Introductory material

THE RIDER OF GOLDEN BAR

CHAPTER ONE

BILLY WINGO

"But why don't you do something, Bill?" demanded Sam Prescott's pretty daughter.

Bill Wingo looked at Miss Prescott in injured astonishment. "Do something?" he repeated. "What do you want me to do?"

"I don't want you to do anything," she denied with unnecessary emphasis. "Haven't you any ambition?"

"Plenty."

"Then use it, for Heaven's sake!"

"I do. Don't I ask you to marry me every time I get a chance?"

"That's not using your ambition. That's playing the fool."

"Nice opinion of yourself you've got," he grinned.

"Never mind. You make me tired, Bill. Here you've got a little claim and a little bunch of cows—the makings of a ranch if you'd only work. But instead of working like a man you loaf like a—like a——"

"Like a loafer," he prompted.

"Exactly. You'd rather hunt and fish and ride the range for monthly wages when you're broke than scratch gravel and make something of yourself. You let your cows run with the T-Up-And-Down, and I'll bet when Tuckleton had his spring round-up you weren't even on the job. Were you?"

"Well, I—uh—I was busy," shamefacedly.

"Fishing over on Jack's Creek. That's how busy you were, when you should have been looking after your property."

"Oh, Tuckleton's boys are square. Any calves they found running with my brand, they'd run the iron on 'em all right."

"They'd run the iron on 'em all right," she repeated. "But what iron?"

"Why—mine. Whose do you suppose?"

"I don't know," she said candidly. "I'm asking you."

"Shucks, Sally Jane, those boys wouldn't do anything crooked. Tuckleton wouldn't allow it."

"Bill, don't you ever distrust anybody?"

"Not until I'm certain they're crooked."

"I see," said the lady disgustedly. "After you wake up and find your hide, together with the rest of your worldly possessions, hanging on the fence, then and not till then do you come alive to the fact that perhaps all was not right."

"Well——" began Bill.

"Don't you see by that time it's too late?" interrupted the lady.

"Aw, I dunno. I—I suppose so."

"You suppose so, do you? You suppose so. Don't you know, my innocent William, that there are a sight more criminals outside of jail than there are in?"

"Why, Sally Jane!" said the innocent William, scraping a fie-fie forefinger at her. "Shame on you, shame on you, you wicked girl. I am surprised. Such thoughts in a young maid's mind. No, I ain't either. I always said if your pa sent you away to school you'd lose your faith in human nature. He did; and you did. And now look at you, talking just like a district attorney. And suspicious—I'd tell a man!"

"Oh, darn!" wailed Sally Jane. "I hate a fool!"

"So do I," concurred Bill warmly. "Tell a feller who's the fool you hate and I'll hate him, too. One pair of haters working together might do said fool a lot of good."

"Sometimes, Bill, my fingers simply ache to smack your long and silly ears."

He nodded soberly. "I know. I often have the same feeling about people. But don't let it worry you. It don't mean anything."

"Bill, can't you understand that I like you, and——"

"Easily," he grinned. "Of course you like me. So do lots of other people. It comes natural. And that is another thing you mustn't let worry you, Sally Jane. Just you take that liking for me and tend it real careful. Put it on the window-sill between the pink geraniums and water it morning, noon and night, and by and by that li'l liking will wax strong and great and all that sort of thing, and you won't be able to do without me. You'll have to marry me, I'm afraid, Sally Jane."

"I will, will I? And you're afraid, are you? You big, overgrown, lazy lummox! I wouldn't marry you ever."

"I'm not so sure, but you needn't stamp your foot at me anyway. It ain't being done this season. People slam doors instead. I'm sorry there isn't a door near at hand. It must have been overlooked when Linny's Hill was made."

"Bill, don't fool. This is not any joking matter. This come-day-go-day attitude of yours is bad business. It's ruining you, really it is."

"Drink and the devil, huh?"

"Oh, you're decent enough far as that goes. You never have been beastly."

"I thank you, madam, for this good opinion of your humble servant."

"Shut up! I mean to say— What I'm trying to beat into your thick head, you simple thing, is that in this world you don't stand still. You can't. You either go ahead or you slip back. And—you aren't going ahead."

"If not, why not, huh? I know you mean well, Sally Jane, and——"

"And it's none of my business? Oh, I know you weren't going to say that but you think it. You're quite right, Bill—but can't you see I'm talking for your own good?"

"Sure, yes. My pa used to talk just like that before he'd go out behind the corral with a breeching-strap in one hand and my ear in the other. I've heard him many's the time. I used to hurt most unpleasant for two-three days after, special if he'd forget which end of the strap carried the buckle. Old times, old times. Now, I take it you were never licked, Sally Jane. That was a mistake. You should have been— What? You don't mean to say you're going home? And we were getting along so nicely too. Well, if willful must, she must. I'll hold your horse for you. Again let me offer my apologies for the lack of a door."

He sagged down on his heel and watched her ride away along the side of Linny's Hill.

"I've often heard a woman's 'no' doesn't mean what it says," he muttered, fishing out the makings from a vest pocket. "But Sally Jane is so persistent with it, I dunno. I wonder if I really love her, or do I only think I do because I can't have her? I suppose I'd feel worse'n I do every time she turns me down if I did. Lord! she said, I said, he said, and may Gawd have mercy on your soul!"

When his cigarette was going well he lazed over on his side, supporting his head on a crooked arm, and gazed abroad between half-shut lids.

The view from Linny's Hill was all that could be desired. At the base of the hill the Golden Bar-Hillsville trail, a yellow-gray ribbon across the green, led the eye across flats and gentle rises through shady groves of pine and cedar westward to where Golden Bar, a collection of toy houses, each one startlingly clear and distinct in that rarefied atmosphere, sprawled along the farther bank of Wagonjack River.

The stream itself, a roaring river in the spring of the year, was now but a poor thing. Shrunk to quarter-size, and fordable almost anywhere, it flowed in sedate and midsummer fashion between its cut-banks and miniature bluffs. Bordered throughout its length by willows and cottonwoods, Wagonjack River meandered and wound its way southward from the blue and hazy tumble of peaks that was the main range of the Medicine Mountains to where the wide and pleasant reaches of the Peace Pipe watered the southern section of the territory.

From Golden Bar to the Medicine Mountains was a long two hundred miles. From Golden Bar to the Peace Pipe was twice that distance.

Crocker County, four hundred miles long by three hundred miles wide, bounded on the east by the Wagonjack, ran well up into the Medicine Mountains before giving way to Storey County. Across the river from Crocker were two counties, of which Tom Read County was the northern and Piegan County the southern. Shaler County ran the whole length of the southern side of Crocker, whose western line was the boundary of the neighboring territory.

There you have Crocker, a county three hundred miles wide by four hundred miles long, and Golden Bar was its county seat.

Political pickings in Crocker, which pickings the neighbors called by a much worse name, were consistently good. A small Indian reservation lay partly in Crocker and partly in Shaler, but somehow the Crocker citizens always secured the beef contracts. Crocker laws, provided the suspected person or persons were friendly with the county officials, were not administered with undue severity. Coarse work was never tolerated, naturally; but if one were judicious and a good picker, one could travel far and profitably. Thus it may be seen that Crocker was, as counties go, fertile ground for easy consciences.

But, like Gallio, Bill Wingo cared for none of these things. He watched the moving pencil-end that was Miss Prescott and her mount descend to the trail and ride along it in the direction of Golden Bar.

Another pencil-end was riding the same trail,—away from Golden Bar. Traveling at their present rate of speed, the riders would meet not far from the scattering grove of cedars marking the entrance to the low-walled draw that led to the Prescott ranch house.

Bill Wingo intently scrutinized the way-farer from Golden Bar side.

"Looks like Jack Murray's sorrel," he mused, holding the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and rocking it up and down. "If they stop, it's Jack."

The pencil-ends drew together at the lower end of the grove. They stopped.

"Shucks," Mr. Wingo muttered mildly. "I never did like that man."

Said the first pencil-end to the second pencil-end, "Hello, Sally Jane."

"Morning, Jack."

"I was just a-riding to your place."

"Don't let me stop you."

"I'll ride along with you."

"It's a free country." She lifted her reins and "kissed" to her horse. "And at times I've known you to be amusing, Jack. It's four miles to our ranch and you'll help to brighten the weary way."

He spurred alongside and turned in his saddle to stare at her.

"Is that all I'm good for—to help pass the time?"

"What else is a man good for?"

"Don't be so flip, Sally Jane. You know——" He stopped short.

She waited a moment. Then, "I know what?"

"You know I've been loving you a long, long time," he said abruptly. "I didn't want to tell you till I had something to offer you besides myself. And now I've got something—Rafe Tuckleton has promised to make me sheriff."

"I thought the voters usually decided such things," said she.

He laughed cynically. "Not in Crocker. We know the better way. Well, I've told you, Sally Jane. What do you say?"

She looked at him coolly. "What is this—a proposal?"

"Sure, I want you to marry me."

"No, you don't." There was no hint of coquetry in either her tone or the direct gaze of her violet eyes.

He crowded his horse almost against hers and dropped a hand on top of her hand where it lay on the saddle horn. She did not withdraw her hand at his touch. She simply suffered it impassively.

"Don't you understand?" he said earnestly. "Don't you understand that I love you, Sally Jane? And I want you."

Sally Jane continued to look at him.

"I understand that you want me," she told him calmly. "Why not? You're dark and tall and thick-lipped and headstrong. I'm slim and red-haired and my mouth is full, too—but I'm headstrong, thank Heaven. My type appeals to your type, that's all. Appeals physically, I mean. You'd like to possess me, but you don't love me, Jack Murray."

"I tell you——" he began passionately.

"You don't have to tell me," she said calmly. "I know."

"How do you know?"

"By your eyes."

"My eyes!"

"Your eyes. Love is something besides desire, Jack. I know that lots of men don't think so; but women know. You bet women know. And I, for one, don't intend to risk my happiness on a twenty-to-one-shot."

