Chapter 3

In one way his hands were tied. He could not accuse Sinclair of this killing without in the first place exposing the tale of how Riley's brother was abandoned in the desert by three strong men who had been his bunkies. And that story, Sandersen knew, would condemn him to worse than death in the mountain desert. He would be loathed and scorned from one end of the cattle country to the other.

All of these things went through his head, as he jogged his mustang back down the hill. He turned in at Mason's place. All at once he recalled that he was not acting normally. He had just come from seeing the dead body of his best friend. And yet so mortal was his concern for his own safety that he felt not the slightest touch of grief or horror for dead Quade.

He had literally to grip his hands and rouse himself to a pitch of semihysteria. Then he spurred his horse down the path, flung himself with a shout out of the saddle, cast open the door of the house without a preliminary knock, and rushed into the room.

"Murder!" shouted Bill Sandersen. "Quade is killed!"

5

Who killed Quade? That was the question asked with the quiet deadliness by six men in Sour Creek. It had been Buck Mason's idea to keep the whole affair still. It was very possible that the slayer was still in the environs of Sour Creek, and in that case much noise would simply serve to frighten him away. It was also Buck's idea that they should gather a few known men to weigh the situation.

Every one of the six men who answered the summons was an adept with fist or guns, as the need might be; every one of them had proved that he had a level head; every one of them was a respected citizen. Sandersen was one; stocky Buck Mason, carrying two hundred pounds close to the ground, massive of hand and jaw, was a second. After that their choice had fallen on "Judge" Lodge. The judge wore spectacles and a judicial air. He had a keen eye for cows and was rather a sharper in horse trades. He gave his costume a semiofficial air by wearing a necktie instead of a bandanna, even at a roundup. The glasses, the necktie, and his little solemn pauses before he delivered an opinion, had given his nickname.

Then came Denver Jim, a very little man, with nervous hands and remarkable steady eyes. He had punched cows over those ranges for ten years, and his experience had made him a wildcat in a fight. Oscar Larsen was a huge Swede, with a perpetual and foolish grin. Sour Creek had laughed at Oscar for five years, considered him dubiously for five years more, and then suddenly admitted him as a man among men. He was stronger than Buck Mason, quicker than Denver Jim, and shrewder than the judge. Last of all came Montana. He had a long, sad face, prodigious ability to stow away redeye, and a nature as simple and kind and honest as a child's. These were the six men who gathered about and stared at the center of the floor. Something, they agreed, had to be done.

"First it was old man Collins. That was two years back," said Judge Lodge. "You boys remember how Collins went. Then there was the drifter that was plugged eight months ago. And now it's Ollie Quade. Gents, three murders in two years is too much. Sour Creek'll get a name. The bad ones will begin to drop in on us and use us for headquarters. We got to make an example. We never got the ones that shot Collins or the drifter. Since Quade has been plugged we got to hang somebody. Ain't that straight?"

"We got to hang somebody," said Denver Jim. "The point is--who?"

His keen eyes went slowly, hungrily, from face to face, as if he would not have greatly objected to picking one of his companions in that very room.

"Is they any strangers in town?" asked Larsen with his peculiar, foolish grin.

Sandersen stirred in his chair; his heart leaped.

"There's a gent named Riley Sinclair nobody ain't never seen before."

"When did he come in?"

"Along about dark."

"That's the right time for us. You found Quade a long time dead, Bill."

Sandersen swallowed. In his joy he could have embraced Larsen.

"What'll we do?"

"Go talk to Sinclair," said Larsen and rose. "I got a rope."

"He's a dangerous-lookin' gent," declared Sandersen.

Larsen replied mildly: "Mostly they's a pile more interesting when they's dangerous. Come on, boys!"

It had been well after midnight when Mason and Sandersen got back to Sour Creek. The gathering of the posse had required much time. Now, as they filed out to the hotel, to the east the mountains were beginning to roll up out of the night, and one cloud, far away and high in the sky, was turning pink. They found the hotel wakening even at this early hour. At least, the Chinese cook was rattling in the kitchen as he built the fire. When the six reached the door of Sinclair's room, stepping lightly, they heard the occupant singing softly to himself.

"Early riser," whispered Denver Jim.

"Too early to be honest," replied Judge Lodge.

