ear. The cattle had been driven off the Lazy K and Brewster's spread in one sweep. Bovetas was dead. Taggart was dead. Brewster was wounded. Rifenbark had recognized the Rawhide crowd.
While the streets filled with talking, excited men, Finn Mahone rolled off the bed in the back of Ma Boyle's and pulled on his boots. There were voices in the hall and a sudden pounding on his door. Springing to his feet, gun in hand, he opened it wide. Lettie Mason was standing there.
'Finn!' she cried. 'Come quickly! I've just found Otis and he's badly wounded. He's been lying out in the brush where he was left for dead. He wants to see you.'
On the way to her place, Lettie told him the news. Finn's mind leaped over the gaps and saw the situation just as it was. Dowd had stayed at Brewster's with the dying man, so he would be there alone. A dangerous position if the rustlers came back. Finn was prepared to find Texas and explain himself. If his plan worked ... At the thought of riding beside his old comrade again, his heart gave a leap.
Garfield Otis, his face gray and ghastly with the proximity of death, was fully conscious when they came in. A messenger from Lettie had caught Finerty as he was leaving town. Logan had not been with him, for Pierce had no intention of returning to Brewster's. If Finerty was killed, it would be one more out of the way.
'Don't talk long,' Finerty warned, 'but it will do him good to get it off his chest, whatever it is!'
Otis put out a hand to stop Finerty from leaving, and then he whispered hoarsely, 'Logan shot me ... he's hand in glove with Sonntag. I've seen him talking with him, more than once. One time I was drunk an' seen ... Logan kill a ... man. He's ... he's ... buried on the hill back of the livery stable. It's Sam ... Hendry!'
'Hendry?' Finerty grabbed Finn's arm. 'Logan must have bought the ranch from Hendry, then stole his money back. We figured Sam went off and blew it in, but he never got away! What do you know about that?'
'Old man Hendry was killed by a drygulcher Lettie suggested. 'Probably it was Mex Roberts, so maybe we can guess who hired him?'
'Looks like Logan, all right,' Mahone admitted. 'I think I'll have a talk with him.'
'Finn,' Lettie interrupted, 'there's something else I'd better tell you. Pierce Logan came from New Orleans. I recognized him and I've heard him talk about it. He used another name then, Cashman ... I don't remember the first name.'
Mahone turned square around. 'When did Logan first come into this country? About six months or so before I did?'
'Maybe a little less,' Finerty said. He looked from Let-tie to Finn. 'You know something?'
Finn Mahone ignored the question, his heart racing. Pierce Logan was in town, but what was suddenly more imperative was seeing Texas Dowd. After all these years Finn found himself choosing friendship over vengeance. Now, more than ever, he had to see Dowd. The past could wait!
'Let's go, Doc!' he said. 'I'm riding with you. Lettie, you said Nick had come back into town? Tell him to keep an eye on Pierce Logan. Not to get into any fight, just keep watch. I'm coming back for him!'
He saddled the black, grabbed up the gelding, and . they headed out.
When they had come most of the way, Finn turned to Finerty. 'Doc, I don't like the look of that glow in the sky! You come along as fast as you can.'
The black stretched his legs. Finn, crouching forward,'' kept his attention focused tightly on riding, one hand on the reins, the other gripping the gelding's lead rope as lightly as he dared. He didn't want to lose the horse, especially now, but if it mis stepped he would have to let go before he was jerked from the saddle. Finn's eyes were riveted on the glow against the night sky. If they had fired that old pole barn, Dowd would be finished.
After the horses had covered a couple of miles, he slowed them for a breather, and then let them out again.
Now he could see the fire, and it was partly the glow from the burned house, and partly the flames from a huge haystack nearby, fired by the rustlers to give them a better shooting light.
Mahone slowed to a canter, and then to a walk. He unlimbered his rifle and moved closer, and when he did, he could see what the outlaws were about.
They had a hayrack piled high with hay, and they were shoving it toward the embattled defender of the barn, obviously planning to set it afire once it was against the pole side of the crude structure. Whether the barn burned or not and it would anyone inside would be baked by the awful heat.
Finn watched one of the dark figures moving, and then he lifted his rifle, took careful aim, and fired!
The man screamed and fell over on the ground, and the rustlers, shocked by the sudden attack, broke and ran for cover. Finn got in another shot as they ran, and saw a man stumble. Dowd must be alive, for a rifle barked from the barn as the attackers fled.
Riding swiftly, Mahone rounded the ranch yard, keeping out of the glow of the fire, and then emptied his Winchester into the grove of trees where the outlaws had gone. Swiftly, and still moving, he reloaded his rifle and checked his six-guns.
Yet even as he moved in for another attack, he heard the gallop of fast-moving horses, and saw the dark band of rustlers sweep off across country. They had abandoned the field for the moment, and were probably headed for an attack upon the Lazy K. Finn rode close, then swung to the ground.
'Tex!' he yelled. 'I want to talk, Tex! Peace talk!' Dowd's voice rang loud over the fire lit yard. 'I've nothing to say to you, Mahone!'
'Tex, you're a damned, bullheaded fool!' Finn roared back at him. 'You got what you thought was evidence and jumped to conclusions. I wasn't anywhere near the plantation when it happened!'
Silence held for several minutes, and then Dowd yelled back. 'Is Finerty comin'? Brewster's in a bad way!'
'Be here in a minute. I'm coming in, Tex! You hold your fire!'
Leaving the stallion standing ground-hitched, Finn walked out into the firelight. With quick, resolute steps he crossed the hard-packed earth toward the barn. Dowd, hatless, his face grimy, was waiting for him.
'The man who killed Honey is in Laird,' Finn said, halting, 'and I've got some proof.'
Dowd's face did not change. Suspicion was still hard in every line of it. 'Who?' he demanded.
'Pierce Logan.'
'Logan?' Dowd took a step nearer. 'What do you mean, Finn? How could that be?'
'I trailed him, Tex. I got home before you did, and I, found her. She was still alive then, and she grabbed me. That's how she got that button. She gave me the name of the man, for he had come by the place before. When the riots started and the country was full of fighting and burning, he came back. He went crazy ... Well, h trailed him. I lost him, finally, in Rico.
'Now I hear Pierce Logan hit Rico and killed a man there about that time, and then came on over here. Lettie Mason can tell you that he's from New Orleans and the name he was using back then.'
'You said Honey knew his name what was it?'
'Cashman remember? He was a renegade southerner who tied up with the carpetbaggers and some of the tough crowd around New Orleans. He lived on the Vickers place a few miles west of you for a while.'
Texas Dowd stared at Finn, his bitterness ebbing. This was the one man he had loved like a brother. 'How do I know you're not lyin'?'
Finn whistled between pinched fingers. Fury trotted up into the firelight, the steel-dust gelding following. Dowd looked from the horses to Mahone, eyes narrowing.
'What's this?'
'Look closely. That's Vickers's gelding. You chased me quite a ways did I take two horses?'
'No.'
'The only time I ever saw Cashman, it was off across a field, and he'd borrowed that horse to go into town. When he fled, he stole it from Vickers. He left the horse in Santa Fe. I bought him a couple of months later.' Finn examined Dowd. 'I figured that someday I might get the chance to show him to you.'
'I never seen Cashman. Heard of him, though.'
'I'm told he's a bad man with a gun, Dowd.'
'I'll find out.' Dowd's expression was grim. His wind-darkened face was tight and still. Then he turned to Mahone. 'Thanks for getting Roberts. He would have killed me sure.'
'Ask Lettie, Tex. She can tell you his name, too.'
'I'd like to believe all this.'
'Then believe it.'
