The reply was an immediate scattering in quest of mounts and rifles; hot as it was, they were not missing anything that promised a little excitement. In less than a quarter of an hour, the men, headed by the marshal and the bringer of the news, were riding rapidly for the scene of the outrage.
'Redhead with a grey hoss huh?' Slype remarked, his crafty little eyes on his companion. 'Curious yu didn't know him.'
'Ain't it?' Was the sardonic retort. 'My sight is mebbe not so good, an' it's powerful glary out on the range.' The marshal grunted his disbelief in this explanation and became more confirmed in his suspicion, which, had he but known it, was just what Riley intended. The Circle B man's admiration for the officer would have been hard to discover.
In the West of that day representatives of the law were seldom popular. There were among them men who did their work fearlessly and honestly; whose efforts to establish and preserve order in an untamed land laid the foundation stones of the great and flourishing cities which have replaced the huddles of huts they knew. But many were, as the common phrase put it, 'as crooked as a cow's hind leg,' and held their places only because they were more ruthless, and could shoot quicker than the ruffians they had to rule. Slype belonged to neither of these groups; he had been put in power by the Circle B, and though he talked loudly in public, it was generally known that when King Burdette whistled, the marshal had to come to heel.
He now rode in silence, trying to fathom what lay behind this latest development. Beyond a plain intimation that Luce was no longer to be regarded as one of the family, the Burdettes had told him nothing, but the marshal had means of obtaining information, and little happened in the neighbourhood that he did not hear. He knew, for example, that King Burdette's belt had been left at 'The Lucky Chance' by his youngest brother, and had slapped his thigh in unholy glee at the news. For though he served them--or perhaps, because of that--he hated the Burdettes with all his mean, shrivelled soul. Riley's voice interrupted his speculations.
'Yonder's the knob where the shot come from. Green must 'a' bin pretty close to here.'
They had reached the canyon and were riding along the edge, slowing in order to search it thoroughly. Riley, bending down in his saddle, was scanning the ground closely. Presently he dragged on his reins and jumped off.
'Thisyer's the spot,' he said. 'See where the hoss r'ared?' He pointed to several hoof-prints deeply indented in the short turf. A tiny reddish-brown splash on a blade of grass caught his eye, and he stepped to the brink of the precipice. At his call, the others left their horses and came clustering round. He was pointing to a little crevice, a notch in the rim of the canyon wall, the long grass in which was flattened, broken, and stained in several places with dried blood.
'He dropped here, shore enough, but where the devil's he got to?' Slype queried.
'Rolled over, I'd say,' one of the party offered. 'That crack goes plenty deep, I'm thinkin'.'
'Hell's delight, it's a long ride to git down there,' the marshal said disgustedly. 'S'pose we gotta do it.'
A further search revealing no sign of the missing man, the posse retraced its steps to the entrance of the canyon.
'We'd oughta come here first,' said one when they reached it.
'If everybody done what they oughta, somebody would 'a' bumped yu off for a chatterin' fool years ago, Pike,' the marshal said savagely.
The offender subsided; he owed Slype money, a fact that worthy had not forgotten when he uttered the insult. Since the rest of the party, save Riley, were in the same predicament, the journey along the gorge was made in silence. It was the Circle B man who first saw the hat, and spurring his pony, leant over, lifted it from the ground and waited for the marshal. The broken buckle and jagged hole with bloodstained edges appeared to tell a plain story.
'Got him good, 'pears like,' Slype decided. 'But where the blazes is the body? Even if the bullet didn't do the trick, the fall would break every bone in him.'
They scanned the grim, overhanging wall above them, and the man Pike ventured an opinion. 'That crack in the rim comes down a consid'able ways; mebbe he slipped into that 'stead o' droppin' clear.'
It appeared to be the only solution; seen from below, the fissure in question seemed more than capacious enough to conceal a corpse. The marshal grudgingly accepted the explanation.
'Likely enough,' he said. 'Well, if he's there it's as good a grave as we could make him. Let's git outa this damn gully--it gives me the creeps.'