Larsen raised one of his great hands and imposed an absolute silence. Then, stepping with astonishing softness, considering his bulk, he approached the door of Sinclair's room. Into his left hand slid his .45 and instantly five guns glinted in the hands of the others. With equal caution they ranged themselves behind the big Swede. The latter glanced over his shoulder, made sure that everything was in readiness, and then kicked the door violently open.

Riley Sinclair was sitting on the side of his bed, tugging on a pair of riding boots and singing a hushed song. He interrupted himself long enough to look up into the muzzle of Larsen's gun. Then deliberately he finished drawing on the boot, singing while he did so; and, still deliberately, rose and stamped his feet home in the leather. Next he dropped his hands on his hips and considered the posse gravely.

"Always heard tell how Sour Creek was a fine town but I didn't know they turned out reception committees before sunup. How are you, boys? Want my roll?"

Larsen, as one who scorned to take a flying start on any man, dropped his weapon back in its holster. Sinclair's own gun and cartridge belt hang on the wall at the foot of the bed.

"That sounds too cool to be straight," said the judge soberly. "Sinclair, I figure you know why we want you?"

"I dunno, gents," said Sinclair, who grew more and more cheerful in the face of these six pairs of grim eyes. "But I'm sure obliged to the gent that give me the sendoff. What d'you want?" Drawing into the background Larsen said: "Open up on him, judge. Start the questions."

But Sandersen was of no mind to let the slow-moving mind of the judge handle this affair which was so vital to him. If Riley Sinclair did not hang, Sandersen himself was instantly placed in peril of his life. He stepped in front of Sinclair and thrust out his long arm.

"You killed Quade!"

Riley Sinclair rubbed his chin thoughtfully, looking past his accuser.

"I don't think so," he said at length.

"You don't think so? Don't you know?"

"They was two Mexicans jumped me once. One of 'em was called Pedro. Maybe the other was Quade. That who you're talking about?'

"You can't talk yourself out of it, Sinclair," said Denver Jim. "We mean business, real business, you'll find out!"

"This here is a necktie party, maybe?" asked Riley Sinclair.

"It is, partner," said big Larsen, with his continual smile.

"Sinclair, you come over the mountains," went on Sandersen. "You come to find Quade. You ride down off'n the hills, and you come up to Quade's house. You call him out to talk to you. You're sitting on your horse. All at once you snatch out a gun and shoot Quade down. We know! That bullet ranged down. It was shot from above him, plain murder! He didn't have a chance!"

Throwing out his facts as he saw them, one by one, there was a ring of conviction in his voice. The six accusing faces grew hard and set. Then, to their astonishment, they saw that Sinclair was smiling!

"He don't noways take us serious, gents," declared the judge. "Let's take him out and see if a rope means anything to him. Sinclair, d'you figure this is a game with us?"

Riley Sinclair chuckled. "Gents," he said easily, "you come here all het up. You want a pile of action, but you ain't going to get it off'n me--not a bit! I'll tell you why. You gents are straight, and you know straight talk when you hear it. This dead man--what's his name, Quade?--was killed by a gent that had a reason for killing him. Wanted to get Quade's money, or they was an old grudge. But what could my reason be for wanting to bump off Quade? Can any of you figure that out? There's my things. Look through 'em and see if I got Quade's money. Maybe you think it's a grudge? Gents, I give you my word that I never been into this country before this trip. How could there be any grudge between me and Quade? Is that sense? Then talk sense back to me!"

His mirth had disappeared halfway through his speech, and in the latter part of it his voice rang sternly. Moreover he looked them in the eye, one by one. All of this was noted by Sandersen. He saw suddenly and clearly that he had lost. They would not hang this man by hearsay evidence, or by chance presumption.

Sinclair would go free. And if Sinclair went free, there would be short shrift for Bill Sandersen. For a moment he felt his destiny wavering back and forth on a needle point. Then he flung himself into a new course diametrically opposed to the other.

"Boys, it was me that started this, and I want to be the first to admit it's a cold trail. Men has been hung with less agin' them than we got agin' Sinclair. We know when Quade must have been killed. We know it tallies pretty close with the time when Sinclair came down that same trail, because that was the way he rode into Sour Creek. But no matter how facts look, nobody _seen_ that shooting. And I say this gent Sinclair ain't any murderer. Look him over, boys. He's clean, and I register a vote for him. What d'you say? No matter what the rest of you figure, I'm going to shake hands with him. I like his style!"

