At this bold exposition of possibilities they paused.

“Kern is figured tolerable straight,” declared Whitey.

“Sure he is.  That’s because he don’t talk none and does his work.  Besides, he’s a killer.  That’s his job.  So is Sinclair a killer.  Maybe he did fight Quade square, but Quade ain’t the only one.  Why, boys, this Sinclair has got a record as long as my arm.”

In silence they sat around the table, each man thinking hard.  The professional gunman gets scant sympathy from ordinary cowpunchers.

“Now I dropped in at the jail,” said the man of the great freckles, “and come to think about it, I heard Sinclair singing, and I seen him polishing his spurs.”

“Sure, he’s getting ready for a ride,” put in Cartwright.

There was a growl from the others.  They were slowly turning their interest from the game to Cartwright.

“What d’you mean a ride?”

“Got another hundred,” said Cartwright calmly, “that when the morning comes it won’t find Sinclair in the jail.”

At once they were absolutely silenced, for money talks in an eloquent voice.  Deliberately Cartwright counted out the two stacks of shimmering twenty-dollar gold pieces, five to a stack.

“One hundred that he don’t hang; another hundred that he ain’t in the jail when the morning comes.  Any takers, boys?  It had ought to be easy money—­if everything’s square.”

Whitey made a move, but finally merely raised his hand and rubbed his chin.  He was watching that gold on the table with catlike interest.  A man must know something to be so sure.

“I’d like to know,” murmured the man of the freckles disconnectedly.

“Well,” said Cartwright, “they ain’t much of a mystery about it.  For one thing, if the sheriff was plumb set on keeping them two, why didn’t he take ’em over to Woodville today, where they’s a jail they couldn’t bust out of, eh?”

Again they were silenced, and in an argument, when a man falls silent, it simply means that he is thinking hard on the other side.

“But as far as I’m concerned,” went on Cartwright, yawning again, “it don’t make no difference one way or another.  Sour Creek ain’t my town, and I don’t care if it gets the ha-ha for having its jail busted open.  Of course, after the birds have flown, the sheriff will ride hard after ’em—­on the wrong trail!”

Whitey raised his slender, agile, efficient hand.

“Gents,” he said, “something has got to be done.  This man Cartwright is giving us the truth!  He’s got his hunch, and hunches is mostly always right.”

“Speak out, Whitey,” said the man with the freckles encouragingly.  “I like your style of thinking.”

Nodding his acknowledgments, Whitey said: 

“The main thing seems to be that Sinclair and Arizona is old hands at killing.  And they had ought to be hung.  Well, if the sheriff ain’t got the rope, maybe we could help him out, eh?”