The Rangeland Avenger | Page 9

didn't wait. He shot himself."
"You seem to know a pile," said Quade thoughtfully.
"Well, you see, I'm Riley Sinclair." Still he smiled, but Quade was as one who had seen a ghost.
"I had to make sure that you was alone. I had to make sure that you was guilty. And you are, Quade. Don't do that!"
The hand of Quade slipped around the butt of his gun and clung there.
"You ain't fit for a gun fight right now," went on Riley Sinclair slowly. "You're all shaking, Quade, and you couldn't hit the side of the mountain, let alone me. Wait a minute. Take your time. Get all settled down and wait till your hand stops shaking."
Quade moistened his white lips and waited.
"You give Hal plenty of time," resumed Riley Sinclair. "Since Lowrie told me that yarn I been wondering how Hal felt when you and the other two left him alone. You know, a gent can do some pretty stiff thinking before he makes up his mind to blow his head off."
His tone was quite conversational.
"Queer thing how I come to blunder into all this information, partner. I come into a room where Lowrie was. The minute he heard my name he figured I was after him on account of Hal. Up he comes with his gun like a flash. Afterward he told me all about it, and I give him a pretty fine funeral. I'll do the same by you, Quade. How you feeling now?"
"Curse you!" exclaimed Quade.
"Maybe I'm cursed, right enough, but, Quade, I'd let 'em burn me, inch by inch in a fire, before I'd quit a partner, a bunkie in the desert! You hear? It's a queer thing that a gent could have much pleasure out of plugging another gent full of lead. I've had that pleasure once; and I'm going to have it again. I'm going to kill you, Quade, but I wish there was a slower way! Pull your gun!"
That last came out with a snap, and the revolver of Quade flicked out of its holster with a convulsive jerk of the big man's wrist. Yet the spit of fire came from Riley Sinclair's weapon, slipping smoothly into his hand. Quade did not fall. He stood with a bewildered expression, as a man trying to remember something hidden far in the past; and Sinclair fingered the butt of his gun lightly and waited. It was rather a crumbling than a fall. The big body literally slumped down into a heap.
Sinclair reached down without dismounting and pulled the body over on its back.
"Because," he explained to what had been a strong man the moment before, "when the devil comes to you, I want the old boy to see your face, Quade! Git on, old boss!"
As he rode down the trail toward Sour Creek he carefully and deftly cleaned his revolver and reloaded the empty chamber.

4
Perhaps, in the final analysis, Riley Sinclair would not be condemned for the death of Lowrie or the killing of Quade, but for singing on the trail to Sour Creek. And sing he did, his voice ringing from hill to hill, and the echoes barking back to him, now and again.
He was not silent until he came to Sour Creek. At the head of the long, winding, single street he drew the mustang to a tired walk. It was a very peaceful moment in the little town Yonder a dog barked and a coyote howled a thin answer far away, but, aside from these, all other sounds were the happy noises of families at the end of a day. From every house they floated out to him, the clamor of children, the deep laughter of a man, the loud rattle of pans in the kitchen.
"This ain't so bad," Riley Sinclair said aloud and roused the mustang cruelly to a gallop, the hoofs of his mount splashing through inches of pungent dust.
The heaviness of the gallop told him that his horse was plainly spent and would not be capable of a long run before the morning. Riley Sinclair accepted the inevitable with a sigh. All his strong instincts cried out to find Sandersen and, having found him, to shoot him and flee. Yet he had a sense of fatality connected with Sandersen. Lowrie's own conscience had betrayed him, and his craven fear had been his executioner. Quade had been shot in a fair fight with not a soul near by. But, at the third time, Sinclair felt reasonably sure that his luck would fail him. The third time the world would be very apt to brand him with murder.
It was a bad affair, and he wanted to get it done. This stay in Sour Creek was entirely against his will. Accordingly he put the mustang in the stable behind the hotel, looked to his