He had turned his back on Riley while he spoke, but now he whirled and thrust out his hand. The fingers of Sinclair closed slowly over the proffered hand.

"When it comes to the names, partner, seems like you got an edge over me."

"Have I? I'm Sandersen. Glad to know you, Sinclair."

"Sandersen!" repeated the stranger slowly. "Sandersen!"

Letting his fingers fall away nervelessly from the hand of the other, he sighed deeply.

Sandersen with a side-glance followed every changing shade of expression in that hard face. How could Sinclair attack a man who had just defended him from a terrible charge? It could not be. For the moment, at least, Sandersen felt he was safe. In the future, many things might happen. At the very least, he had gained a priceless postponement of the catastrophe.

"Them that do me a good turn is writ down in red," Sinclair was saying; "and them that step on my toes is writ down the same way. Sandersen, I got an idea that for one reason or another I ain't going to forget you in a hurry."

There was a grim double meaning in that speech which Sandersen alone could understand. The others of the self-appointed posse had apparently made up their minds that Sandersen was right, and that this was a cold trail.

"It's like Sinclair says," admitted the judge. "We got to find a gent that had a reason for wishing to have Quade die. Where's the man?"

"Hunt for the reason first and find the man afterward," said big Larsen, still smiling.

"All right! Did anybody owe Quade money, anybody Quade was pressing for it?"

It was the judge who advanced the argument in this solemn and dry form. Denver Jim declared that to his personal knowledge Quade had neither borrowed nor loaned.

"Well, then, had Quade ever made many enemies? We know Quade was a fighter. Recollect any gents that might hold grudges?"

"Young Penny hated the ground he walked on. Quade beat Penny to a pulp down by the Perkin water hole."

"Penny wouldn't do a murder."

"Maybe it was a fair fight," broke in Larsen.

"Fair nothin'," said Buck Mason. "Don't we all know that Quade was fast with a gun? He barely had it out in his hand when the other gent drilled him. And he was shot from above. No, sir, the way it happened was something like this. The murderin' skunk sat on his hoss saying goodby to Quade, and, while they was shaking hands or something like that, he goes for his gun and plugs Quade. Maybe it was a gent that knew he didn't have a chance agin' Quade. Maybe--"

He broke off short in his deductions and smote his hands together with a tremendous oath. "Boys, I got it! It's Cold Feet that done the job. It's Gaspar that done it!"

They stared at Buck vaguely.

"Mason, Cold Feet ain't got the nerve to shoot a rabbit."

"Not in a fight. This was a murder!"

"What's the schoolteacher's reason!"

"Don't he love Sally Bent? Didn't Quade love her?" He raised his voice. "I'm a big fool for forgetting! Didn't I see him ride over the hill to Quade's place and come back in the evening? Didn't I see it? Why else would he have called on Quade?"

There was a round chorus of oaths and exclamations. "The poisonous little skunk! It's him! We'll string him up!"

With a rush they started for the door.

"Wait!" called Riley Sinclair.

Bill Sandersen watched him with a keen eye. He had studied the face of the big man from up north all during the scene, and he found the stern features unreadable. For one instant now he guessed that Sinclair was about to confess.

"If you don't mind seven in one party," said Riley Sinclair, "I think I'll go along to see justice done. You see, I got a sort of secondhand interest in this necktie party."

Mason clapped him on the shoulder. "You're just the sort of a gent we need," he declared.

6

Down in the kitchen they demanded a loaf of bread and some coffee from the Chinese cook, and then the seven dealers of justice took horse and turned into the silence of the long mountain trail.

The sunrise had picked those mountains out of the night, directly above Sour Creek. Riley Sinclair regarded them with a longing eye. That was his country. A man could see up there, and he could see the truth. Down here in the valley everything was askew. Men lived blindly and did blind things, like this "justice" which the six riders were bringing on an innocent man.

Not by any means had Riley decided what he would do. If he confessed the truth he would not only have a man-sized job trying to escape from the posse, but he would have to flee before he had a chance to deal finally with Sandersen. Chiefly he wanted time. He wanted a chance to study Sandersen. The fellow had spoken for him like a man, but Sinclair was suspicious.

