Free Fiddlefoot by Luke; Short Page A

“I don’t see how you can beat it.”
    â€œI’ve already beat it,” Frank said.
    â€œGiving up Saber?” Rhino asked mildly. He shook his head. “Won’t do you much good, I’m afraid, Frank.”
    Frank, Hugh saw, was faintly surprised that Rhino knew of this. Frank touched a match to his cold cigarette, and then looked idly at it. “How far are you going with this, Rhino?” he asked then.
    â€œRight up to the finish.”
    â€œI won’t hang for Rob’s murder. The finish will be me telling Hannan about the uniform so he can prove where I was.”
    Nunnally cut in softly, “You’re lying,” and watched the caution come into Frank’s dark eyes. He went on, still softly, “You want that girl too badly, Frank, and she won’t have you, knowing that about you.”
    â€œYou’d hate to bet on that, wouldn’t you, Hugh?”
    â€œI have bet on it,” Rhino put in calmly. “That uniform can get me in trouble too, but not as much as it can you. I’m betting you’ll never tell Hannan.”
    Frank’s eyes widened. “I’d hang first?”
    Rhino shook his head in negation. “You’ll come back first. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s the only way out.”
    Hugh watched stubbornness come into Frank’s handsome face, darkening it, and he felt return of the same perverse pleasure. There was nothing complicated about Chess, he thought; like a hooked fish, there were only so many motions he could go through, variations on the same protest, before he subsided.
    â€œI won’t come back, Rhino,” Frank said flatly, angrily. “I’ve worn that uniform for the last time.”
    â€œOf course you have,” Rhino agreed mildly. “Who said anything about a uniform?”
    â€œHugh.”
    Rhino glanced reprovingly at Hugh, who was studying the floor now, seemingly out of this.
    â€œHugh has my interests at heart,” Rhino said forgivingly. “He was just trying to drive the cheapest bargain.” Now Rhino puffed on his cigar long enough to find it had gone out. He tossed it carelessly onto the floor, and then said, almost idly, “No, what I had in mind was a partnership, Frank.”
    Hugh looked up in time to catch the surprise in Frank’s face. “Partnership?” Frank echoed blankly.
    â€œIn Saber,” Rhino said. He settled back in the tub a little, laced his fingers together behind his neck and looked at the ceiling a moment, and then frowned. Looking at Hugh now, he said, “Get me a cigar, Hugh, and warm this water for me, will you?”
    Hugh went over to the chair where Rhino’s clothes were lying, took a cigar from the breast pocket of Rhino’s coat, gave it to him, held a match for the cigar, then dumped one of the buckets of water into the tub. Occasionally, as he moved about this business, he glanced at Frank, and reading what he saw in Frank’s face he thought, He’s quick enough. He knows .
    He came back to his chair and sat down, and now Rhino said with a gentle persuasiveness: “Look how it is. I’ve got money and plenty of horse-buyers, but every time the Army needs a big jag of horses I have to go buy them. You’ve got Saber, the buildings, the grass. Together, we could raise horses, buy them, hold them, trade them and sell them. We’d be the biggest horse-dealers in the West. Why, we’d make a fortune.”
    Frank had come away from the wall now. His dark eyes were bright and steady and remotely searching as he regarded Rhino.
    Then he said softly, “Rhino, you killed Rob, didn’t you?”
    Rhino chuckled. “Why, yes.”
    Hugh gently slipped his gun from its holster and held it beside him. He watched Frank accept this, standing utterly motionless, his lean restlessness stilled, hands at his side, feet spread a little apart, his face hard and unforgiving and