"What you talking about?" he demanded, scowling and withdrawing his hand.

"You—and me—us. If I married you, it's twenty to one our marriage would be unhappy. There's too much of the animal in you, Jack."

"You listen to me, Sally. I tell you I love you and I'm going to have you."

"I said you only wanted to possess me," she observed placidly.

"Dammit, I tell you——"

"That's right, swear," she interrupted. "A man always does that when he can't think of anything else to say."

"I'm gonna marry you," he persisted sullenly.

"If it does you any good, keep right on thinking so. It can't hurt me."

"Has Bill Wingo——" he began, but sensed his mistake and stopped—too late.

"You mean am I in love with Billy Wingo?" she put in helpfully. "My answer is, not at present."

"Meaning that you may be later on, I suppose."

"I didn't say so. Lord, man, haven't I a right to bestow my heart anywhere I like? I intend to, old-timer."

"You ain't gonna marry anybody but me," he insisted stubbornly.

"There you go again. Leave the melodrama alone, can't you? This isn't a play. It's real life."

"I said I was gonna have you and I am," he said slowly. "Neither Bill Wingo nor anybody else is gonna get you. You were always intended for me. You're mine, understand, mine!"

Jamming his horse against hers he pinioned both her hands with his right, swung his left arm round her waist and crushed her gasping against his chest. Be sure she struggled; but he was a man, and strong. Forcing the back of the hand that confined her two hands under her chin, he tilted her head up and backwards. Tightly she screwed up her mouth so that her lips were invisible. Once, twice and again he kissed her compressed mouth.

"There," he muttered, releasing her so abruptly that she almost fell out of the saddle and only saved herself by catching the saddle horn with both hands. "There. I've heard you boasted that no man had ever kissed you. Well, you're kissed now and you won't forget it in a hurry."

She settled her toes in the stirrups and faced him, her body shaking. Her hat had fallen off, her copper-colored hair hung tousled about her ears. Violet eyes sparkling under the black eyebrows, lips drawn back revealing the white, even teeth—her features were a mask of rage—a rage that seethed and boiled in her passionate heart.

Never in her life had she been so despitefully used. Had she had a gun, she would have shot the man. But she did not have a gun—nor any other weapon. She had even dropped her quirt somewhere.

"Oh!" she cried, striking her fists together. "Oh! I could kill you! You dog! You beast! Faugh!" Here she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and wiped her hand on her horse's mane. "When I get home," she raved on, "I'll try to wash the touch of your mouth off with soap, but I don't believe even ammonia will ever make my lips feel clean again!"

He laughed. She began to cry as her rage overflowed her heart.

"When I tell my father," she sobbed, "he will kill you!"

"Here, stop crying," he directed, stretching forth an arm and leaning toward her.

At that she came alive with startling suddenness and with a full-armed sweep scored his cheek with her finger nails from temple to jaw.

"Don't touch me!" she squalled. "Don't touch me! When my father gets through with you——" She left the sentence unfinished and wheeled her horse.

But he was too quick for her and seized the bridle rein and swung her mount back.

"Listen," he said, his voice quiet but his eyes ablaze, "don't say anything to your father."

"Afraid now, are you?" she taunted sneeringly.

"Not for me, for him. I don't want any trouble with your pa, not any. But if he jumps me, I'll have to defend myself. And you know your pa was never very quick on the draw, Sally Jane. So long."

He let her bridle go and moved aside. She snatched her horse around with a jerk and flew homeward at a gallop.

CHAPTER TWO

A SAFE MAN

"We gotta be careful," cautioned Tom Driver, the local justice of the peace.

"Careful is our middle name," Rafe Tuckleton said reassuringly.

"I know, I know," persisted Driver. "But you can't fool all the people all——"

"Abe Lincoln said it first," Felix Craft interrupted impatiently. "But he didn't live in Crocker County."

"Or he wouldn't have said it, huh?" flung in Tip O'Gorman. "Don't you fool yourself, Crafty. Tom's right. Human nature don't change any."

"I s'pose you mean give the people a square deal then," sneered Felix.

"If he does, he's crazy," said a lanky citizen named Shindle.

O'Gorman grinned a wide Irish smile. "No, I ain't crazy, but we'll give 'em a square deal alla same."

"He is crazy," declared lank Shindle.

"A square deal," repeated O'Gorman. "A square deal—for us."

"I thought so," nodded plump Sam Larder, speaking for the first time since the beginning of the discussion. "A square deal—for us. Let's hear it, Tip."

O'Gorman sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. "When a dog is hungry it ain't sensible to feed him a whole juicy steak. He'll gobble it down an' come pesterin' round for more in five minutes. But give him a bone and he'll gnaw and gnaw and be a satisfied dog for quite a long while."

"What kind of a bone were you figuring on giving our dog?" inquired Tom Driver.

"Sheriff." Thus Tip O'Gorman with finality.

Felix Craft shook a decided head.

"Guess again. Too much meat on that bone."

"Not if it's the right kind of meat," said O'Gorman blandly.

"Stop walking in the water," grunted the impatient Felix. "Say it right out."

"A sheriff with a ring in his nose," explained O'Gorman.

"A weak sister, huh?" put in Tom Driver.

"Or words to that effect," smiled O'Gorman. "Can't you see how it is, gents? To shove our ticket through we gotta give 'em one good man. If we don't, the four legislators are a stand-off. We may elect them. We may elect our three justices, county clerk and coroner. You can't tell what will happen to them. Folks will scratch their heads this election and they'll vote their own way. Take my word for it. And when it comes to sheriff, folks are gonna do more than scratch their heads. They're gonna think—hard. That's why we gotta give 'em a good man."

"One of themselves, for instance?" said plump Sam Larder, locking his hands over his paunch.

"Sure," O'Gorman drawled. "Do that. Give 'em somebody they trust and like for sheriff an' they'll be so busy thinkin' about electin' him that the rest of the ticket will slide in like a greased pig through a busted fence."

"To tell the truth. I'd more than half-promised the job to Jack Murray," remarked Rafe Tuckleton, incidentally wondering why Jack had not yet turned up at the meeting. "He should have been here an hour ago."

"You half-promised it to Jack Murray, huh?" exclaimed the lank citizen Shindle. "Lemme tell you that I was a damsight more than half-counting on that job myself."

"Neither of your totals is the right answer, Skinny," explained O'Gorman pleasantly. "Nominatin' either you or Jack would gorm up the whole ticket."

"Aw, the party is strong enough to elect anybody!" protested Felix Craft.

"Not this year," contradicted O'Gorman. "You ain't been round like I have, Felix. I tell you I know. Gents, if we go ahead and nominate either Skinny Shindle or Jack Murray, we'll all have to go to work."

"Who you got in mind?" queried Rafe Tuckleton.

"Bill Wingo."

Dead silence for a space. Then Rafe Tuckleton looked at Sam Larder and whistled lowly. Sam's eyes switched to Tip.

"I don't see the connection," said Sam Larder.

"Me either," concurred Rafe.

"I should say not," Shindle declared loudly.

"I'll tell you," said Tip O'Gorman, beaming impartially upon the assemblage. "Take Skinny Shindle. He——"

"Aw right, take me!" burst out the gentleman in question. "What about me! What——"

"Easy, easy," cautioned Tip O'Gorman, his smile a trifle fixed. "I ain't deaf in either ear, and besides ain't we all li'l friends together?"

"But you said——" Skinny tried again.

"I ain't said it yet," interrupted Tip, "but I'm going to—gimme a chance. It won't hurt. It's only the truth. Take Skinny and look at him. He buys scrip at three times the discount anybody else does, and there was a lot of talk about that beef contract the agent gave him."

"What of it? Folks don't have to bring scrip to me if they don't wanna, and suppose there was chatter about the contract. It's the government's funeral."

"It came near being the agent's," slipped in Sam Larder, with a reminiscent grin. "Some of them feather dusters like to chased him off the reservation when they saw the kind of cattle he gave 'em. I saw 'em. They were thinner than Skinny. No exaggeration. Absolutely."

"Well, that's all right, too," said Skinny. "A feller's got to make money somehow. Who ever heard of giving a Injun the best of it? Not in Crocker County, anyway."

"That's all right again, too," declared Tip. "But that last deal with the agent was a li'l too raw. Taking that with your prices for scrip, Skinny, has made a heap of talk. You ain't a popular idol, Skinny, not by any means."

"Damn my popularity!" snarled the excellent Skinny. "I wanna be sheriff."

"Like the baby wants the soap," said Tip. "Well, you'll never be happy then, because you'll never get it."

"Lookit here, Tip——"

"You lookit here, Skinny," swiftly interjected Rafe Tuckleton. "Is this campaign your own private affair, or is it the party's?"

"The party's, I guess," Skinny reluctantly admitted. "But I want my share of it."

"You can have your share without being sheriff," Rafe told him. "You'll be taken care of, don't fret. This here's a case of united we stand, divided we tumble. Suppose any li'l thing upsets our plans, and our ticket don't go through? What then? What happens? For one thing you won't get the contract for furnishing the lumber for the new jail and town hall that's gonna be built next year. And for another, that land deal you and I put through last month will be investigated. How'd we like that, huh?"

"Rafe's right," said Tom Driver. "This is no time for taking any chances. It ain't a presidential year, and you can gamble there ain't gonna be a thing to take folks' eyes off the county politics. We've all gotta give up something for the sake of the party."

"I don't notice you givin' up anything," snapped the disgruntled Skinny. "I seem to be the only one that loses."

"And Jack Murray," supplemented Rafe Tuckleton. "Hell's bells, Skinny, why didn't you say something sooner? To-night's the first I ever heard you even wanted an office. That's why I told Jack he could have it. He's a good man, but if I'd known——"

"What difference does that make?" interrupted Skinny, bitterly. "You couldn't give me the nomination anyway."

"You could have had another office—say county clerk."