In his quandary he turned to sad-faced Montana and asked: "Who's this gent you call Cold Feet?"

"He's a tenderfoot," declared Montana, "and he's queer. He's yaller, they say, and that's why they call him Cold Feet. Besides, he teaches the school. Where's they a real man that would do a schoolma'am's work? Living or dying, he ain't much good. You can lay to that!"

Sinclair was comforted by this speech. Perhaps the schoolteacher was, as Montana stated, not much good, dead or alive. Sinclair had known many men whose lives were not worth an ounce of powder. In this case he would let Cold Feet be hanged. It was a conclusion sufficiently grim, but Riley Sinclair was admittedly a grim man. He had lived for himself, he had worked for himself. On his younger brother, Hal, he had wasted all the better and tenderer side of his nature. For Hal's education and advantage he had sweated and saved for a long time. With the death of Hal, the better side of Riley Sinclair died.

The horses sweated up a rise of ground.

"For a schoolteacher he lives sort of far out of town, I figure," said Riley Sinclair.

"That's on account of Sally Bent," answered Denver Jim. "Sally and her brother got a shack out this way, and Cold Feet boards with 'em."

"Sally Bent! That's an old-maidish-sounding name."

Denver Jim grinned broadly. "Tolerable," he said, "just tolerable old-maidish sounding."

When they reached the top of the knoll, the horses paused, as if by common assent. Now they stood with their heads bowed, sullen, tired already, steam going up from them into the cool of the morning.

"There it is!"

It was as comfortably placed a house as Riley Sinclair had ever seen. The mountain came down out of the sky in ragged, uneven steps. Here it dipped away into a lap of quite level ground. A stream of spring water flashed across that little tableland, dark in the shadow of the big trees, silver in the sunlight. At the back of the natural clearing was the cabin, built solidly of logs. Wood, water, and commanding position for defense! Riley Sinclair ran his eye appreciatively over these advantages.

"My guns, I'd forgot Sally!" exclaimed the massive Buck Mason.

"Is that her?" asked Riley Sinclair.

A woman had come out of the shadow of a tree and stood over the edge of the stream, a bucket in her hand. At that distance it was quite impossible to make out her features, although Riley Sinclair found himself squinting and peering to make them out. She had on something white over her head and neck, and her dress was the faded blue of old gingham. Then the wind struck her dress, and it seemed to lift the girl in its current.

"I'd forgot Sally Bent!"

"What difference does she make?" asked Riley.

"You don't know her, stranger."

"And she won't know us. Got anything for masks?"

"I'm sure a Roman-nosed fool!" declared Mason. "Of course we got to wear masks."

The girl's pail flashed, as she raised it up from the stream and dissolved into the shadow of a big tree.

"She don't seem noways interested in this here party," remarked Riley.

"That's her way," said Denver Jim, arranging his bandanna to mask the lower part of his face from the bridge of his nose down. "She'll show plenty of interest when it comes to a pinch."

Riley adjusted his own mask, and he did it thoroughly. Out of his vest he ripped a section of black lining, and, having cut eyeholes, he fastened the upper edge of the cloth under the brim of his hat and tied the loose ends behind his head. Red, white, blue, black, and polka dot was that quaint array of masks.

Having completed his arrangements, Larsen started on at a lope, and the rest of the party followed in a lurching, loose-formed wedge. At the edge of the little tableland, Larsen drew down his mount to a walk and turned in the saddle.

"Quick work, no talk, and a getaway," he said as he swung down to the ground.

In the crisis of action the big Swede seemed to be accorded the place of leader by natural right. The others imitated his example silently. Before they reached the door Larsen turned again.

"Watch Jerry Bent," he said softly. "You watch him, Denver, and you, Sandersen. Me and Buck will take care of Cold Feet. He may fight like a rat. That's the way with a coward when he gets cornered." Then he strode toward the door.

"How thick is Sally Bent with this schoolteaching gent?" asked Riley Sinclair of Mason.

"I dunno. Nobody knows. Sally keeps her thinking to herself."

