tell how the jury's gonna take it. But anyway we got McFluke, and he'll do to start in on."

Entered then Kansas Casey with a serious face. "McFluke has sloped,"

said he without preliminary.

"What!" cried Judge Dolan.

But it was characteristic of Racey Dawson that he did not say "What!"

He asked "How?"

"Because the jail was burned down," said Kansas; "you know we had to put him in yore warehouse, Judge, as the next strongest place, and they dug him out."

"'Dug him out?'" Thus Judge Dolan.

"That's what they did."

"'They!' 'They!' Who's 'they?'" Again Judge Dolan.

"If I knowed who they was," Kansas replied, "I'd dump 'em just too quick. Way I know it's a 'they,' is because the job of diggin' is bigger than a one-man job."

"We'll go look into this," Dolan exclaimed, wrathfully, and reached for his hat.

"He'd never 'a' been pulled out of the calaboose so easy," said Kansas, as he led Dolan and Racey up the street to the rear of the Dolan warehouse, "but yore foundation logs ain't sunk more'n six inches, and diggin' under and in was a cinch."

"But why didn't you handcuff this sport to a roof stanchion inside?"

demanded the Judge.

"We did, man, we did. We got a log chain and the biggest pair of handcuffs in our stock and we ironed McFluke by the ankles to a stanchion in the middle of the warehouse. Besides that his hands was handcuffed, and no matter how he stretched he couldn't reach nothing.

We seen to that."

"But, my Gawd, hownell did they have time to file through that log chain or them cuffs? A log chain ain't made of wire an' them cuffs is all special steel."

"They didn't file neither the chain nor the cuffs," explained Kansas, wearily. "They unlocked the cuffs."

"Unlocked 'em, huh? Where'd they get the key? Lose one of yores, did yuh?"

"Ours is all safe. They must 'a' had a key. Anyway, there's the handcuffs wide open when I found McFluke gone this mornin'."

Dolan pulled out his watch. "Nine o'clock," said he. "When did you first find Mac was gone, Kansas?"

"When I took his breakfast in less'n five minutes ago."

"Howcome you went to the warehouse so late?"

"Well," said Kansas, somewhat shamefacedly, "we didn't lock him up in the warehouse till one o'clock this morning, and I figured a li'l extra sleep wouldn't do him any harm."

"Or a li'l extra sleep wouldn't do yoreself any harm neither, huh?"

"Maybe I did sleep later than usual," admitted Kansas.

"I guess you did," said Dolan. "I guess you did. And Jake, too. Told anybody else about this?"

"Only Jake."

They had left the street while they talked, and walked down the long side wall of the warehouse. Now they turned the corner and saw, heaped against a foundation log, a pile of freshly dug dirt. Beyond the dirt pile gaped the mouth of a hole leading beneath the log. The hole was quite large enough for an over-size man to crawl through without difficulty.

Judge Dolan got down on his hands and knees and peered into the hole.

Then he eased down into it headfirst and pawed his way through.

"That's what you get for not walking in by the front door in the first place, Kansas," grinned Racey. "Root hog or die, feller, root hog or die."

Swearing under his breath Kansas went to ground like a badger. His broad shoulders did not sc.r.a.pe the sides of the hall. Observing which Racey knew that it must have been an easy matter for McFluke to crawl through, for the saloon-keeper's shoulders, wide as they were, were not as broad as those of Kansas Casey by a good inch and a half.

"That hole is four or five inches wider than necessary," ruminated Racey, preparing to follow the deputy. "I wonder why. Yep, I sh.o.r.e wonder why. Here they are in a harris of a hurry and they take time to make a hole big enough for two men almost. Maybe they robbed the warehouse, too."

He suggested as much to Dolan when he joined the latter within.