'An' yore hoss is a grey an' ain't shy a nail on the off fore?'
'Silver is a grey, an' the on'y hoss I possess. Weldon shod him all over las' week.'
'That means there's another fella in these parts who uses a .38 rifle an' rides a paint hoss with a nail missin' in the off fore,' Sudden said, and told of the attempt on Strip Levens.
'There's paints a-plenty, an' nails can be replaced,' Luce commented hopelessly. 'We gotta find that gun.'
'Keep a-smilin'; we'll do it,' the C P foreman said.
A WEEK slipped quietly by, and Sudden found himself settling down at the C P. He liked Purdie, liked the men he had to work with, and the companionship of his old friend, Yago, meant much to one who, for the last year or two, had lived the semi-solitary life of the wanderer. Convinced that the Burdettes meant mischief, and uncertain what form it would take, he had been constantly on the alert and had not visited the town. Luce, he knew, was still about, and must be having a lonely time, for the fact that he had been driven away from the Circle B, and was being ignored by his three brothers, convinced most of the citizens of his guilt. It was Nan Purdie who put it in the foreman's mind to ride into Windy. Meeting him on her way to the corral, she put a plain question :
'Have you heard anything of Luce Burdette, Mister Green?'
He told her what he knew, and added, 'Seems kinda hard when nothin's been proved.'
'It is cruel,' the girl said hotly. 'Even his own brothers condemn him--the cowards. The Burdettes are bad, root and branch, but Luce is--different.'
She made a very pretty picture, her face flushed and her eyes flashing with indignation. The foreman smiled sardonically at the reflection that, after all, perhaps Luce was not so much to be pitied. All he said, however, was, 'I reckon yo're right, ma'am; the Circle B has some reason for pinnin' the deed on Luce. I'll be in town this afternoon; mebbe I'll see him.'
Her eyes thanked him, and as she went away the foreman's gaze followed the trim, shapely figure speculatively.
'Must be kinda nice to have a pretty girl that concerned about yu,' he mused, and then, savagely, 'Come alive, yu idjut.'
When, late in the afternoon, he reached Windy, he found the place bubbling with excitement over a new outrage. Goldy Evans, a prospector, had been struck down on his way back to town, and robbed of about a thousand dollars in dust. Goldy's claim was situated on the lower slope of the southern wall of the valley. His story was that, having worked all day, he started to trudge the three miles home. The trail, which he had made himself by his daily journey, passed through a narrow rift in the rock.
'It's damned dark in that gully,' the robbed man had explained when he told his tale. 'The blame' walls near meet overhead, an' I was no more than in it when I thought they'd fell on me. Dunno how long I was out, but the sun warn't much lower when I come to. My belt was gone an' my head felt like someone had parted my hair with an axe.'
'An' I'm tellin' yu, Goldy warn't on'y sore in the head,' continued the citizen who had supplied Sudden with the news. 'He's lost a hefty stake, but there's a chance he'll git it back.'
'Did he see the fella?' the foreman asked.
'Reckon so,' was the reply. 'Goldy staggered along through the gully, an' when he reaches the open, he sees a chap on a grey hoss ridin' lickety-split for town. He was over a mile away, but Goldy says it was Luce Burdette. Him an' the marshal is up at the hotel now.'
'Guess I'll trail along an' see what's doin',' Sudden said casually.
In the parlour of the hotel he found Luce, Slype, a red-faced, angry-looking fellow whose head was bandaged, and a crowd of curious onlookers. The accused man was glaring at them defiantly. On the table lay his six-shooter, a small doe-skin bag, and various other articles. Evidently he had been disarmed and searched.
'I ain't denyin' I was up that way this afternoon, an' I dessay it was me Evans saw,' Luce was saying as Sudden elbowed his way into the room.
'What was yu doin' around there?' Slype asked.
'Mindin' my own business,' snapped the boy.
'How'd yu git that dust?' growled Evans, pointing to the bag on the table.
'Worked for it,' Luce replied. 'I've been diggin' myself.'
'Yeah, in my belt,' sneered the miner. 'An' I s'pose yu got a hole in the ground all ready to show us?'
'I reckon it's an open an' shut case, Luce,' the marshal said. 'Better come clean an' tell us where yu cached the rest o' the plunder.'
'I tell yu I never had it--that dust is mine,' the youth said savagely.
'Yo're sayin' so don't prove nothin',' the officer retorted. 'I'm a-goin' to take yu in.'
'Hold on, marshal,' Sudden interposed, and turned to Evans. 'Did all the dust in yore belt come outa the claim yo're workin'?'
The man nodded sullenly.
'Got any more of it on yu?' the cow-puncher continued.
Goldy dug down into his pocket and produced a little leathern sack--his 'poke'. 'What I took out today--kept it for spendin',' he explained, and with an ugly look at Luce, 'Yu missed that, didn't yu?'
'What's the big idea?' Slype inquired.
'Just this, marshal,' the C P foreman replied. 'I've heard old miners say that gold dust varies considerable, even when it comes from the same locality. P'raps there's someone here who can speak to that?'
A shrivelled, bent man of over sixty, dressed in patched, nondescript garments, thrust through the crowd. Out of his lined, leathery face the small eyes still gleamed brightly. In a high, cracked voice which was not improved by the quid of tobacco he was chewing, he corroborated the puncher's statement.
'I c'n see what the young fella's drivin' at, an' he's dead right, marshal; any old `Forty-niner' could tell yu as much. If the dust in them two pokes ain't exactly sim'lar, Luce didn't slug Evans, an' yu c'n bet a stack on it. Lemme look at 'em.'
The marshal scowled, but he could not refuse the test. Two sheets of paper were brought and, amidst breathless silence, the old miner poured a little of the dust from each poke and bent over the tiny heaps. Then in turn he took a pinch from each and rolled the particles between his gnarled finger and thumb. Straightening up, he looked round triumphantly.
'They ain't noways the same,' he announced confidently. 'Goldy's dust is coarser in grain an' a mite darker in colour. Reckon any o' yu c'n see it for yoreselves.'
The spectators surged forward to look; not that for a moment they doubted the decision of this old man who had spent nearly the whole of his life in the service of the god of Gold, and who, even now, looked at and handled the shining atoms as though they were indeed worthy of worship. Even Slype, disgruntled as he was at the destruction of what he had regarded as convincing evidence, knew that he must bow to the expert. What 'California' did not know about gold had yet to be discovered. But the marshal was a poor loser.
'Well, that seemin'ly lets yu out, Luce,' he remarked. 'But I ain't right shore allasame, an' I'm keepin' an eye on yu.'
'Keep both on an' be damned,' the young man told him, and gathering up his belongings, pushed his way through the crowd and went to his own room.
Sudden found him there a little later, hunched in a chair, his face buried in his hands.
'Brace up, boy,' he said. 'That's one frame-up didn't come off, anyways.'
'Thanks to yu,' Luce replied. 'Yu figure it was fixed?'
'Looks thataway. It warn't yu Evans saw, was it?'
'Might 'a' been, but I fancy I was further up the valley at the time, an' I didn't hurry.'
'Then the jasper who did it has a grey hoss an' was careful not to show hisself till he was far enough off to be mistook for yu. Who do yu guess is back of it?'
'King--my own brother,' Luce said bitterly. 'He swore he'd hound me outa the country, an' I might as well clear --I ain't got a friend in it.'
'Shucks, I know of two,' the puncher smiled, and the boy was instantly contrite.
'I'm right sorry, Green; I oughta remembered yu, but I shore can't place the other,' he said.
