I had the evidence propped
up against the front of our real-estate office--'Sacred to the
Memory' of four of our leading citizens--so I jailed 'em. But
that's all the good it did."
"Couldn't convict, eh?"
Blaze lit his cigarette for the third time. "The prosecuting
attorney and I wasn't very good friends, seeing as how I'd had to
kill his daddy, so he turned 'em loose. I'm damned if those four
Greasers didn't beat me back to Jonesville." Blaze shook his head
ruminatively. "This was a hard country, those days. There wasn't
but two honest men in this whole valley--and the other one was a
nigger."
Dave Law's duties as a Ranger rested lightly upon him; his
instructions were vague, and he had a leisurely method of "working
up" his evidence. Since he knew that Blaze possessed a thorough
knowledge of this section and its people, it was partly business
which had brought him to the Jones home this afternoon.
Strictly speaking, Blaze was not a rancher, although many of his
acres were under cultivation and he employed a sizable army of
field-hands. His disposition was too adventurous, his life had
been too swift and varied, for him to remain interested in slow
agricultural pursuits; therefore, he had speculated heavily in raw
lands, and for several years past he had devoted his energies to a
gigantic colonization scheme.
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