The Project Gutenberg EBook of Smoke of the .45, by Harry Sinclair Drago This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Smoke of the .45 Author: Harry Sinclair Drago Illustrator: Frank Tenney Johnson Release Date: August 28, 2020 [EBook #63072] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMOKE OF THE .45 *** Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) SMOKE OF THE .45 “Wal, you’d better untie Gallup. He don’t look happy.” SMOKE OF THE .45 BY HARRY SINCLAIR DRAGO AUTHOR OF “OUT OF THE SILENT NORTH” FRONTISPIECE BY FRANK TENNEY JOHNSON NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY Copyright, 1923, By THE MACAULAY COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THOMAS A. BRANDON —COMPANION OF MANY TRAILS— THROUGH WHOSE EYES I LEARNED TO LOVE THE DESERT. CONTENTS I Out of the Past II The Red Hand III By His Own Hand IV Foot-Loose V The First Clue VI Outside the Law VII If This Be Love VIII Straight Talk IX Two Old Men X Molly Kent XI More Than a Bet XII Molly Explains XIII “He Is My Friend” XIV For the Heart of a Girl XV Madeiras Gets a Chance XVI Bitter Fruit XVII Gallup’s Price XVIII “Kill Him, the Thief” XIX “Come and Get Him” XX Without Pay XXI Two Dead Men XXII The Face in the Window XXIII The Gun Speaks XXIV Johnny Dice Comes Back to Life XXV Madeiras Asserts Himself XXVI Between the Lines XXVII Time to Act XXVIII Johnny Talks at Last XXIX Evidence to Convict XXX Madeiras Appears at Last XXXI The Death Chant XXXII The Debt Is Paid XXXIII Fulfillment SMOKE OF THE .45 CHAPTER I OUT OF THE PAST September had come and gone, leaving the desert brown and somber against the graying sage. The first of the cold rains had fallen. Round-up time was past. The cattle left in the hills were moving down to lower pastures. Unerringly they sensed the brief Indian summer yet to come, which would turn the grasses green for a few brief days before the cold, snow-bringing winds of late October were upon them. There was that in the air on the range which said the year’s work was over.... The world was waiting. But in the little towns plumped down beside the shining rails of the Espee and the Western Pacific, all was activity and bustle. The steer shipping was on and the held-over wool clip was going aboard the cars. It was the harvest time of the mountain desert—the pay day of the range. Pockets were well lined. There had been famine—days on end of hard work, of no spending. Now was the time of plenty, of satisfied appetites. Winnemucca, Golconda, Elko, Halleck, Standing Rock, in the heart of Ruby Valley—they were all alike —boisterous, turbulent, prosperous; save that Standing Rock, newer than its sister towns, was more boisterous, more continuously turbulent, and less concerned with its future prosperity. And yet there was one who entered its hospitable gates this late afternoon who seemed untouched by its gayety. His eyes, screwed into the perpetual squint of the true desert breed, viewed Standing Rock’s activities with apparent unconcern. It was an old story to him. He knew the desert’s little ways! His coming caused no comment. And this, despite the fact that his clothes were of an almost forgotten cut, popular in the days when Dodge City reaped its harvest from the great northward trek of the longhorns. The Big Trek is a thing of the past; the trail itself lost, forgotten. Dodge City has long since settled down to most proper respectability. And those hard-fisted, quick-shooting men who squandered their wealth and lives, there, along the way from Santa Fe, have departed to that limbo from which none return. But a practiced eye would have said that the man who rode into Standing Rock this day was of that crew. His face was a fighting face, withal he was on in years, gray hair closely snugged to his head. In other days he had been a rugged man; but there was a sadness upon him now, a wistfulness in the eyes, that softened his boldly chiseled features. That he moved unnoticed is proof again that our one cosmopolitan zone has ever been the great West. Spurs, bridle, saddlebags, reata, even the big, high-stepping stallion which he rode were foreign to northern Nevada. That they were Spanish or Mexican—the difference is slight in the West—no one cared a hoot. The desert is wide. Men have a habit of coming long distances, and from strange places. And best—far best of all—a man’s business was his own business! The two trunk lines paralleled each other in passing through the town. In the short half mile between them, Standing Rock took form; half finished, half painted—a one-street town of one story buildings making a brave show with their Cripple Creek fronts. Hard by the Espee tracks this monotonously regular sky line was broken. For there, wonder of wonders, stood a two- story brick structure—a hotel!