Part 31 (1/2)

Already he saw himself in it, his name surrounded with a glamour of pathetic romance, as the sad widower with a mystery darkening his past and future. It was an agreeable gloom into which he fell. Self-pity warmed him and loosened his fierceness. He sighed with regret for his own misfortunes.

In this frame of mind he reached Sour Creek and its hotel. While he wrote his name in the yellowed register he over-heard loud conversation in the farther end of the room. Two men had been outlawed that day--John Gaspar, the schoolteacher who killed Quade, and Riley Sinclair, a stranger from the North.

Paying no further attention to the talk, he pa.s.sed on into the general merchandise store which filled most of the lower story of the hotel.

There he found the hardware department, and prominent among the hardware were the gun racks. He went over the Colts and with an expert hand took up the guns, while the gray-headed storekeeper advanced an eulogium upon each weapon. His attention was distracted by the entrance of a tall, painfully thin man who seemed in great haste.

”What's all this about Cold Feet, Whitey?” he asked. ”Cold Feet and Sinclair?”

”I dunno, Sandersen, except that word come in from Woodville that Sinclair stuck up the sheriff on his way in with Jig, and Sinclair got clean away. What could have been in his head to grab Jig?”

”I dunno,” said Sandersen, apparently much perturbed. ”They outlawed 'em both, Whitey?”

There was an eagerness in this question so poorly concealed that Cartwright jerked up his head and regarded Sandersen with interest.

”Both,” replied Whitey. ”You seem sort of pleased, Sandersen?”

”I knowed that Sinclair would come to a bad end,” said Sandersen more soberly.

”Why, I thought they said you cottoned to him when the boys was figuring he might have had something to do with Quade?”

”Me? Well, yes, for a minute. But out at the necktie party, Whitey, I kept watching him. Thinks a lot more'n he says, and gents like that is always dangerous.”

”Always,” replied Whitey.

”But it's the last time Sinclair'll show his face in Sour Creek--alive,” said Sandersen.

”If he does show his face alive, it'll be a dead face p.r.o.nto. You can lay to that.”

Sandersen seemed to turn this fact over and over in his mind, with immense satisfaction.

”And yet,” pursued the storekeeper, ”think of a full-grown man breaking the law to save such a skinny little shrimp of a gent as Jig? Eh? More like a pretty girl than a boy, Jig is.”

Cartwright exclaimed, and both of the others turned toward him.

”Here's the gun for me,” he said huskily, ”and that gun belt--filled--and this holster. They'll all do.”

”And a handy outfit,” said Whitey. ”That gun'll be a friend in need!”

”What makes you think they'll be a need?” asked Cartwright, with such unnecessary violence that the others both stared. He went on more smoothly: ”What was you saying about a girl-faced gent?”

”The schoolteacher--he plugged a feller named Quade. Sinclair got him clean away from Sheriff Kern.”

”And what sort of a looking gent is Sinclair? Long, brown, and pretty husky-looking, with a mean eye?”

”You've named him! Where'd you meet up with him?”

”Over in the hills yonder, just where the north trail comes over the rise. They was sitting down under a tree resting their hosses when I come along. I got into an argument with this Sinclair--Long Riley, he called himself.”

”Riley's his first name.”