"Wouldn't take it on a bet—not enough opportunity. Aw hell, it's a dead horse! Let it go, Rafe. Tip, you've had a lot to say about me, now let's hear what you got against Jack Murray."

"Yep," said Rafe Tuckleton, "let's have it. I'll have to give Jack some reason for going back on him, and I don't see exactly——" He did not complete the sentence.

"Speaking personal," observed Tip, again on the broad grin, "I ain't got a thing against Jack. Him and me get along fine. But when Jack was first deputy two years ago he managed to kill four men one time and another."

"That was in the line of duty," said Rafe. "They all resisted arrest."

Tip O'Gorman nodded. "I ain't denying it. And we've got Jack's word for it besides; but the four men all had friends, and when, as you know, each and every one of 'em turned out to be more or less innocent, why the friends got to talking round and saying Jack was too previous. Ain't you heard anything a-tall?"

"I've heard it said he was a leetle quicker than he maybe needed to be," conceded Rafe. "But folks always talk more or less about a killing. It didn't strike me there was enough in it to actually keep Jack from being elected."

"There is. They're only talking now, but nominate Jack and they'll begin to yell."

"You must have been mighty busy these last few weeks, Tip," sneered Skinny.

"I have," declared Tip. "Seems like I've talked with every voter in the county. I've gone over the whole field with a finetooth comb, and I tell you, gents, the bone for our dog is Bill Wingo. Most everybody likes Bill. He's a damsight more popular than the opposition candidate. Bill will get a lot of the other feller's votes, but if we put up anybody else the other feller will get a lot of ours—and so will the rest of his ticket."

Tip O'Gorman sat back in his chair and eyed his friends. It was obvious that the friends were of two minds. Rafe Tuckleton, his fingers drumming on the table, stared soberly at the floor.

"Are you sure, Tip," inquired Larder suddenly, "that Bill Wingo is the breed of horse that will always drink when you lead him to water?"

Tip O'Gorman nodded his guarantee of Mr. Wingo's pliability of character. "Bill is too easy-going and good-natured to do anything else."

"I'd always had an idea he was a good deal of a man," said Sam Larder.

"Oh, he'll stand the acid," Tip said. "He'll go after anybody he thinks he oughta go after; but if we can't manage to give him the right kind of thoughts we're no good."

"You needn't start losing flesh, Sam," slipped in Tom Driver. "Bill would never go back on his friends. H's just a big overgrown kid, that's all."

Rafe Tuckleton leaned back in his chair and stared dubiously at Tip O'Gorman. "All right for Bill, but how about Tom Walton?"

"I'll bite," Tip averred blandly. "How about him?"

"Nothing, oh, nothing a-tall. Only Tom Walton has been one too many round here for a long time."

"He does talk too much," admitted Tom Driver, his bright little eyes, like those of an alert bird, fixed on Rafe Tuckleton.

"He's a very suspicious man," said the latter. "He like to broke Simon Reelfoot's neck last week over a horse of his he said Simon rustled."

"Serve Simon right," said Tip promptly. "Simon's a polecat. Always was. Felt like breaking his neck more than once myself. Good for Walton."

"But Simon's one of our crowd," Rafe reminded him, "and he's been mighty useful. We gotta consider his feelings."

"Oh, damn his feelings. The old screw ain't got any right to feelings."

"Yes, but there wasn't any real actual proof about the horse—only some tracks in Simon's corral that Walton thought he recognized."

Tip quirked a quizzical mouth. "Between us, Rafe, what did Simon do with the horse?"

"Sold him to a prospector who was leaving the country. So it couldn't be traced."

"Good horse was it?"

"It was that chestnut young Hazel rides."

"Hazel's own pony? Lord! Man alive, Simon is worse'n a polecat. He's a whole family of them. Why couldn't he have rustled some other horse?"

"I ain't Simon, so I can't tell you," said Rafe dryly. "But if you don't want anything done on Simon's account, how about this: yesterday one of my boys was shot at while he happened to be doing a li'l business on the Walton range."

"What did your boy happen to be doing?" smiled Tip.

Rafe attempted to excuse himself and his cowboy. "It was a long-ear."

"Branding it on the Walton range?"

"Yes."

"With its mammy?"

"Yes."

"Serve the boy right." Tip gave judgment. "You and your outfit are getting too reckless for any use, Rafe. The territory is not a Sunday-school. You can't pick a man's pocket openly any more. It isn't safe. And you know it isn't safe. Who was the boy and what time of day was it?"

"Ben Shanklin; and it was round noon."

"Worse and more of it. My Gawd, Rafe, you gimme a pain!"

Sam Larder shook a fat-cheeked head. "Dangerous, Rafe; dangerous. You've got to consider a man's feelings now more than you used to. Haven't you told your man to always work round sunrise and sunset, and never to shoot a calf's mammy on her owner's territory?"

"Others do, and get away with it. Besides, he didn't shoot the cow."

"He might as well have shot her," declared Tom Driver. "He got caught, didn't he?"

"Ben didn't get caught. He made the riffle all right with two holes in his saddle-horn and one in his cantle that tore his pants."

"What range? Did he say?"

"About fourteen hundred."

"Fourteen hundred, huh? Then he couldn't have been recognized."

"Luckily not."

"Luck is the word—for you—for us."

"Wonder who did the shooting?"

"I don't know. Ben dug out one of the bullets from his horn. It was fifty caliber—a Sharps."

"That was Tom Walton himself," declared Tom Driver. "He's the only one in his outfit owning a Sharps, and he won't let any one else shoot it. 'Twas Tom Walton. And don't be so positive Ben wasn't recognized, Rafe. I hear Walton carries field glasses now."

"He is getting suspicious," smiled Tip O'Gorman.

The smile stung the amiable Rafe. "He's gotta be stopped."

"How?" Thus Tip.

"There are ways," snarled Rafe.

"Of course, but it doesn't pay to be too rough. Tom has a great many friends. We can't afford to stir up a whole kettleful of discontent. A little care, Rafe, is all that's necessary. I think I'd impress my men, if I were you, with the absolute necessity of being careful."

"I did tell 'em," said Rafe sullenly.

"Your telling seems to have left them cold. At least it left Ben Shanklin. Damn his soul! I almost wish Tom Walton had got him, the coyote! He deserves to be got, gorming up our plans thisaway."

"Well, everything turned out all right," Felix Craft tucked in hastily. "So why worry? I'm sure Rafe's men will be more careful after this."

"I wish I was sure," grunted Tip O'Gorman. "They're a wild bunch, every last one of 'em. I believe they just try to stir up trouble. They're eternally getting drunk and shooting up saloons and other places of business. People don't like it."

"Oh, boys will be boys," deprecated Rafe.

"Your boys will be dead boys if they don't watch out. Anyway, you put the hobbles on that Ben boy, Rafe. We can't afford to have him spoil things."

"How about having him spoil Walton?"

"And antagonize all of Walton's friends, huh? Bright, oh, very!"

"If the feller who spoiled Walton was a stranger, it would be all right. You couldn't connect an absolute stranger with us, could you?"

"Let's hear your li'l plan," said Tip O'Gorman.

Every man of them listened intently to the Tuckletonian plan.

As plans go it was a good plan. Procuring an assassin to do the dirty work is always a good plan. Rafe knew a gunman, named Slike, in a neighboring territory. For two hundred and fifty dollars, according to Rafe, Dan Slike would murder almost any one. For five hundred it was any one, without the almost.

"Can he do it?" doubted Tom Driver.

"We all know how slow Tom Walton is on the draw," sneered Rafe. "Which he's slower than Sam Prescott. If Slike don't plug Walton three times before he can draw, I'll eat my shirt."

"That sounds well," said Tip O'Gorman, eyeing Rafe with frank disgust. "But, somehow, I don't like the idea of having Walton killed."

"Whatsa matter with you?" demanded the originator of the idea. "Losing your nerve?"

Tip O'Gorman's expression did not alter in the slightest. He gazed upon his questioner as if the latter were a new and interesting specimen of insect life.

"No," he said, "I don't think I'm losing my nerve. Do you think I'm losing my nerve, Rafe?"

Rafe looked upon Tip. Tip looked upon Rafe. The others held their respective breaths. In the room was dead silence.

"Do you, Rafe?" persisted Tip, his voice velvety smooth.

Rafe found his tongue. "No, I don't," he declared frankly. "But, I don't see why you don't like my scheme."

"Don't you? I'll explain. Tom Walton's niece, Hazel, is the drawback. Rubbin' out Tom would most likely put a crimp in her, sort of. She lost her ma and pa only five years ago."

"Aw, the devil!" exclaimed Rafe Tuckleton. "We can't stop to think of all those li'l things. We're here to make money, no matter how. Good Gawd, Tip! We ain't——"

"Good Gawd, Rafe!" interrupted Tip. "We ain't hiring any gunman to wipe out Tom Walton. I'm no he-angel—none of us are, I guess; but I've known Hazel since she was a li'l squaller, and I won't sit still and see her hurt. And that goes!"

Tip nodded with finality at Rafe Tuckleton. Rafe sat back on the middle of his spine and gnawed his lower lip. His eyes were sulky.

"I don't want to see Hazel hurt either," said Skinny Shindle with an indescribable leer, "but when it comes to a question of li'l Hazel or us, I'm for us every time."

"You look here, Skinny," said Tip O'Gorman in a low dispassionate voice, "what I said to Rafe, I say to you: Hands off Tom Walton."

"Oh, all right," said Skinny Shindle, "but if anything happens out of this, don't say I didn't tell you."

"I won't say so, Skinny," Tip said good-naturedly. "I won't say a word."

"Gentlemen," Felix Craft put in hurriedly, "let's go slow about now. No use saying anything hasty, not a bit of use. Tip's right. None of us want to hurt Hazel, and——"

"And we want to be damn sure we don't want to hurt Hazel," interrupted Tip O'Gorman, his eyes fixed on Rafe Tuckleton's sullen face.