—the pride of Ruby Valley; the Marble Palace; J. Scanlon and V. Escondido, proprietors. Steer and wool money had financed it, hence Vincenzo. He was a petulant Basque, and although in the storied past he and his people had sprung from stock as Celtic as his partner’s, he—Vincenzo—was in a fair way of being erased by the versatile Scanlon. In quite the same fashion their institution had lost its chilling and undeserved title—unless the marble-topped bar were justification—and was called, in easy familiarity, the Palace. The profits of this establishment were restricted solely to the first floor, for, save at times like this, or when some unfortunate commercial traveler missed No. 19 going west, no one ever thought of staying there the night. But, oh, the profits of that lower floor!—bar and keno, roulette and poker of a flexibility well calculated to satisfy the whim of the most jaded customer. Having stabled his horse and placed his saddle, saddlebags and bed roll on a convenient peg, the stranger made for the door of this hostelry. It was a few minutes after five. The Diamond-Bar waddies were having their turn at the shipping pens. An hour later they would be making merry. Now, though, the street was deserted. The wool platform was directly in back of the hotel. The spur of track leading to it managed to squeeze past the hotel by the narrowest of margins. Four loaded cars stood on the siding. By six o’clock another would be filled. A freight engine would shunt them upon the main line that evening, and start them on their long ride to Boston. For another week this would go on. At least twenty heavy freighters, piled high with baled wool still reeking of the creosote dip, stood in the space about the platform waiting to be unloaded. More would come. Twenty-mule teams dragging three, and even four, wagons chained together would snake in the smelling fleece. Standing Rock should have been a place of ample elbow room, but here, in man’s peculiar way, was its greatest activity jammed in a space so crowded that the stranger stopped to watch the Basque boys as they fought the big bales with their long, steel wool hooks. His interest in the work on the platform caught the attention of a man who sat in the Palace bar, feet on the window sill, chair tilted back in comfort. This man had been sitting there some time, busy with strings of figures on the pages of a small leather-covered memorandum book. This occupation had absorbed his entire attention for many minutes; but as he stared at the stranger standing beside the track the little book fell from his fingers. Almost with one motion his feet came down from the sill and the chair to its four legs. His face was white when he straightened from snatching for the little book. He darted another glance at the stranger, as if doubting his senses. He had made no mistake! His hand trembled as he pushed the chair out of his path. “It’s him,” he muttered. “Traynor!” A belated sense of caution caused him to sweep the room with his eyes to see if any one had observed his ill-concealed alarm. A sigh of relief forced itself to his lips as he saw that Escondido, the Basque proprietor, was his only companion. Vin was hunched over the bar, his head resting in his arms, sound asleep. A rear door led to the wool platform. The man tiptoed to it quickly, and without a backward glance passed outside. A second later the stranger was shaking Vin back to consciousness. “I want a room, muchacho” he said with some impatience. Vin blinked his eyes. “No room, señor. Theese hotel is feel up. Plenty men in town.” “I’m not stayin’ all night. It’s goin’ to rain. I’ll go on after the stormin’s done. You let me have one of the boys’ rooms. They won’t be turnin’ in till late. I’m dead tired.” “Sure, Mike! I guess we feex leetla theeng like that. You take the end room. I call you nine o’clock.” The Basque turned to fish out from a pile of soiled papers a dilapidated book which served the place as a register. “You put your name in theese book, señor.” He held it toward the man, pencil in his free hand. The stranger’s eyes held Vin’s as he took the book and pencil; but instead of writing as requested, he closed the book and put the pencil on top of it, after which he placed them with extravagant care on the polished bar. Vin started to protest, but the man’s squinting, smiling gray eyes made him pause. Damn these gringoes when they smile! “No,” the stranger was saying. “Niente, señor. I’ve just clean fergot how to write. You understand?” “Sí, sí.” Escondido was not lying. He understood the eyes. It was sufficient. