Smoke of the .45. Harry Sinclair Drago

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