The Rangeland Avenger | Page 8

recognizing in Riley Sinclair a man of his own caliber.
"You're from yonder?"
"Across the mountains."
"You travel light."
His eyes were running over Riley's meager equipment. Sinclair had
been known to strike across the desert loaded with nothing more than a
rifle, ammunition, and water. Other things were nonessentials to him,
and it was hardly likely that he would put much extra weight on a horse.
The only concession to animal comfort, in fact, was the slicker rolled
snugly behind the saddle. He was one of those rare Westerners to
whom coffee on the trail is not the staff of life. As long as he had a gun
he could get meat, and as long as he could get meat, he cared little
about other niceties of diet. On a long trip his "extras" were usually

confined to a couple of bags of strength-giving grain for his horse.
"Maybe you'd know the gent I'm down here looking for?" asked Riley.
"Happen to know Ollie Quade--Oliver Quade?"
"Sort of know him, yep."
Riley went on explaining blandly "You see, I'm carrying him a sort of a
death message."
"H'm," said the big man, and he watched Riley, his eyes grown
suddenly alert, his glance shifting from hand to face with catlike
uncertainty.
"Yep," resumed Sinclair in a rambling vein. "I come from a gent that
used to be a pal of his. Name is Sam Lowrie."
"Sam Lowrie!" exclaimed the other. "You a friend of Sam's?"
"I was the only gent with him when he died," said Sinclair simply.
"Dead!" said the other heavily. "Sam dead!"
"You must of been pretty thick with him," declared Riley.
"Man, I'm Quade. Lowrie was my bunkie!"
He came close to Sinclair, raising an eager face. "How'd Lowrie go
out?"
"Pretty peaceful--boots off--everything comfortable."
"He give you a message for me?"
"Yep, about a gent called Sinclair--Hal Sinclair, I think it was."
Immediately he turned his eyes away, as if he were striving to recollect
accurately. Covertly he sent a side glance at Quade and found him
scowling suspiciously. When he turned his head again, his eye was as
clear as the eye of a child. "Yep," he said, "that was the name--Hal
Sinclair."
"What about Hal Sinclair?" asked Quade gruffly.
"Seems like Sinclair was on Lowrie's conscience," said Riley in the
same unperturbed voice.
"You don't say so!"
"I'll tell you what he told me. Maybe he was just raving, for he had a
sort of fever before he went out. He said that you and him and Hal
Sinclair and Bill Sandersen all went out prospecting. You got stuck
clean out in the desert, Lowrie said, and you hit for water. Then
Sinclair's hoss busted his leg in a hole. The fall smashed up Sinclair's
foot. The four of you went on, Sinclair riding one hoss, and the rest of
you taking turns with the third one. Without water the hosses got weak,

and you gents got pretty badly scared, Lowrie said. Finally you and
Sandersen figured that Sinclair had got to get off, but Sinclair couldn't
walk. So the three of you made up your minds to leave him and make a
dash for water. You got to water, all right, and in three hours you went
back for Sinclair. But he'd given up hope and shot himself, sooner'n die
of thirst, Lowrie said."
The horrible story came slowly from the lips of Riley Sinclair. There
was not the slightest emotion in his face until Quade rubbed his
knuckles across his wet forehead. Then there was the faintest jutting
out of Riley's jaw.
"Lowrie was sure raving," said Quade.
Sinclair looked carelessly down at the gray face of Quade. "I guess
maybe he was, but what he asked me to say was: 'Hell is sure coming to
what you boys done.'"
"He thought about that might late," replied Quade. "Waited till he could
shift the blame on me and Sandersen, eh? To hell with Lowrie!"
"Maybe he's there, all right," said Sinclair, shrugging. "But I've got rid
of the yarn, anyway."
"Are you going to spread that story around in Sour Creek?" asked
Quade softly.
"Me? Why, that story was told me confidential by a gent that was about
to go out!"
Riley's frank manner disarmed Quade in a measure.
"Kind of queer, me running on to you like this, ain't it?" he went on.
"Well, you're fixed up sort of comfortable up here. Nice little shack,
partner. And I suppose you got a wife and kids and everything? Pretty
lucky, I'd call you!"
Quade was glad of an opportunity to change the subject. "No wife yet!"
he said.
"Living up here all alone?"
"Sure! Why?"
"Nothing! Thought maybe you'd find it sort of lonesome."
Back to the dismissed subject Quade returned, with