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders and a grin: “Me, I pretty dam’ well ferget how to read somethings, too.” “Señor, you are a man of wisdom.” A few minutes later, having removed his boots and draped his gun belt and hat over a convenient chair, the man was asleep. Neither the noise from the platform nor the heavy smell of creosote drifting in through the open window disturbed him. He had been in the saddle twelve hours that day. The freshening wind and the gathering clouds to the north bore unmistakable promise of approaching storm. This would have caused him no concern. He had foreseen it and molded his plans to its whim. A conversation going on in a cabin across the tracks would have been of infinitely more interest. He was the subject of that talk; one of the two thus engaged being the man who had stolen out of the Palace bar. “I tell you it’s him,” he repeated doggedly from time to time. “Ain’t no ghosts scarin’ me thataway. It’s Crosbie Traynor.” “And him dead these twenty years?” “I thought he was dead. Men left on the Painted Desert without water and no food don’t come back. He’s done it, though! It’s him. Still wearin’ one of my old hats—the one with that Moqui horsehair band. You remember—had a gold snake luck piece snapped on to the band. I tell you he looks like the livin’ spit of the way he did that night down on the Little Colorado.” His companion said nothing, but the sweat of fear had broken on his forehead. Crosbie Traynor’s return to the land of living men was as ominous as those black clouds gathering to the north. Death walked in the air. The little schemes, the plotting, the treachery of twenty years now crumbled to ruins! Not for a second was it to be supposed that Traynor had come to Standing Rock by accident. The man’s country lay far to the south, hundreds of miles. Yes, it was his way to ferret them out, to hang on, drifting from town to town until he tracked them down. “Damn you for a bungling fool!” cursed the brooding one. The man from the hotel sank lower into his chair, spineless, impotent in the face of that ghost-man’s visit. He raised his hands to shield his eyes from his companion’s wrath as the other went on: “A bungling, white-livered fool! That’s what you are! Now we’ll be lucky if our necks don’t get stretched.” “What you goin’ to do?” “Do?” The man got to his feet and shook his fist in his visitor’s face. “I’m going to do what you tried to do. I’m going to get Traynor before he gets me. Is that plain enough for you?” “You—you goin’ to kill him?” “Oh, bah!” the other hurled back with fine contempt. “That scares you, huh? Where’ll you be if he ever gets wind of you? That makes you shiver, eh? Well, you get this idea under your hat and let it stick there—you’re taking orders from me. ‘Cross’ Traynor is going to be erased!” CHAPTER II THE RED HAND Darkness came, bringing the day’s work to an end. The commotion on the wool platform ceased. Down the tracks from the direction of the shipping pens came the Diamond-Bar boys. They had just put ten hours of hard work behind them, but one would not have guessed it from their present vociferousness. Johnny Allerdyce, or rather Johnny Dice—to give him what he called his “nom devoid”—led the column headed for the Palace. He was walking the ties, taking three of them at a step. Behind him some fifteen of his pals were strung out at varying intervals. Johnny’s legs were pronouncedly bowed from his life in a saddle, and this long-stepping walk, or half run, only accentuated his deformity. Big hat flapping in the wind, the tails of his neckerchief flattening out behind him, made him seem grotesque. But there was action in every line of him, untouched vitality. Freckled face, untamed hair of flaming hue—they were fit companions for his dancing, mischievous eyes. “Hi, hi, you gamblin’ fool,” some one in back of him yelled. “I hope you stub your toe and break yore damned haid. You let me know how the town is when you git there!” “You tell him, cowboy!” Johnny flung over his shoulder. “I crave food and pleasure!” Laughter of marked contempt greeted this retort. Somebody cried: “Liar!” Johnny was strictly a night-blooming plant; this talk of food was just talk. At the hotel, Vin was going about lighting the lamps. No one ever locked a door. In turn, he left a light in Crosbie Traynor’s room. The sleeper had not moved. Vin surveyed him calmly, wondering if he had ever seen the man before. Without his hat, Traynor seemed older. Vincenzo shrugged his shoulders as he turned away. The man was a total stranger to him. And still this mysterious señor aroused the Basque’s curiosity. Vin had been on the desert too long not to have learned the wisdom of keeping his own counsel; but he took much pleasure from building romantic adventures around his guests. Some señors there had been who were in great haste. He had sped them on their way. But they were not forgotten. This man was in no seeming haste, but something about him sent delicious little chills racing up and down Vin’s spine. He would have spent more time on the matter had not Scanlon called to him at the moment. Johnny