"'T'sall right, 't'sall right," said Rafe, forcing a smile. "Have it your own way, Tip. Tom Walton's safe for all of me."

"Good enough," Tip said heartily, shooting at Rafe a glance that was not completely trustful.

Entered then Jack Murray, wearing a set smile across his scratched face. He nodded to the assemblage, sat down jauntily on the edge of the table and brought out the makings.

"Well!" he said, his eyes on Rafe Tuckleton, rolling the while a meticulous cigarette. "Well, I suppose you've got the ticket all made up."

"Just about," nodded Rafe.

"What prize did I draw?"

"A large, round goose-egg," Skinny Shindle answered for Rafe with malice.

"Huh!" Thus Mr. Murray, the hand he had reached upward to his hatband coming down without the match. "You serious, Skinny?"

"I wish I thought I wasn't," was the reply.

Jack Murray turned a slow head back toward Rafe Tuckleton. "You told me the sheriff's job was mine," he said bluntly.

"I thought it was," admitted Rafe, looking straight into his eyes. "But we've heard some bad news, unexpected news. It seems you ain't as popular with our citizens as you might be. We understand that you're so little liked you wouldn't be elected in a million years."

"Who told you that?" Jack's tone was sharp.

"I did." Thus Tip O'Gorman in a tone no less sharp. "And I know what I'm talking about, you can gamble on that."

"Tip's had his ear to the ground pretty steady," said Rafe Tuckleton. "He knows what's on every voter's mind, and if we nominate you for sheriff it means the defeat of the party. Listen, and I'll explain the whole thing."

Jack Murray listened in silence. When Rafe said his last word, Jack Murray laid his unlighted cigarette across the end of his left index finger and teetered it slowly.

"Who you figurin' on running in my place," he drawled, his dark gaze on the cigarette.

"Bill Wingo."

The teetering stopped. The cigarette slipped into the fork of two fingers. The man slid to his feet.

"Bill Wingo," he repeated. "Bill Wingo, huh? Well, this is a surprise."

Without another word he left the room, closing the door behind him very gently.

When he had gone Tip O'Gorman threw a whimsical glance at Rafe Tuckleton.

"I'd feel better if he'd slammed that door," said Tip O'Gorman.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT SALLY JANE THOUGHT

"Careless child," observed Bill Wingo, coming up on the porch where Sally Jane lay in the hammock. "You dropped your hat in the draw. I found it this morning. Here it is. Don't move, sweet one. Of course, if you asked me to sit down or didn't ask me I would, and if you felt like rustling some coffee and cake, or lemonade and doughnuts, or even just a piece of pie with a bite of cheese on the side—just a bite, not over half a pound, I don't like cheese much—I wouldn't stop you."

"Stop calling me 'sweet one,'" Miss Prescott said crossly. "I'm not your sweet one, or anybody else's sweet one, and I'll get you something to fill your fat stomach, you lazy loafer, when I get good and ready. Not before."

"Well, all right," he murmured resignedly, settling down on the stout pine rail of the porch and fanning himself with his hat. "But I love you just the same. What's that? Did I hear you curse or something?"

"Something. I only said damn because you make me sick. Love, love, love, morning, noon and night! Don't men ever think of anything else?"

"Not when you're around," he told her.

"Oh, it's the very devil," admitted Sally Jane, rubbing her red mouth with a reflective forefinger. "Am I so alluring?"

"Who has been kissing you now?" he asked idly and wondered why her face should flame at the word. Wondered—because everybody knew Sally Jane.

On her part she wondered if he had seen what had passed in the draw the day before, then decided instantly that he had not, else his manner toward her would have been decidedly different.

"You haven't answered my question?" he persisted, still idly.

"Does it need one?"

"Well, no, not yet, anyway. When you're engaged to me, I'll know who's kissing you."

"Don't be disgusting."

"No disgusting about it. I'll probably hug you, too."

"What dismal beasts men are," she said, with a mock shiver, having regained control of her jumpy nerves. "I suppose you'd enjoy having me sit on your knee."

"I would indeed," he told her warmly. "I think that chair there would hold the two of us if we sat quiet—fairly quiet."

It was at this juncture that her father, Sam Prescott, came out on the porch.

"Howdy, young Bill," said Sam. He invariably prefixed the adjective to Bill's name. Why, no one knew. It was doubtful if he knew himself.

"'Lo, Sam," said young Bill.

"Sam," said Sally Jane from the hammock, "s'pose now a man tried to hug you, and kiss you and make you sit on his knee, what would you do?"

"If I was you, you mean?" inquired Sam judicially. Middle-aged though he was, he never ceased to experience a pleasurable thrill when his daughter called him "Sam." It reminded him so much of her mother. "If I was you," he went on, without waiting for an answer, "and the feller which tried to make me do all those things was young Bill here, I'd do 'em. I really believe he likes you, Sally Jane."

"You think so, do you?" sighed Sally Jane, smoothing her frock down over her ankles. "You too, Samuel? What chance has a poor girl got—without a club?"

"I told her if she married me," spoke up Bill, "she could have jam on Sundays and butter the rest of the week."

"There, you see, Sally Jane!" said Sam Prescott. "He'll be good and generous. And if you asked him for a new dress now and then, or a pair of shoes, I'll bet he wouldn't say no."

Sally Jane stubbornly shook her copper-colored head of hair. "Samuel," said she, "you're the only man I ever loved. Bill's all right in his futile, thumb-handed way, but he's not my Sam. Now don't forget that one drink is enough for a plumpish man with a beautiful daughter, and that I want you to bring back a dozen cans of baking-powder, a dozen bars of May Rose soap, three dozen boxes of matches, four sacks of flour, sack of salt, sixty pounds of sugar, two papers of pins, four spools of number forty cotton and a pail of chocolate creams. Be sure and take the cover off and see it's a full pail, and if Nate tries to palm off any stale stuff or hard candy on you, why just throw it in his face and tell him I'll come in and complain in person my next trip."

"My Lord, Sally Jane," Sam exclaimed helplessly, "I can't remember all that!"

"I know you can't," said Sally Jane calmly. "I've merely been impressing it on you that there's a lot of errands for you to do. You'll find a carefully written list of everything I want stuck in the coil of the tie-rope under the seat of the buck-board. You can't miss it when you go to tie the team."

"And Sam," she added, raising her voice to a shout, for her father had already departed corralward, "be back by seven. I'm gonna make a lemon pie."

Her father waved a comprehending hand and disappeared behind the blacksmith shop.

"You see," said Billy Wingo, with a smirk of self-satisfaction, "the male parent approves. The last obstacle is removed. Be a sport. Take a chance. You might go farther and fare worse."

"I doubt it, William. Not that you aren't a nice boy and all that sort of thing. However, tell sister why you seek her company this morning?"

"Oh, yes, of course, sister not being a good excuse for coming, I did another reason. I have a fresh bale of news for her li'l pink ear. Last night I was approached—" He paused dramatically.

"How much did he try to borrow?" Sally Jane inquired indifferently.

"Nothing like that, sweet one. The political steersmen of our fair county rode out to my place last night and——"

"What did the old thief want?" Sally Jane brutally wished to know.

"Steersmen, beloved. There were two of him, and you do both old gentlemen an injustice. They——"

"So Tip came with Rafe, did he? And you mean to tell me you didn't even miss your watch after they'd gone? You didn't? They must be sick, the pair of them. What did they do?"

"Offered me the nomination for sheriff!"

Sally Jane sat up abruptly, stuck her finger in her mouth, then held it up to catch the vagrant breeze.

"The wind's still in the west," she said, making her eyes round as saucers. "And you are still sitting there as large as life, and I'm here alive and in my right mind!" Here she pinched her forearm. "That hurt," she added. "I really am not dreaming. They want you for sheriff, huh?"

"Don't 'huh' at me, Sally Jane. It ain't being done by the best people no more. And they want me for sheriff, really."

"I wonder just how much of that really is real?"

He wrinkled his forehead at her. "Sometimes, Sally Jane, you talk most awful puzzling."

"Those two old rascals!" she cried.

"Don't you think their intentions are honorable?"

Sally Jane's laughter was sardonic.

"Are they trying to fool me, or what?" he persisted.

"I don't know whether they're trying to fool you or not," was the reply, "but they're trying to fool somebody, that's a cinch."

"Do you know now, Sally Jane, I was thinking something like that myself."

She looked at him with a gleam of respect in her eyes. "I wonder if you really have a brain after all, William. Occasionally you give out a spark that leads one to believe that there may be a trace of reasoning power underneath your waving hair. What makes you think they have an ulterior motive?"

"Humanly speaking, I dunno why; but I do."

"Instinct is the white woman's burden, boy. You'd better leave it alone. But it doesn't take any instinct to tell me that there's a man and brother hiding in the cord-wood. To find the dark-hued gentleman—that is the question."

"Why take the trouble?"

"Why? Listen to the man! Why? So you'll know what you're up against, that's why."

"But I'm not up against anything," he objected mildly. "I told 'em I didn't want the job."

"What?"

He rubbed an outraged ear. "No need to deafen me," said he.

"Deafen you?" she cried. "I could take a club to you, you fat-head! The opportunity of a lifetime and you turn it down! Oh! I could shriek my head off with rage! I never was so hopping in my life! The first time an honest man is offered a political job in this county, for the honest man to turn up his nose, is——" Words failed her. She almost choked.

"So-o, so-o," he soothed. "Don't get so excited. Remember we are young but once, and every outburst brings us nearer the grave. I hadn't reached the end of my tale when you blew up and hit the ceiling. Lemme finish, that's a good child. I told 'em I didn't want the job, but they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. They said for me to think it over, and they'd be back in a couple of days and take it up with me again."

"Bill," said Sally Jane, leaning forward, her violet eyes shining, "I'm serious."

