Swede laughs and says nobody can prove he sold
'em a drop, and I says that's probably true. I says it's always hard to
prove things. 'For instance,' I says, 'if they's another drop of liquor
sold to an Injin during this haying time, and a couple or three nights
after that your nasty dump here is set fire to in six places, and some
cowardly assassin out in the brush picks you off with a rifle when you
rush out--it will be mighty hard to prove that anybody did that, too;
and you not caring whether it's proved or not, for that matter.

[Illustration: "THE SWEDE BRISTLES UP AND SAYS: 'THAT SOUNDS LIKE
FIGHTING TALK!' I SAYS: 'YOUR HEARING IS PERFECT.'"]

"'In fact,' I says, 'I don't suppose anybody would take the trouble to
prove it, even if it could be easy proved. You'd note a singular lack of
public interest in it--if you was spared to us. I guess about as far as
an investigation would ever get--the coroner's jury would say it was the
work of Pete's brother-in-law; and you know what that would mean.' The
Swede bristles up and says: 'That sounds like fighting talk!' I says:
'Your hearing is perfect.' I left him thinking hard."

"Pete's brother-in-law? That reminds me," I said. "Pete was telling me
about him just--I mean during his lunch hour; but he had to go to work
again just at the beginning of something that sounded good--about the
time he was going to kill a bright lawyer. What was that?"

The glass was drained and Ma Pettengill eyed the inconsiderable remains
of the ham with something like repugnance. She averted her face from it,
lay back in the armchair she had chosen, and rolled a cigarette, while I
brought a hassock for the jewelled slippers and the scarlet silken
ankles, so ill-befitting one of her age. The cigarette was presently
burning.

"I guess Pete's b'other-in-law, as he calls him, won't come into these
parts again. He had a kind of narrow squeak this last time. Pete done
something pretty raw, even for this liberal-minded community. He got
scared about it himself and left the country for a couple of
months--looking for his brother-in-law, he said. He beat it up North and
got in with a bunch of other Injins that was being took down to New York
City to advertise a railroad, Pete looking like what folks think an
Injin ought to look when he's dressed for the part. But he got homesick;
and, anyway, he didn't like the job.

"This passenger agent that took 'em East put 'em up at one of the big
hotels all