and the other Diamond-Bar warriors had arrived. In this democratic inn the proprietors—or to be exact, one of them—served the meals. His name was not Scanlon, that individual confining his efforts to the well-known cash register and the dealing of much poker. Jackson Kent, the big boss of the Diamond-Bar, came in before supper was over. He was a hawk-faced old man, silent as a rule. Hobe Ferris, his foreman, was with him. Pushing back the knife and fork set before him, the old man began stacking five, ten, and twenty dollar gold pieces into neat little piles. This was pay night. Some of the boys had not drawn a cent in three months. Hobe called off their names and the amounts due, and old man Kent counted it out to them as they filed past. The owner of the Diamond-Bar caressed his little stacks of gold pieces with his fingers as the piles grew smaller and smaller. He caught Scanlon eyeing him. “Might jest as well be payin’ him,” he muttered to Hobe, shaking his head regretfully. “What a waste of good money this is,” he added. “Won’t a one of ’em have a cent left time they git back to the ranch.” “You ain’t includin’ Johnny in that remark, be you?” Hobe demanded. “Ain’t one of the boys but owes him plenty cash right now. He’ll git more of their jack tonight.” “Huh!” the old man grunted. “Huh!” His contempt for Johnny’s genius was of long standing. “Somebody’ll git him jest like he gits these fools. Gamblin’s made a smart aleck out of him. Always figurin’ how things is goin’ to break; talkin’ his head off about the laws of chance. Jest spoiled a good hand, that’s all gamblin’s done to Johnny Dice. His mind ain’t on cattle no more. Damn it, Hobe, half the time I believe he don’t know whether he’s runnin’ sheep or steers.” Hobe was a good foreman, so he wisely agreed with the old man. He had been doing this for ten years; a time in which the Diamond-Bar had prospered. “Don’t let ’em git too drunk, Hobe,” Kent cautioned as he began his supper. “We got work to do tomorrow mornin’. The Lawrence boys will be here with their stuff by noon. We’ve got to git out of the way.” Hobe nodded as he strolled to the bar. “We’ll be in the clear, I reckon,” he drawled. “Hain’t had no trouble yit.” Hobe Ferris had long since forgotten the knack of smiling, but he almost remembered it as he thought of the old man’s concern for his men. “Old age certainly uses y’u up, don’t it?” he mused. “Yes, sir! Think of him worryin’ thataway. If this keeps up, Miss Molly’ll be bossin’ the brand ’fore long.” Ferris looked about for Johnny, but he and his pal, Tony Madeiras, had gone down the street. There were other places of chance in Standing Rock, and wise Johnny was off to a picking. Stuffy Tyler, who had raced through his supper and who had been busy ever since refreshing himself at the bar, greeted his foreman with a hearty smack on the back. “Y’u again?” Hobe queried. “Little me, Hobe.” And then, without further ado, he roared that old range song, the first two lines of which run: “Oh, no, Jenny! What would yore father say?” Hobe knew what father said, and he was not minded to listen to his complaint this night. A wooden awning stretched across the walk in front of the hotel. There, the foreman found refuge from Stuffy’s bawling. The storm clouds which had been gathering to the north had circled round to the west; but they were nearer now. Far away, a mile or more, the steel rails of the Espee main line began to dance in the glow of a powerful headlight. A second later the light itself appeared. It was the freight that would roll away with those loaded cars of wool and those others filled with Diamond-Bar’s steers. For a brief moment the light seemed to pause there on the brink of the wide valley. Another second and it was dashing down upon Standing Rock. Its coming was dramatic, and it held Hobe’s attention. Suddenly the speeding circle of light was dimmed. It was rain. Not a drop had fallen, as yet, where he sat. But there, a quarter of a mile away, was the coming storm, racing the train into town. The engineer blew for the station before the rain began to spatter down in the dry dust of the street in front of the hotel. A few seconds later the big mogul engine, panting and puffing, came to a grinding stop fifteen feet from where Ferris sat. Inside the hotel things were humming. Scanlon was playing cards; Yin was hammering a staccato tune on the cash register. Two partners could hardly have been more profitably engaged. A man skulking in the shadows across the tracks wondered at the big fellow sitting there on the porch, getting wet beyond a doubt, refraining from joining the sport of his pals. He had recognized the big man as Ferris. For the second time he wondered if the foreman by any chance might be watching him. The storm became heavier. The high wind in back of it began to send the rain