"I'll try to believe it," he said, regarding her with admiration. "But just this minute you look like the most unserious thing I ever saw—and the most beautiful. Listen, Sally Jane, I wish you'd do as I ask you. Close your eyes and plunge right in. We'd be as happy as two pups in a basket. Sign on the dotted line and leave the rest to me."

Which nonsense she quite properly disregarded utterly. "Bill, I want you to take that nomination."

"But why, Sally Jane? I don't wanna be sheriff."

"Suppose I want you to?"

"But why should you want me to?"

"Isn't it enough that I ask it?"

"You flirt! You're utterly shameless! You know you can twist me all round your li'l pink finger like a piece of string. You know I'm fool enough to do anything you ask, and——"

"Well then, good fool," she smiled her interruption, "it's all settled. You accept the nomination, and if you don't make things hum after you're elected, you're not the man I take you for."

Bill slipped right off the porch rail and sat down limply on the floor. His eye-balls rolled up. His hand fluttered over his heart. He breathed with difficulty. "At last," he muttered. "Accepted! The shock will be the death of me! Water! Water! With a little whisky stirred in. Just a little. Not more than four or five fingers, or perhaps six. No sugar."

He got to his feet slowly and reseated himself on the rail. "You won't go back on your word, Sally Jane," he told her soberly.

"I can do lots of things you never heard of," said she. "But making two meanings grow where only one grew before is not one of them."

"Joking aside," he said, "will you marry me if I take this sheriff job?"

"Joking aside," said she, "would you want me for a reason like that?"

"Well, no," he admitted frankly. "I'd want you to love me a lot."

"I'd make a pretty worthless wife otherwise. Honestly, Bill, I like you a great deal, but there's something lacking. And when there's something lacking, there's nothing to be done. Love is the greatest thing in the world, Bill. It's what makes life worth living. And you mustn't cheat it. If you do, you might better never have been born."

He nodded. Try as he might, he was unable to feel very badly. He decided to give it up as a hopeless job.

"I see," he said gravely. "Sometimes, Sally Jane, I get an idea that maybe you and me won't marry each other, after all. But no matter what happens, I'll always be a brother to you. You can count on me."

He arose and made her a flourishing bow.

"That," said Sally Jane, with her bright smile, "takes a load off my heart. As a sister, I know I'd fill every requirement. Be a good brother now, and do as I ask. Be a sheriff."

"All right," said Billy Wingo. "I will."

CHAPTER FOUR

HAZEL WALTON

"Now there," said Riley Tyler, staring at the driver of a buckboard who was tying her team in front of the Rocky Mountain store, "now there is a girl that is pretty as a li'l red wagon, new-painted."

Billy Wingo, unmoved, continued to whittle the end of the packing case he was sharing with Tyler. He did not even look at the girl, and she was a very handsome girl.

"Yeah," said Billy Wingo.

"Not that I cotton to a female girl as a usual thing," resumed Riley, "ever since a experience I had when young. I'll tell you about it some time; maybe I better now."

"No, not now," Billy made haste to say; for he had heard the story of every single one of Tyler's love affairs at least a dozen times. "Le's talk about somethin' pleasant. Try the weather."

"You know, just for that," trundled on Riley Tyler, "we'll go on talking about young Hazel Walton over there. Pity she's gone in the store. You've never taken a good look at her, have you?"

"Nor I don't want to," denied Billy with what seemed to Riley an unnecessary heat.

"Why not? Do your eyes good. Tell you, Bill, she's got the best-looking black hair y'ever saw."

"I saw her once or twice with her uncle," Billy admitted desperately. "She's all you say she is and more too. Anything to please the children. Don't you ever stop talkin', Riley?"

"Not when I got somethin' like Hazel to talk about," declared the relentless Riley, warming to his subject. "Y'oughta notice her eyes once, Bill. Tell you, you never saw eyes till you see hers. They're eyes, they are! Big and black and soft and eyewinkers long as a pony's. Fact. And she ain't lost a tooth. She's still got the whole thirty-four. You take my word for it, Bill, she's a whole lot different from other folks."

"She's two teeth different anyway. Most generally all other folks can crowd in their mouth are thirty-two."

"What's a tooth more or less between friends?" said the unabashed Riley. "She's got a whole mouthful, and when she smiles she shows 'em all."

"That's great," yawned Billy, closing his pocket-knife with a click. "You forgot to say whether she's a good cook or not."

"She's a number one cook," Riley told him seriously. "Her coffee is coffee, lemme tell you, and she don't fry a steak to boot-leather neither. Not her. No. She broils it, she does. Y'oughta taste her mashed potatoes. No lumps in 'em or grit or nothin', only the mealy old potato; and butter beets! My Gawd!"

"Mixes 'em up with the potato, huh?"

"Of course not, you jack—separate. And canned peas—separate. Actually she cooks those peas so they're tender as fresh ones; tenderer, by gummy! Makes her own butter, too, in a churn."

"Well, well, in a churn. I never knew they made butter thataway."

"Shut up, Bill. You ain't got any soul. I stop at Walton's for a meal every chance I get. Y'oughta see her cookin' a meal, Bill. She rolls her sleeves up and she's got dimples in her elbows. She's a picture, and you can stick a pin in that."

"Why don't you marry the girl?"

"I've asked her," was the reply made without rancor. "She said, 'No thanks.'"

"That's one thing in her favor."

"Yeah, I think—Hey! what you tryin' to do, insult me?"

"Insult you, you tarrapin? You wouldn't know it if I did."

"If I wasn't so comfortable, I'd show you something," declared Riley Tyler, sliding farther down on the small of his long back. "But the heat has saved your life, William. Yeah, otherwise you'd be a corpse all bluggy in the middle of Main Street. I'm a wild wolf when I'm riled, you can gamble— Yonder she comes. She didn't stay long."

Billy dug the Tyler shortribs with a hard elbow. "Where's your manners? Go over and untie the lady's team."

"Too far. She'd have 'em untied by the time I got there. Besides, I'm too comfortable. Another thing, I'd have to get up. No, no, I'll stay here."

Hazel Walton stepped into the buckboard, kicked the brake-lever and swung her team like a workman. The tall near mule laid back his long ears and planted both hind feet on the dashboard. Smack! Smack! went the whip. The mule tucked his tail, shook his mean head and tried to jump through his collar. The brake-lever shot forward under the shove of the girl's straightened right leg. The sensible off mule threw his head to the left to ease the hard drag on his mouth as the girl swayed back on the near rein. The near mule, hearing the slither of the locked wheels behind him, and with his windpipe bent like a bow and his chin forced back to his chest, decided that fighting would avail him nothing and quieted at once.

"Regular driver, that girl," Billy said approvingly. "It ain't every woman can drive a pair of those big freight mules. I never knew she was like that."

"Lots of things you dunno," Riley hastened to say. "You didn't even know she was pretty."

Billy hopped across the sidewalk and ran out into the middle of Main Street. The mules, hard held, slid to a halt. Billy scooped up the package that had fallen from behind the seat and hurried up to the buckboard.

"Your tarp's slipped a little, ma'am," said he, stowing away the package without raising his eyes to Miss Walton, who was leaning over the back of the seat. "I'll tie it fast."

Not till the tarpaulin was fastened to his complete satisfaction did he look up. Then he realized that Riley Tyler had not told half the truth about Hazel Walton's eyes. True, they were big and black and soft, but they were deep too, deep as cool rock pools, and they looked at you steadily with a straight look that somehow made you wish that you had been a better boy.

Queer that he hadn't noticed this attribute before. But at none of the two or three times he had passed the girl on Golden Bar's Main Street had she impressed him in the least. He could not have described her to save his life. Perhaps it was because he had not looked into her eyes before to-day. But he wasted no time thinking about that. He kept right on looking into her eyes.

"You don't come in town very often," was his sufficiently inane observation.

"Not very often," said she, and smiled.

Yes, there were the teeth. And weren't they white! He didn't know when he had seen such white teeth. And her mouth had a dimple near one corner. Now the dimple was gone. He wished it would appear once more.

"Do it again," he found himself saying like a fool.

She wrinkled her pretty forehead at him. "What?"

"Smile," he said, with a boldness that surprised himself.

It surprised Hazel Walton, surprised her so that she jerked around to the front, "kissed" to the mules and drove away without a word.

Billy stood quite still in the middle of Main Street, with his hat off, and looked after her a moment. Then he pulled on the hat with a jerk and returned to his packing case.

"What did she say to you?" Riley wanted to know.

"None of your business," was the ungracious reply.

"She left you sort of sudden," persisted Riley. "And why did you stand still in the middle of the street and look after her so forlorn and long?"

"I wasn't lookin' more than ten seconds," denied Billy, jarred off his balance for once in his life.

"Shucks, I had time to roll a cigarette, and smoke it to the butt while you stood there nailed to the earth. Yeah. Tell you, Bill, you don't wanna let your feelings give you away so much. Bad business that is. Somebody's bound to pick your pocket forty ways. Y'oughta play poker more. That would teach you self-control."

"Bluh," grunted Billy. "Think you're smart, don't you?"

"I know I am," returned Riley, crossing one knee over the other and diddling his foot up and down to the thin accompaniment of a tinkling spur-rowel. "I got eyes, I have. I can see through a piece of glass most generally. Oh, mush and milk, love's young dream, and when shall we meet again."

"Aw, hell, shut up!" urged Billy, and shoved his friend off the packing case and went elsewhere hastily.

Riley first swore, then laughed and reseated himself on the case. Jack Murray, passing by, stopped and sneered openly. It was obvious that Jack was in liquor.

"He don't care how much he picks on you, does he?" observed Jack.

Riley Tyler did not move hand or foot. But a subtle change took place. Iron turning into steel undergoes such a metamorphosis. The sixth sense of an observing old gentleman across the street and directly in line with Jack Murray informed its owner of the sudden chill in the air. The observing old gentleman, whose name was Wildcat Simms, oozed backward through a doorway into the Old Hickory saloon.

"Why are you walking like a crab, Wildcat?" queried his friend the bartender.