Larsen kicked open the door and at the same moment drew his six-shooter. That example was also imitated by the rest, with the exception of Riley Sinclair. He hung in the background, watching.

"Gaspar!" called Larsen.

There was a voice of answer, a man's thin voice, then the sharp cry of a girl from the interior of the house. Sinclair heard a flurry of skirts.

"Hysterics now," he said into his mask.

She sprang into the doorway, her hands holding the jamb on either side. In her haste the big white handkerchief around her throat had been twisted awry. Sinclair looked over the heads of Mason and Denver Jim into the suntanned face that had now paled into a delicate olive color. Her very lips were pale, and her great black eyes were flashing at them. She seemed more a picture of rage than hysterical fear.

"Why for?" she asked. "What are you-all here for in masks, boys? What you mean calling for Gaspar? What's he done?"

In a moment of waiting Larsen cleared his throat solemnly. "It'd be best we tell Gaspar direct what we're here for."

This seemed to tell her everything. "Oh," she gasped, "you're not really _after_ him?"

"Lady, we sure be."

"But Jig--he wouldn't hurt a mouse--he couldn't!"

"Sally, he's done a murder!"

"No, no, no!"

"Sally, will you stand out of the door?"

"It ain't--it ain't a lynching party, boys? Oh, you fools, you'll hang for it, every one of you!"

Sinclair confided to Buck Mason beside him: "Larsen is letting her talk down to him. She'll spoil this here party."

"We're the voice of justice," said Judge Lodge pompously. "We ain't got any other names. They wouldn't be nothing to hang."

"Don't you suppose I know you?" asked the girl, stiffening to her full height. "D'you think those fool masks mean anything? I can tell you by your little eyes, Denver Jim!"

Denver cringed suddenly behind the man before him.

"I know you by that roan hoss of yours, Oscar Larsen. Judge Lodge, they ain't nobody but you that talks about 'justice' and 'voices.' Buck Mason, I could tell you by your build, a mile off. Montana, you'd ought to have masked your neck and your Adam's apple sooner'n your face. And you're Bill Sandersen. They ain't any other man in these parts that stands on one heel and points his off toe like a horse with a sore leg. I know you all, and, if you touch a hair on Jig's head, I'll have you into court for murder! You hear--murder! I'll have you hung, every man jack!"

She had lowered her voice for the last part of this speech. Now she made a sweeping gesture, closing her hand as if she had clutched their destinies in the palm of her hand and could throw it into their faces.

"You-all climb right back on your hosses and feed 'em the spur."

They stood amazed, shifting from foot to foot, exchanging miserable glances. She began to laugh; mysterious lights danced and twinkled in her eyes. The laughter chimed away into words grown suddenly gentle, suddenly friendly. Such a voice Riley Sinclair had never heard. It walked into a man's heart, breaking the lock.

"Why, Buck Mason, you of all men to be mixed up in a deal like this. And you, Oscar Larsen, after you and me had talked like partners so many a time! Denver Jim, we'll have a good laugh about this necktie party later on. Why, boys, you-all know that Jig ain't guilty of no harm!"

"Sally," said the wretched Denver Jim, "things seemed to be sort of pointing to a--"

There was a growl from the rear of the party, and Riley Sinclair strode to the front and faced the girl. "They's a gent charged with murder inside," he said. "Stand off, girl. You're in the way!"

Before she answered him, her teeth glinted. If she had been a man, she would have struck him in the face. He saw that, and it pleased him.

"Stranger," she said deliberately, making sure that every one in the party should hear her words, "what you need is a stay around Sour Creek long enough for the boys to teach you how to talk to a lady."

"Honey," replied Riley Sinclair with provoking calm, "you sure put up a tidy bluff. Maybe you'd tell a judge that you knowed all these gents behind their masks, but they wouldn't be no way you could _prove_ it!"

A stir behind him was ample assurance that this simple point had escaped the cowpunchers. All the soul of the girl stood up in her eyes and hated Riley Sinclair, and again he was pleased. It was not that he wished to bring the schoolteacher to trouble, but it had angered him to see one girl balk seven grown men.

"Stand aside," said Riley Sinclair.

"Not an inch!"

"Lady, I'll move you."

"Stranger, if you touch me, you'll be taught better. The gents in Sour Creek don't stand for suchlike ways!"