with such force that the wooden awning no longer offered any protection. Reluctantly, Hobe arose and went inside. The man, who had been waiting for him to go in, speedily crossed the tracks and made for the wool platform in back of the hotel. For a person of his age, he was spry. Picking up a wool hook, he noiselessly climbed over the tops of the loaded freighters until he was abreast one of the freight cars. With remarkable quickness he crawled to the top of it. Flat on his stomach he lay, peering into the darkness, trying to make certain that his movements were unwatched. The rain beat into his face so violently that he had to raise his hand to protect his eyes. His roving glance found nothing to disturb him. In the inky blackness the warehouse beside the platform bulked dark and forbidding. From its protecting shadows to where he lay now his path had not crossed any chance ray of light. Turning on his side, he surveyed the hotel. Curtains flapped in the second story windows; flickering yellow light streamed through them. The wind eddied every now and then, bidding fair to extinguish the lamps Vin had lighted; but, with the persistency of oil wicks, they fluttered on. A thankful curse escaped the man as he observed the open windows. He wondered why Vin had not been up to close them. He knew the Basque’s habits. Far down the track at the shipping pens the train crew was switching the loaded cars. Ten minutes and they would be back here, moving this very car on which he lay. Ten minutes—it was enough. He had but to walk these five loaded wool cars to sweep the interior of the Palace Hotel. If the man he sought slept within—well, it wouldn’t take ten minutes to finish this little errand. From the edge of the big freight cars he could reach out and touch the wall of the hotel. Grasping the steel hook with which he had provided himself, he began to move toward the lighted windows. Seconds slipped by as he came abreast the first window before he satisfied himself that the room was unoccupied. On hands and knees, drawing himself forward noiselessly, he crept on. An even longer time did he pause before passing the second window. He began to wonder if the man he sought had gone downstairs. He knew he had been in his room twenty minutes ago. Rather, he had believed as much, inasmuch as the man had not been in the bar. Subconsciously he became aware of the approaching engine. It drove him forward. With half the caution he had used in surveying the other rooms, he stared into the third one. Something stuck in his throat as he beheld Crosbie Traynor sound asleep on the narrow bed, his head within a foot of the window. Black hatred leaped in the man’s soul as he stared at the sleeping Traynor. This was going to be almost too easy! There had been moments in his approach to this spot in which his determination to go through with his mission had wavered; his hands had shaken. That was gone now. He not only wanted to kill, but he found himself able to restrain his desire—to snuggle it to his heart, to wait for the propitious second, to do the deed cleverly. It was a revelation to the man. He had never suspected himself of such metal. He had drawn his gun, but he put it back. Wisdom was guiding him. The long steel wool hook became his weapon. Reaching into the room with it, he picked Traynor’s belt and loaded holster from its perch on the chair beside the bed. Next he secured the hat the sleeping man had worn. The feel of it infuriated him. Savagely he ripped away the band and the gold charm snapped into it. He threw the hat back into the room. It would have pleased him to have hurled the little gold snake into the blackness, but that was the very sort of thing he had told himself a minute ago he had mastered. So the little charm went into his pocket. With the steel hook, he replaced Traynor’s gun belt, minus the gun. The engine, with its string of cattle cars, bumped into the line of cars on which he lay as he drew back from depositing the holster. For a second he wavered, fighting to regain his balance. He could hear the air shooting through the brakes. This car would be moving in another moment. A brakeman ran down alongside the train. Thanks to the rain he had not come across the tops! Some one shouted, a lantern waved, the train tensed as if to spring forward. A grinding, tearing sound, the lurching of the big car, and then the long-drawn, piercing whistle. It was for this he had waited. Reaching in through the window, he fired! Gloating, wholly evil, the murderer’s face gleamed in the streaming light. The train was moving—taking him away to safety. The sound of the shot has been lost, dimmed by the noise of the storm and the piercing blast of the whistle. He had played it to the last line! Cross Traynor had been erased. There’d be no coming back this time. He saw him half