"Because Jack Murray is talking to Riley Tyler."

The bartender, wise in his generation, was well able to fill in the rest for himself. He joined the old gentleman behind a window at one side of the line of fire.

Riley Tyler, meanwhile, was fixedly regarding Jack Murray.

"Meaning?" said Riley Tyler.

Jack Murray came right out into the open. "Ain't you able to stand up for yourself no more?"

There it was—the deliberate insult. Followed the movement so swift no eye could follow. But Riley's gun caught. Jack Murray's didn't. When the smoke began to wreathe upward in the windless air, Jack Murray was calmly walking away up in the street and Riley Tyler was hunched across the packing case. Blood was running down the boards of the packing case and seeping through the cracks in the sidewalk.

Billy Wingo was the fourth man to reach Riley. The boy, for he was not yet twenty-one, had been turned over on his back on the sidewalk. He was unconscious. Samson, the Green-Front Store owner, was bandaging a wound in Riley's neck.

"Lucky," observed Samson, "just missed the jugular."

"Where else is he shot?" queried Billy, his eyes on the blood-soaked front of Riley's shirt.

"Right shoulder," Samson informed him.

"I heard three shots," said Billy. "Two was close together but the last one was maybe ten seconds later."

"I only found the two holes," declared Samson.

But when Billy and another man picked up Riley to carry him to the hotel, Billy found where the third shot had gone. It had penetrated Riley's back on the left side, bored between two ribs, missed the wall of the stomach by a hair and made its exit an inch above the waistband of the trousers.

The marshal, who had seen the crowd going into the hotel, arrived as Billy and Samson were making Riley as comfortable as possible on a cot in one of the hotel rooms.

The marshal, whose surname being Herring was commonly called "Red," thrust out a lower lip as he surveyed the man on the bed.

"Even break, I hear," said the marshal.

Billy set him right at once. "You heard wrong, Red. Riley's gun caught. I found where the sight had slipped through a crack in the leather. Besides, Riley was plugged in the back after he was down. Do you call that an even break?"

"Well, no," admitted Red Herring, who was inclined to be just, if being just did not interfere with his line of duty. "Anybody see it besides you?"

"I didn't see it a-tall. I didn't have to. I heard the shots—two close together and one a good ten seconds later. Oh, Riley was plugged after he was down and out, all right enough. Besides, Riley was lying across his gun hand when he was picked up, Samson says."

"That's right," nodded Samson.

"Jack was a little previous, sort of," frowned the marshal.

"You think so," said Billy sarcastically. "Maybe you're right."

"Well, I can't do a thing," said the marshal. "I didn't see it. And these fraycases will happen sometimes."

"Nobody's asking you to do anything," said Billy. "I'm looking after this."

"Now don't you go pickin' a fight with anybody," urged the marshal, instantly perceiving his line of duty. "Judge Driver is dead against these promiscuous shootings."

"Judge Driver can go to hell," Billy said with heat. "What's this here but a promiscuous shooting, I'd like to know? And I don't see you arrestin' anybody for it. You said you couldn't."

"I didn't see this one, and besides Riley ain't been killed, and no complaint has been made," defended the marshal, who was no logician. "But where a feller says he's gonna attend to somebody, that shows premeditation and malice aforethought, which both of 'em is against the statute as made and provided in such cases."

"How you do run on," commented Billy.

But the Red Herring lacked a sense of humor. Heavy of soul, he frowned heavily at Billy.

"You go slow," was his fishy advice.

"Be careful and otherwise refrain from violence," observed Billy, whose English became better as his temper grew worse. "I grasp your point of view," he added gravely. "But I don't like it. Not for a minute I don't. I'll do as I think best. I'd rather, really."

"Don't you go startin' nothin' you can't finish," said the marshal, lost in a maze of words. "I don't want to have to arrest you."

"I don't want you to have to either," Billy averred warmly. "Arrestin' me would surely interfere with my plans. Yeah."

"A sheriff-elect had oughta set a good example," argued the marshal.

Riley Tyler rolled his head from side to side. He muttered incoherently. The men about the cot turned to look down at him. Then he said, speaking distinctly:

"He shot me after I was down."

Billy Wingo raised his eyes and stared at the marshal.

"How's that, umpire?" said Billy.

"He's raving," snapped the marshal.

"A man speaks the truth when he's thataway," rebuked Billy. "I'm going to see about this."

But the marshal blocked his way. "I told you——" he began.

"Get out of my way!" directed Billy, his gray eyes ablaze.

The marshal got. After all, he had no specific orders to prevent a meeting between Jack Murray and Billy Wingo. Let Jack look out for himself. No doubt Rafe and sundry other of his friends would be annoyed, but it couldn't be helped. The marshal betook himself hurriedly to the back room of the Freedom Saloon.

Billy, coldly purposeful, made a round of the saloons first. In none of them did he find his man or news of him. Finally, from the stage company's hostler tending a cripple outside the company corral, he learned that Jack had left town.

"Which he went surging off down the Hillsville trail," said the hostler, "like he hadn't a minute to lose. He told me he was going to Hillsville."

"Told you?" Surprisedly.

"Yes, told me, sure. 'If the marshal wants me,' says he, as he loped past, 'tell him I've gone to Hillsville.'"

Here was an odd thing. Jack Murray knew where he stood with the powers that were and consequently knew that the marshal would not want him for the shooting. Yet here was Jack Murray not only leaving town hastily, as though he feared capture, but taking pains to leave word where he was going. The two facts did not fit. True, a gentleman seeking to mislead possible pursuers might lie as to where he was going. In which case such a gentleman would not take a trail like the Hillsville trail—a trail visible from Golden Bar for almost five miles in both directions. But if a person wished to be pursued——

"I think I can see his dust still," said the hostler helpfully, pointing toward the spot where the Hillsville trail entered a grove of pines five miles out.

"I think I see it too," declared Billy grimly, and went hurriedly to the hotel for his rifle and saddle.

Hazel Walton, jogging along the homeward way, was overtaken by a horseman. He nodded and called, "'Lo," as he galloped by. She returned his greeting with careful courtesy. But she scowled and made a little face after his retreating back. She did not like Jack Murray. She never had. The man had repelled her from the moment she first set eyes on him.

It is human nature for one to take an interest in the movement of a person one dislikes. Hazel wondered where Jack Murray was riding so fast. For it was a hot day. Her wonder grew when, twenty minutes after he had passed from sight, she perceived by the hoofmarks that he had left the trail and turned into a dry wash. She knew that the wash led nowhere, that it was a blind alley, a cul-de-sac ending in a rock-strewn, unclimbable slope that was the base of Block Mountain. This wash was a good two miles beyond where the trail entered the grove of pines five miles out of Golden Bar.

Beyond the wash the trail wound up the side of a hill. At the crest of the hill the off mule picked up a stone. Hazel set the brake, tied the reins to the felley of a wheel and jumped to the ground. The stone was in a near fore, and jammed tight. After ten minutes hard hammering and levering with her jackknife she had the stone out.

As she released the foot from between her knees and straightened her back, her gaze swept along the back trail. She saw only sections of trail till it passed beyond the grove of pines five miles out of town. The grove was now three miles behind her. The wash into which Jack Murray had ridden was distant not half a mile. The land on either side of the wash had once been burnt over and had grown up in brush and scraggly jack pine.

Of the pines and spruce that had once covered the ground surrounding the wash, but one tall gray stub remained. The eye of the beholder was naturally drawn to this salient characteristic of the landscape, She saw more than the stub. She saw Jack Murray's horse tied to its bole. There was something queer about the horse's head. Whereas Jack Murray's horse when it passed her on the trail had been a sorrel of a solid color, the head was now whitey-gray.

Hazel was not of an abnormally inquisitive nature, but that a horse's head should change color within the space of half an hour was enough to make any one ask questions. Ever since she and her uncle had come to realize that some one was rustling their cattle, neither of them ever left home without field glasses. Hazel pulled her pair from beneath the seat cushion and focused them on the odd-looking horse.

"Why, it's a flour sack over the horse's head!" she exclaimed. "They say a horse won't whinny if you cover his head. I wonder why Jack doesn't want him to whinny. And where is Jack?"

Two minutes later she found Jack. He was lying on his stomach in the brush behind an outcrop. The outcrop overlooked the trail. Jack's rifle was poked out in front of him. It was only too obvious that Jack was also overlooking the trail. Why?

A few minutes later that question was answered by the sudden appearance of a rider at a bend of the trail a mile back. Jack Murray must have glimpsed the rider at the same time, for Hazel saw him snuggle down like a hare in its form, and alter slightly the position of his rifle, although the rider was not yet within accurate shooting range. With a gasp she recognized the rider on the trail by his high-crowned white hat: only one man in Golden Bar wore such a hat and that man was Billy Wingo. Instantly she recalled what folks were saying of Jack Murray since it had become positively known that the party nomination for sheriff had gone to Billy Wingo, that Jack Murray "had it in" for Billy, that he had made threats more or less vague, and that he had taken to brooding over his fancied wrongs. She realized that the threats had crystallized into action, and that this was an ambush.

She knew that Billy would be masked by a certain belt of trees before he traveled another thirty yards, not to emerge into view again till he topped a rise of ground about a thousand yards from the base of the hill on which she stood. It was a certainty that Jack would not risk a shot till his enemy had crossed the rise of ground. If Hazel could only reach the top of the rise first—

Hazel popped up into the seat of the buckboard as Billy reached the belt of trees. It has been shown that Hazel Walton was a good driver, and she needed every atom of her skill to turn the buckboard in the narrow trail without smashing a wheel against the rocks that some apparently malign agency had seen fit to strew about at that particular spot. The near mule, devil that he was, when he found that he was no longer headed for home, stuck out his lower lip and front legs and balked.

This was unwise of the near mule. He should have chosen a more opportune moment. Hazel had no time to reason with him. She set her teeth, slacked the reins, opened her jack-knife and jabbed an inch and a half of the longer blade into the mule's swelling hip.