Once more they retraced their steps, and emerging into the open, headed for the knoll from which the shot had been fired. It was a mere mound, covered on the side facing the canyon with a thick screen of spruce, catclaw, and cactus, being therefore an ideal spot for the purpose to which it had been put. Hoof-prints showed where a horse had been tied, and lying near the top of the hillock was an old grey Stetson. The marshal pounced on it; in the sweatband were the letters 'L. B.'--done in ink--but nearly obliterated by time and wear.
'Luce Burdette,' he muttered. 'But how come he to leave this behind?'
The spot where the hat had lain was littered with cigarette stubs. 'Squatted here some time, an' took his lid off while he waited,' Slype went on. 'Then when he's did what he come to do, bolts off an' forgets it.' He picked up a shining brass object. 'She's a .38 shell. I reckon that settles it; we gotta find Mister Luce, an' right speedy.'
'Huh, I'll bet he's throwin' dust an' yu won't see that hombre no more,' Pike said.
The marshal eyed him speculatively. 'How much yu wanta lose?' he asked. 'I got ten dollars that says we'll find him in town. Yu takin' it?'
'Betcha life,' the man replied. 'Easy money, marshal.'
'Don't think it,' warned a friend. 'Coin yu collect from Sam ain't ever that.'
The trip back to Windy was made at speed, and the whole party piled into the hotel, where, as the news spread, they were quickly followed by others. They found the man they were in search of calmly eating a meal in the dining-room. The marshal shot a triumphant glance at Pike and then turned abruptly upon Luce.
'Where yu bin this afternoon?' he inquired.
The young man did not need to be told there was trouble in the air; the fact stuck out like a sore thumb. 'Prospectin' south o' the river, if it's any o' yore damn business,' he replied.
This was in the opposite direction from where the ambushing had occurred, and the officer's thin lips curledin a sneer as he went on, 'Anybody with yu to prove that?'
'No, I didn't see nobody. What's the idea?'
'That can wait. Still usin' that .38 o' yores?' and when the other nodded, 'Have it with yu to-day?'
'Shore I did--don't aim to be caught out on a limb if I can help it,' Luce said, adding scathingly, 'Bushwhack- in' is too prevalent around here.'
'Yu said it,' the marshal agreed, and held out the second hat they had found. 'Know who owns this?'
The boy's eyes opened in surprise. 'It's mine,' he said. 'I left it behind...'
'Yeah, we know; when yu downed Green,' Slype put in.
Luce Burdette sprang to his feet, eyes wide with amazement, and every gun in the room instantly covered him. But he made no attempt to draw his own.
'Green downed?' he cried, and there was deep concern in his voice. 'An' yu think I did it? Yu must be loco; he's about my on'y friend.'
'He was got with a .38 shell, by a fella ridin' a grey hoss, an' we find yore hat on the spot,' the marshal said incisively.
'That lid's an old one which I left at the Circle B when I cleared out,' Luce explained. He pointed to the chair beside him. 'There's the one I'm usin'.'
Slype laughed nastily. 'Bright boy, ain't yu?' he sneered. 'But it don't go this time. Twice yu bin lucky an' got away with it, but this is yore finish.' He surveyed the crowded room, narrowed lids hiding the malevolent triumph in his gaze. 'Some o' yu mebbe ain't got the straight o' this; here it is,' he said, and went on to give a brief summary of the facts as he knew them. His concluding words were, 'I reckon that's good enough for us to go ahead an' try this fella right away.'
'Try him?' echoed a hoarse voice. 'Oh, yeah, an' give him a chance to lie hisself out of it again. Yo're mighty fussy, marshal, 'bout stringin' up a cowardly coyote who kills from cover. Mebbe it's 'cause he's a Burdette, huh?'
The speaker was Goldy Evans, still sore at the loss of his dust, and a chorus of approval showed that he had plenty of support. The marshal drew himself up with a farcical attempt at dignity.