out of bed, his head on the floor—a gory relic of what had been a man. With an easy toss the killer dropped the dead man’s gun to the floor beside the body. That was the last, final touch! It made the slayer smile. “That’s that, I guess. Dead—and by his own gun, too! Cross, you’ll never come back now.” The train was gathering speed. The man flattened himself out. At the shipping pens the freight moved upon the main track. This slowing down was the awaited moment. Unseen, the man who had killed so easily slipped to the ground. The wool hook which had served him so well was tossed into the sage. Then, with sure step, he moved away in the night. This affair was a thing of the past. Who was there to question him? CHAPTER III BY HIS OWN HAND In the Palace bar all was merry. To the casual eye Scanlon might have appeared an exception, a frosted flower in a garden of flaming blooms; but even his moroseness was giving way to a sly smile. Four mysterious aces had but recently appeared in Stub Rawlings’s hand. The Scanlon bank roll had been severely injured. The source of that handful of cards had sorely troubled the red-headed boss of the Palace. He had become conscious of the storm raging without, but he had not so much as cast a glance at the streaming windows. Mr. Rawlings’s play was of greater interest. Lady Luck began to smile on the house. Scanlon’s stack of blue chips increased to dizzy heights. He now held Mr. Rawlings’s aces. He played them much better than Stub had. In fact, so well did he maneuver that when the Diamond-Bar man called, the game was over as far as Stub was concerned. In the interval Scanlon flashed questioning eyes at the windows. Impatiently then he called to Vin: “The windows, Vin! Upstairs—shut the windows! This damn place’ll be floatin’ away if you don’t.” Vin had been much the busier of the two. But that was as usual. He scowled now, though. Scanlon had been piling straws on the Basque’s back for some years. This threatened to be the one too many. Tomorrow he would brood over any damage done to the hotel; but now he was angry only with Scanlon. “Madre de Dios!” he growled. “I do all these worries for theese firm. I scrub those floors, I mak’ those bed, I wash those window—by Chris’, I not close them.” “Aw, go on, Vinnie,” the boisterous Stuffy exclaimed, “and be damn glad you ain’t livin’ in Awregon where they really got rain.” “That’s him!” Scanlon snorted. “Always tellin’ what he does round here. Jest workin’ yerself to death, ain’t yuh? Humph! If it wasn’t fer my brains we wouldn’t have no hotel.” He turned back to his game. “Let ’er rain,” he roared. “I can swim.” This indifference to their mutual prosperity seared the Basque’s soul, but he rolled up his apron and started for the stairs, the air blue with his cursing. “By damn, I soon git my own hotel, you Irish gringo!” he hurled at his partner. The crowd tittered. Vin’s troubles were well understood. A moment later the Basque was back at the head of the stairs, white of face, hands shaking. “Socorro—help! Man ees keel heemself! I guess you come like hell now, Scanlon.” A hush fell upon the crowded barroom. Little noises were stilled until only the soft slip-slip of the cards running through Scanlon’s fingers broke the silence. Sudden, or mysterious, death was quite as chilling in Standing Rock as in more sophisticated circles. The tension held for a brief spell. Hobe Ferris was the first to move. A moment later the crowd was pouring up the stairs. Traynor lay as the killer had left him—half out of bed, his gun near his lifeless hand. Scanlon bent over and examined the powder marks on the man’s forehead. “Never seen him before,” said he as he straightened up. “This is Stuffy’s room, Vin. How’d he git up here?” “Man came ’fore supper. Say he only want to sleep till the rain ees past. I say take theese room. What diff’rence eet make? Stuffy not go to baid tonight.” “You said somethin’, Vinnie. I ain’t ever goin’ to sleep in that bed.” “Dry up,” Hobe ordered. “We’d better git Doc Ritter. The doc and the old man are playin’ pinochle in his office. I saw ’em across the street. Run over and git him, Stub.” “Ain’t no need gittin’ a doctor,” Scanlon said positively. “This is a job for the coroner. The man’s as dead as a man can git. Gallup is the only one that can be of any use here.” “Yeh, I guess yo’re right, Scanlon. Fine lookin’ man, that. Wonder where he came from? Ain’t none of y’u boys ever seen him?” The crowd edged closer to the dead man; but no one seemed to remember him. “I’ll go for Gallup,” Stub offered. “He’ll sure be riled, gittin’ out of bed this time of the night. He goes to the hay with the chickens.” Stub’s going seemed to unloosen the crowd’s tongue. A dozen conjectures were voiced, and either denied or affirmed. Hobe brought them up, standing, by his discovery that no one had