It is doubtful whether the recalcitrant mule ever moved faster in his life. The forward spring he gave as the steel perforated his thick hide almost snapped the doubletree. Hazel, her toes hooked under the iron foot-rail, poured the leather into the off mule.

She made no attempt to guide her galloping team. She did not need to. She barely felt their mouths, but ever she kept her whip going, and the mules laid their bellies to the ground and flew down that hill like frightened jack rabbits. And like a rubber ball the buckboard bounced behind them.

Hazel knew that Jack Murray behind his outcrop must hear the thunder of the racing hoofs, the rattle of the swooping buckboard. Half-way down the hill she lost her hat. Promptly every hairpin she possessed lost its grip and her hair came down. In a dark and rippling cloud it streamed behind her.

"Keep your feet, mules!" she gritted through her locked teeth. "Keep your feet, for God's sake!"

And they kept their footing among the rolling stones, or rather a merciful Providence kept it for them. For that hill was commonly a hill to be negotiated with careful regard to every bump and hollow. Hazel's life was in jeopardy every split second, but so was another life, and it was of this other life she was thinking. Reach that white-hatted rider she must before he came within thousand-yard range of the man behind the outcrop.

Within thousand-yard range, yes. Jack Murray's reputation with the long arm was of territorial proportions. He had made in practice, hunting and open competition almost unbelievable scores. Given anything like a fair shot, and it would be hard if he could not hit an object the size of Billy Wingo. All this Hazel Walton knew, and her heart stood still at the thought. But she was of the breed that fights to the last breath and a gasp beyond.

She breathed a little prayer, dropped her right hand on the reins ahead of her left and turned the team around the curve at the foot of the hill as neatly as any stage-driver could have done it. That they swung round on a single wheel did not matter in the least. Beyond the curve one of the front wheels struck a rock that lifted Hazel a foot in the air and shot every single package and the tarpaulin out of the buckboard.

And now the road passed the wash and ran straight for more than half a mile till it disappeared over the rise of ground. Throughout the whole distance it was under the sharpshooting rifle of the man behind the outcrop.

As she clung to the pitching buckboard and plied the whip, she speculated on the probability of Jack Murray firing on her. He must realize her purpose. He had been called many things, but fool was not one of them. He might even shoot her. She recalled dim stories of Jack Murray's ruthlessness and grim singleness of purpose.

"Bound to get what he wants, no matter how," men had said of him.

Four hundred yards from the curve where the buckboard had so nearly upset, a Winchester cracked in the rear. The near mule staggered, tried to turn a somersault, and collapsed in a heap of sprawling legs and outthrust neck. The off mule fell on top of his mate, and Hazel catapulted over the dashboard and landed head first on top of the off mule.

The off mule regained his feet with a snort and a lurch, in the process throwing Hazel into a squaw bush. Dizzy and more than a little shaken, that young woman scrambled back into the trail and feverishly set about unhitching the mule.

She heard a yell from the direction of the outcrop above the wash. Fingers busy with the breast-strap snap, she looked back to see a man hurdle the outcrop and plunge toward her through the brush.

"Wait!" he bawled. "Wait!"

Her reply to this command was to spring to the tail of the mule and shout to him to back. He backed. She twitched both trace cockeyes out of the singletree hooks (she was using the wagon harness that day) tossed the traces over the mule's back and ran round in front to unbuckle the dead mule's reins.

"Halt or I shoot!"

She giggled hysterically. How could she halt when she had not yet started? She freed the second billet, tore the reins through the terrets, and bunched the reins anyhow in her left hand. He was a tall mule, but she swarmed up his shoulder by means of collar and hames, threw herself across his withers and besought him at the top of her lungs to "Go! Go! Go!"

He went. He went as the saying is, like a bat out of hades. Hazel slipped tailward from the withers, settled herself with knees clinging high, and whanged him over the rump with the ends of the reins. He hardly needed any encouragement. Her initial cry had been more than enough.

The man in the brush stopped. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, looked through the sights at the galloping mule, then lowered the firearm and uttered a heartfelt oath. It had at last been borne in upon his darkened soul that he possibly had made a mistake. Instead of shooting the mule, in the first place, he might better have relinquished his plan of ambush and gone his way in peace. There were other places than Golden Bar, plenty of them, where an enterprising young man could get along and bide his time to square accounts with his enemy.

But the killing of the mule had fairly pushed the bridge over. It was, not to put a nice face on it, an attack on a woman. He might just as well have shot Hazel—better, in fact. She had undoubtedly recognized him. Those Waltons both carried field glasses, he had heard.

"I'll get the mule anyhow," he muttered. "That'll put a crimp in her."

He dropped on one knee between two bushes, took a quick sight at the mule's barrel six inches behind the girl's leg and pulled trigger. Over and over rolled the mule, and over and over a short foot in advance of his kicking hoofs rolled Hazel. Luckily she was not stunned and she rolled clear. She scrambled to her feet and set off up the trail as fast as her shaking legs would carry her.

"Damn her!" cursed Jack Murray, notching up his back sight. "I'd oughta drop her! She's askin' for it, the hussy!"

His itching finger trembled on the trigger, but he did not pull. Reluctantly, slowly, he lowered the Winchester and set the hammer on safety. The drink was dying out in him. Against his will he rendered the girl the tribute of unwilling admiration. "Whatsa use? She's got too much nerve; but maybe I can get him still."

On her part the girl pelted on up the rise, stumbled at the top and came down heavily, tearing her dress, bruising her knees and thoroughly scratching the palms of her hands. But she scrambled to her feet and went on at a hobbling run, for she saw below her, rising the grade at a sharp trot, the rider of the white hat.

Now she was waving her arms and trying to shout a warning, though her voice stuck in her throat and she was unable to utter more than a low croak.

Billy Wingo pulled up at sight of the wild apparition that was Hazel Walton. But the check was momentary. He clapped home the spurs and hustled his horse into a gallop. He and Hazel came together literally, forty yards below the crest. The girl seized his stirrup to save herself from falling and burst into hysterical tears.

"Lordy, it's the girl that dropped the package!" exclaimed Billy, dismounting in haste.

He had his arm round her waist in time to prevent her falling to the ground. She hung limply against him, and gasped and choked and sobbed away her varied emotions.

"There, there," he said soothingly, patting her back and, it must be said, marveling at the length and thickness and softness and shininess of her midnight hair. "It's all right. You're all right. You're all right. Nothing to worry about—not a-tall. You're safe. Don't cry. Tell me what's bothering you?"

And after a time, when she could speak coherently, she told him.

It was a disconnected narrative and spotty with gasps and gurgles, but Billy made no difficulty of comprehending her meaning. They who can construct history from hoofmarks in the dust do not require a clear explanation.

When he had heard enough for a working diagram he plumped her down behind a fortuitous stone and adjured her to lie there without moving, which order was superfluous. She did not want to get up again—ever.

Billy stepped to his horse, dragged the Winchester from the scabbard under the near fender and trotted to the top of the rise. Arrived at the crest, he dropped his hat and went forward crouchingly, his rifle at trail. Sheltering his long body behind bushes he dodged zigzaggingly across the top of the ridge to an advantageous position behind a wild currant bush growing beside a jagged boulder.

He lay down behind the wild currant bush and surveyed the landscape immediately in front of him. At first he saw nothing—then two hundred yards away on his right front a sumac suddenly developed an amazingly thick shadow. He automatically drew a fine sight on that sumac.

The shadow of the sumac became thin. A dark objected flitted from it to another bush. The dark object was a man's head. It was hatless. Billy smiled and decided to wait. He understood that he was dealing with a man who could shoot the buttons off his shirt, but on the other hand, Billy did not think meanly of himself as a still hunter. He lay motionless behind the currant bush and watched Jack Murray's advance.

Billy smiled pityingly. It was obvious to him that Jack Murray had never been on a man hunt before. If he had he would have been more careful.

"Good Gawd," Billy said to himself, "it's like taking candy from a child."

It was destined to be even more like taking candy from a child.

Four times before the bold Jack reached the crest of the hill he offered Billy a target he couldn't miss. And each time the latter refrained from shooting. Somehow he was finding it difficult to shoot an unconscious mark. If Jack had been shooting at him or had even been aware of his presence, it would have been different. But to shoot him now was too much like cold-blooded murder. There was nothing of the bushwhacker in the Wingo make-up.

Suddenly at the top of the rise, Jack Murray ducked completely out of sight.

"Must have seen the horse," thought Billy, and looked over his shoulder. No, it was not the horse. Billy was on higher ground than was Jack and he could not see even the tips of his mount's ears.

"It can't be my hat he sees," Billy told himself.

Evidently it was the hat, for while Billy's eyes were on the hat, a rifle cracked where Jack Murray lay hidden and the hat jumped and settled.

"Good thing my head ain't inside," said the wholly delighted Billy, his eyes riveted on the smoke shredding away above the bushes on the right front. "I wonder if he thinks he got me."

It was evident that Jack Murray was wondering too. For the crown of a hat appeared with Jack-in-the-box unexpectedness at the right side of the bush below the smoke. Experience told Billy that a stick was within the crown of the hat which moved so temptingly to and fro.

Three or four minutes later, Jack Murray's hat disappeared and the rifle again spoke.

"Another hole in my hat," Billy muttered resignedly and cuddled his rifle stock against his cheek. "He'll wave his hat again, and then he'll be about ready to go see if the deer is venison."

Even as he foretold, the hat appeared and was moved to and fro, and raised and lowered, in order to draw fire. Then, peace continuing to brood over the countryside, the hat was crammed on the owner's head and the owner, on hands and knees, headed through the brush toward Billy's hat.

Billy was of the opinion that Jack Murray's course would bring him within ten feet. He was right. Jack Murray passed so close that Billy could have reached forth his rifle and touched him with the muzzle. Instead he waited till Jack's back was fairly toward him before he said, "Hands up!"

Jack Murray possessed all the wisdom of his kind. He dropped his rifle and tossed up his hands.

"Stand up. No need to turn around," resumed Billy, Riley Tyler's six-shooter trained on the small of Jack's back. "Lower your left hand slowly and work your belt down. You wear it loose. It'll drop easy. And while you're doing it, if you feel like gamblin' with me, remember that this is Riley's gun and I ain't used to it, and I might have to shoot you three or four times instead of only once, y' understand."

Obviously Jack Murray understood. He lowered his left hand and worked his gun-belt loose and down over his hip bone with exemplary slowness. The shock of his capture had evaporated the last effects of the liquor. He was cold sober and beginning to perceive the supreme folly he had committed in shooting a woman's mount from under her.

"One step ahead," directed Billy when the gun-belt was on the ground. "And up with that left hand."

Jack Murray, thumbs locked together over his head, stepped out of the gun-belt. Billy went to him, rammed the six-shooter muzzle against his spine and patted him from top to toe in search of possible hide-outs. He found none except a pocket knife which did not cause him apprehension.

"Le's take up the thread of our discourse," said Billy, "farther down the hill. Walk along, cowboy, walk along."

With Billy carrying both rifles and Jack's discarded gun-belt, they walked along downhill to where Billy's pony stood in a three-cornered doze. It was then that Jack Murray caught sight of Hazel Walton lying on her back behind a stone, her arms over her face. She looked extremely limp and lifeless.

"I didn't shoot her!" cried the startled Jack.

"I know you didn't," said Billy. "The lady's restin', that's all. We'll wait till she feels like moving."

Hazel Walton uncovered her face. There was a large and purpling lump in the middle of her forehead, the skin of her pretty nose was scratched, a bruise defaced one cheek bone, and one eye was slightly black.

"Your work, you polecat," Billy declared succinctly. "You'll be lynched for mauling her like that."

But Hazel Walton was just. She sat up, supporting herself by an arm, and dispelled Billy's false impression. "He never touched me—and he could have shot me if he'd wanted to."

"So kind of him not to," said Billy with sarcasm. "Who is responsible for hurting you? Your face is bruises all over."

"Is it?" she said, with an indifference born of great weariness. "I suppose it must be. I remember I struck on my face when he shot the mule I was riding. He—he shot both mules."

"He'll be lynched for that, then," Billy said decisively.

"Who'll pay for the mules?" Hazel wished to know. "We needed those mules," she added.

Billy nodded. "That's so. If he's lynched for this attack on you—your mules—same thing if you know what I mean—you lose out on the mules. Maybe we can fix it up."

"Sure we can," Jack Murray spoke up briskly.

"I'm not talkin' to you," pointed out Billy. "Whatever fixing up there is to do, I'll do it. You have done about all the fixing you're gonna do for one while. Yeah. I came out after you, Jack, to make you a better boy, but now that we got you where you'll stand without hitching, I can't do it. I ain't got the heart. Of course, if you were to jump at me or something, or make a dive for your gun I'm holding, I don't say but I'd change my mind in a hurry. I kind of wish you had seen me back there a-lying under my currant bush. Then we'd have had it out by this time, and I'd be going back to town for a shovel."

"Don't you be too sure of that," snarled Jack Murray. "Just you gimme my gun back, and I'll show you something."

"I'll bet you would," acquiesced Billy, "but I'm keeping your guns, both of 'em. I'd feel too lonesome without 'em."

"Can't you do nothing but flap your jaw?" demanded Jack in a huff. "I'd just as soon be downed outright as talked to death."

"But you haven't any choice in the deal," Billy told him in mild surprise. "Not a choice. You shut up. I'll figure out what to do with you. Y'understand, Jack, I've got to be fair to Miss Walton too. If you're lynched she won't get paid for her team, and I can't have her losin' a fine team of mules thisaway and not have a dime to show for it. That would never do. Never. Lessee now. You got any money, Jack?"

"A little."

"How much?"

"Maybe ten or twelve dollars."

"Maybe you've got more. You know you never were good at figures. Lemme look."

He looked. From one of Jack Murray's hip pockets he withdrew a plump leather poke that gave forth a jingling sound. A search of the inner pocket of the vest produced a thin roll of greenbacks. But the bills were all of large denominations.

"There," said Billy, "I knew you'd made a mistake in addition, Jack. You count what's here, Miss Walton."

He tossed the greenbacks and the heavy poke into the lap of the girl who was now sitting up cross-legged, her back against the rock.

"Sixteen hundred and twelve dollars and sixty-five cents," announced Hazel a few minutes later.

"How much did your mules cost?" queried Billy.

"Five hundred and a quarter the team," was the prompt reply.

"Call it six hundred," said Billy briskly. "It's only right for you to take something at an auction thisaway. Strip off six hundred dollars worth of greenbacks and put them in your pocket."

"Oh, I wouldn't feel right about taking more than the regular price," demurred Hazel.

"No reason why you shouldn't. No reason a-tall. Jack's only paying you for the damage he did. He's glad to pay. Ain't you, Jack?"

"I suppose so," grunted Jack.

"There, you see. Your uncle would want you to. I know he would. In fact, he'd be a heap put out if you didn't. Those bumps of your's now. What do you say to one hundred wheels a bump? You got three bumps and a scratched nose. Which last counts as a bump. In round numbers that makes four hundred dollars. One thousand dollars to you, Miss Walton."

"Here!" cried the outraged Jack Murray. "You're robbin' me! You're takin' every nickel I got!"

"No, I ain't," denied Billy, "and don't go and get excited and put those hands down. Don't you, now. About that money—the worst is yet to come. Young Riley Tyler not being here to assess his own damages, I'll assess 'em for him. You put three holes in Riley. Call it two hundred dollars a hole. That makes six hundred dollars. Just put that six hundred in a separate pile for Riley, Miss Walton."

"I don't mind the man paying for the mules," said Miss Walton firmly, "but I can't take any money for my scratch or two."

Billy looked at her, decided she meant it and said:

"All right, put that four hundred with Riley's six. Riley won't mind."

"But I do!" shouted Jack Murray, his arms quivering with rage. "You can't rob me thisaway. By Gawd——"

"Now, now," Billy cut in sharply, "no swearing. You forget Miss Walton. You're right about the money, though. I can't rob you. Miss Walton, dump all that money back in the poke and hand it to him. He wants to go back to Golden Bar and be lynched."

"I got friends in Golden Bar," blustered the prisoner.

"None of 'em will be your friends after I tell 'em what you did to Miss Walton, Jack. There's a prejudice in this country against hurting a woman. Folks don't like it. Aw right, get a-going, feller. No, the other way—toward Golden Bar."

A hearty groan wrenched itself from the depths of Murray's being. "Uncle! Uncle!" he cried angrily. "Have it your own way. I don't want to go to the Bar. Take all my money and be done with it."

"I wouldn't think of such a thing," declared Billy, "though it wouldn't be any more than right if I did. You're getting off too easy. You'll live to be hung yet, I'm afraid, but I can't just see my way to downing you now and here. No, you divide the money again, Miss Walton. Six hundred for you, a thousand for Riley and twelve dollars and sixty-five cents tobacco money for this gentleman.— Don't bother reaching for the money, Jack. I'll put it in your pocket. There you are. Now, Miss Walton, if you'll wait here while I get this citizen started— You've got a horse somewhere, I expect, Jack. Lead the way."

"Oh, sure I saw him off all right. I don't guess he'll be back for a while—not if he has brains. You know, I owe you a lot, Miss Walton. You did the bravest thing I ever knew a man or woman to do. You gambled your life to save mine. You might have been killed, you know it? And after me getting fresh there in the street, I dunno what to say, I don't."

He knew that he was talking too much. But in the reaction that had set in he was so embarrassed that it hurt.

"Yeah!" he gabbled on, red to the ears, "you certainly are a wonder. I—uh—I guess we better be getting back to town. You feel able to ride now? My horse is gentle. Besides, I'll lead him."

It was then that reaction set in for Hazel Walton. As the strain on her nerves eased off, everything went black before her eyes and she keeled over sidewise in a dead faint.

CHAPTER FIVE

JACK MURRAY OBJECTS

"You hadn't oughta shot the girl's mules," said fat Sam Larder, shaking a reproving head at disconsolate Jack Murray.

The latter endeavored to defend himself. "I was drunk."

"That's no excuse," averred Felix Craft. "You had no business picking a fight with young Riley in the first place. He's a popular lad, that one, and you ain't."

"He made me mad, setting there in the sun joking with that damn Bill Wingo who's gonna be sheriff in my place. Besides, I was drunk."

"I saw the whole affair," said Sam Larder. "Bill pushed Riley off the cracker box and you had to slur Riley about it. Fool caper."

"I never did like Riley," grumbled Jack Murray. "He's a friend of Bill Wingo's and that's enough. I figured by downin' Riley and skippin' out and lettin' that stage hostler know where I was going, Bill Wingo would come pelting after and gimme a chance to settle with him all salubrious and private on the trail somewheres."

Sam Larder bluntly called the spade by its correct name. "Bushwhack him, you mean."

"Well, if I did, it's none of your business," snapped Jack Murray with an evil glance.

"Then why make it our business by coming here bellyaching to me and Craft?" Sam Larder wished to know.

"I came to you because I want my money—sixteen hundred dollars that bandit Bill Wingo stole off me."

"He didn't say anything about any sixteen hundred," said Felix Craft, his eyes beginning to gleam. "Tell us about it."

"Yeah," urged Sam. "Give it a name."

Jack proceeded to give it a name—several names and all profane. When he was calmer he gave a fairly truthful account of the financial transaction between Hazel Walton, Bill Wingo and himself.

"And I'm telling you here and now," he said in conclusion, "that six hundred dollars is too much for that broken-down team of jacks. And a thousand dollars for putting a few holes in Riley Tyler is plumb ridiculous. My Gawd, he'll be out of bed in a month. Wha' t'ell you laughin' at?"