heard the shot which had killed the man. Scanlon turned on his partner, his mouth sagging a trifle. This thing had a queer draw to it. “Vin,” he argued, “you ain’t been out of the house. Didn’t you hear nothin’?” “I don’ hear anyt’ing. But theese señor have foony look in hees eye. Mak’ me feel leetla chill in the back. I ask hees name; Caramba! He say he ees pretty well forget how to mak’ those writings in book.” “Sort of a mysterious gent, eh?” Scanlon asked, unpleasantly. “His name’s his own business,” Hobe flared back. “He might have been considerate enough to bump hisself off somewheres else; but I pretty well wouldn’t like to have anybody tellin’ me my name wa’n’t my own business.” The Diamond-Bar foreman rightly suspected that Scanlon’s annoyance was largely due to the fact that this affair would throw a wet blanket on the spending of money. He had been waiting some three months for this harvest. Gallup, the coroner, and Stub returned at this moment, and Scanlon was saved replying to the challenge in Hobe’s words. “What’s all the trouble?” Gallup demanded when he had entered the room. “It’s a job for you, Aaron,” Ferris replied. “Vin just found him a few minutes ago.” Gallup surveyed the dead man. “Humph! Did a good job, didn’t he? Guess he wouldn’t ’a’ been no deader in the mornin’. Gittin’ so I can’t git a good night’s sleep no more.” “Yo’re still drawin’ down yore wages reg’lar, ain’t yuh?” Old Aaron wiped his nose with the back of his hand at this query from Ferris. “Sorta reg’lar, Hobe,” Gallup answered with a wise little smile. “All due to me, though. Any man that can git fifteen hundred a year out of this county has earned it. If you folks ever start raisin’ my wages I’m goin’ to quit cold.” While he talked, Gallup had been examining the dead man’s clothes and his gun. “This bird sure knew what he was doin’,” he muttered. “Ain’t a mark on him to identify him. Queer old gun he used. Well, we got men enough here. I guess I’ll swear you in and git done right now.” “We’re shy one, Aaron,” said Hobe. “Where’s Johnny? Ought to have him, he’s so up on these things.” “Him and Tony’s over to the Bud. They’ll be comin’ soon as the news gits round.” “I got enough,” Aaron answered. “Johnny Dice ain’t law-abidin’ no more, anyhow.” Without further delay he began swearing them to the truth. Before he had finished the jingle of spur chains below caught Scanlon’s ear. “There’s someone now.” He went to the stairs and looked down. “Say, Johnny, you’re just in time. Need another man up here.” “Surest thing, old dear. What’s the limit?” “No limit. It’s a dead man. Gallup’s here.” “Do I know him?” demanded Johnny. “No one’s ever clapped eyes on him ’cept Vin. But he don’t know nothin’, either.” Johnny had stopped to shake the rain from his hat. He turned now to Madeiras. “Come on, Tony. What you grumblin’ about?” Tony smiled. “I t’ought Scanlon say Gallup ees daid.” “You sound disappointed. What you cookin’ up for old Aaron?” “You forget my name, Johnny. I am a Madeiras. There ees lots of Madeiras.” “Still thinkin’ ’bout that, eh? You best tell your people not to borrow no money from Aaron. He’s a money hound, boy. I tell yuh he knows those gents on the greenbacks personal.” Tony tapped his chest. “Somet’ings we don’t forget, Johnny.” They were upstairs by this time. Aaron scowled at the Basque, but he chose him in preference to Johnny. “One of you is all I need,” the old man muttered. Johnny was defeated, but not stilled. “They certainly keep you busy, don’t they, Aaron?” he asked provokingly. “That’ll be enough talk from you, Johnny,” Gallup snapped. “If you want to stay in the room you keep still.” “Serves me right. The idea of a loose character like me tryin’ to edge in on the law! Ain’t no hard feelin’s on my part, Aaron.” The old man ignored this sally. “Now, Vinnie, you tell us how you found this man,” he began in a more or less official manner. Vin explained how he had come up to close the windows, and so forth. “You hain’t touched nothin’?” “No, I call downstairs right away I see he ees daid.” “Humph! Nobody here knows this man, either, eh?” He cleared his throat importantly. “Well, gentlemen, there don’t seem to be no use wastin’ any more time. This man came here intendin’ to kill himself. It ain’t accidental-like for a man to go round without some mark of identification on him. He cut off every sign by which he might be traced. He’s got his watch and his money; so it wa’n’t robbery. And you all see where the powder burned his forehead. The gun’s there on the floor, just where he dropped it, too. Guess that makes the answer plain. Best you bring in the usual verdict; death by his own hand, this day and date. That agreed?” A muttered chorus of assenting grunts greeted him as he began making out the death certificate. “Say, Aaron,” Johnny interrupted. “There’s somethin’ under the bed. The man’s hat, I reckon.” Aaron glanced at him over the rims of his glasses. “Why don’t you wait a little longer? You ain’t tongue-tied, be yuh?” “You told me to shut up.” “Little good comes from tellin’ you.” The old man grunted as he crawled beneath the bed to recover the hat. “It’s a hat, all right,” he grumbled. “His hat, no doubt. Ain’t a mark on it, though.” He held it up for his jury to gaze at it. “Jest about proves what I contend. The man wanted to die unidentified.” Tony Madeiras’s eyes bulged as he saw the hat Gallup held aloft. Pushing his way forward he took the hat in his hand. Gallup watched him closely. “Son of a gun!” Madeiras exclaimed slowly and turned to face his friends. “I change my min’ about those daid man. I know thees hat!” “What?” exclaimed Johnny. “Sí. I know thees hat. Only t’ree, four days ago I see eet.” “Yeh!” There was open doubt of the Basque puncher’s word in the coroner’s voice. “You remember a hat without a band or mark on it that you saw three or four days ago? It ain’t even a grown-up hat. It’s just a little runt of a thing. But you remember it, Madeiras?” Tony’s eyes narrowed as he answered the old man. “I said I remember theese hat.” “Well, you’ve got some memory, bosco.” Big Hobe put his hand upon Gallup’s shoulder as the coroner gave tongue to the western term of contempt for the Basque. “Listen here, Aaron. You won’t make no friends for yoreself with that kind of talk. This Diamond-Bar bunch don’t exactly like to hear Tony called a bosco. It ain’t good for the health to say it more than once. You git that? Now if Tony allows he remembers that hat it ain’t up to you to call him a liar.” “That’s all right, Hobe,” Tony smiled. “Maybe some time he find out my people have pretty damn good memory. What he thinks, I don’t care. But for you, Hobe: last Monday I was on the North Fork. Evening time I come down to the river. Theese man be there. He have plenty hair on hees face then. Big whiskers. He spik Spanish. Ask lots of question. Me, I ask some, too. He come long ways theese man.” “You find out his name?” “Tony Madeiras don’ ask man hees name.” “Good for you, Tony,” Johnny called. “It ain’t bein’ done.” Gallup turned on Johnny with face flaming. “If I hear any more talk from you, out you go. This is your crowd, but the law is the law, and I ain’t goin’ to stand no impudence from you.” Doc Ritter and Jackson Kent came in as Gallup admonished Johnny. The coroner nodded to Kent. “Maybe you can put some sense into him,” he said, pointing to Johnny Dice. “What’s the matter, Johnny?” asked Kent. “We just heard a man had killed himself up here.” “Nothin’ the matter with me. Gallup’s runnin’ things here. And he ain’t makin’ no hit with it, either. Hobe had to call him a minute ago.” “Mr. Gallup’s a good man, boys. Don’t rear and tear too much. Jest what is wrong, Aaron?” When Gallup had finished explaining; the Diamond-Bar owner did his best to restore harmony. “Now you go on, Tony, and tell the coroner what you know,” he said, pleadingly. “We don’t want no run-in with the law.” “That’s sense,” Gallup seconded. “If you saw this man, and talked with him, tell us what he said.” “Well, he say—er—he say——” Johnny Dice was coughing so violently that Tony could not go on. The Basque turned on his pal questioningly. Johnny was bent nearly double; but Tony caught the wink and the slight shake of the head which were meant for him. He started to speak again: “Well, he say how ees the cattle? How ees the water? How ees the sheep? How ees——” “I don’t care about that,” Gallup growled. “Did he say anythin’ that has any bearin’ on this case? We ain’t interested in anythin’ else.” “No—I guess not. All he say ees how ees these, how ees that?” “Then all this talk’s been for nothin’. What do you say, men? Are you satisfied it’s suicide or not? Raise your hands if you are.” Tony saw that Johnny was telling him to say yes. When the Basque’s hand went up, Gallup turned to Doc Ritter. “Here’s your papers, doc. Take the body any time you want to.” Aaron scrawled his signature and handed the certificate to the town’s doctor and undertaker. Gallup read aloud: “Party unknown. Died this 4th of October by his own hand; no reason given. The foregoing being the sworn verdict of the jury convened by me on this day and date. “(Signed) Aaron Gallup, “Coroner of Shoshone County, State of Nevada.” Aaron paused to glance at his listeners. “There it is, gentlemen; in my own hand.” He smiled superiorly. “Somebody count the man’s money and we’ll adjourn.” He glanced at Kent, but the old man was staring at the body. “You oblige me, Jackson?” Gallup asked. “No,” he muttered; “let Doc do it. I don’t fancy counting a dead man’s money.” Old Aaron smiled. “All right,” he drawled patiently. “Guess Doc ain’t so finicky. He knows that dead men don’t hurt no one.”