Riders West (Musaicum Vintage Western). Ernest Haycox

he leaped aside. Bellew thought distantly: "The fool is drawing on me," and brushed the skirts of his coat away from his gun's butt. A swelling roar drove all the silence of the town up beyond the housetops, and those peaked roofs seemed to come crashing down. A snake-head of dust sprang in front of him, and a hard, fierce sense of pleasure flowed along his fibers from knowing he survived the shot. He brought his weapon swiftly forward and fired twice on the plaque-like silhouette ahead, There was a tumbling rush of bodies in the Golden Bull. Jubilee was in the play now, for Jubilee's metal order beat across the street to check somebody's advance: "Get back there, you!"

      Bellew, motionless, said into space: "Careful, Jubilee, there's another one." The figure before him swayed, called weakly, "That's it, I guess." Then fell and turned shapelessly still on the dust.

      Bellew called again to Jubilee: "Watch for the other one." He walked forward, stood directly above the fallen gunman. The sleepiness of Trail was gone, and people were running up from all its quarters, to make a discreet gallery along the walks.

      "Somebody get a lantern," he muttered.

      Jubilee came back in long, unhurried strides. "I saw that other mug when I came out the door. He faded on the run. What've we got here?"

      "I walked into it," said Bellew slowly. "But it was meant for you. Bring that lantern here."

      The crowd stood back, cautious of sudden shots out of the dark. But one lantern made a gleaming, restless wake forward—that was Townsite Jackson coming up. He swung the light down against the prone body.

      "Tom Addis," said Jubilee, surprised. "What in thunder was he sore about? This is queer."

      "He and his partner were on that train," reflected Bellew. "They belonged to those saddles I saw. A nice trick. Use your head, Jubilee. He didn't have to be sore. He was obeying orders."

      "Well," mused Jubilee, "here's the end of something."

      "No," put in Townsite gravely, "the beginning of something."

      "That's right," assented Bellew. Then he added a very quiet phrase: "I'm sorry for this poor lad."

      Only Townsite and Jubilee heard that. Jubilee watched Bellew with a strangely blank expression. His arm fell lightly on Bellew's shoulder. "Might of been you, Dan."

      Bellew stared at his partner, but looked quickly away. "Solano!"

      Solano's exhausted voice came from a hidden alley. "Yeah."

      "I thought I told you to keep an eye on the station."

      "Wasn't nothing there," said Solano positively.

      Nan Avery, leaving the store, stepped directly into the full shock of it. The sound of the shooting leaped at her, the wake of a passing bullet passed across her face. Not comprehending, she did the natural thing and shrank back against the wall. Looking around, she saw the two of them planted in the street, both motionless, both speechless; and then the sense of all this went through her, actually shaking her body. The nearer man sighed, a sound more horrible than anything in her experience. He said faintly, "That's it, I guess," and fell in a wheeling, dreadful motion. After that Bellew's rapid "Watch for the other one" identified him to her for the first time.

      He came forward from the obscurity and stood with his head slightly bowed. Townsite passed with the lantern, and then Nan observed Bellew's face rather clearly. It was very sober, very calm. Other men were talking, but she paid no attention to what they said. A bit of powder smoke drifted back and left a definite taste on her palate, strengthening her feeling of physical sickness. The fallen man never moved again; he lay sprawled there without dignity, without shape, one hand stretched out in a vain reaching. It was all so merciless, so savage. The slow conversation that went on seemed to have no sympathy in it, no regret. Looking up again to Bellew and vainly hoping to find the established coldness breaking into a more humane expression, all the bitter resentment at a heartless world swept through her and found an outlet. She straightened from the wall, calling directly to Bellew:

      "You—you killer!"

      His face came quickly up, but she saw it only in blurred outline. Wheeling, she ran confusedly across the square and into the hotel. Major Cleary still sat in his easy chair, though upright. When she passed him he said:

      "Who was it?" Halfway up the stairs she heard a woman's voice follow her, arresting and imperative. Going defensively about, she found the girl Helen framed in the doorway. The boyish body was straight with anger, the olive face pale—so pale that the deeply black eyes made a burning impression against it. The vivid lips parted.

      "Until you know more about this country," said Helen, words rushing violently across the barren lobby, "and until you know more about Dan Bellew, keep your mouth shut!"

      Major Cleary bawled out: "Get out of my place, Garcia!"

      The girl turned impetuously on him. "You—you're no better than any other St. Cloud man! Why don't you tell people how you play his crooked game!" She looked back at Nan, stormy, shaken by her own feelings. Then she flung herself around and disappeared, the sound of her hurried steps striking into dead silence.

      Nan pulled herself up the stairs. Soon in bed, she couldn't sleep. The images of what she had seen palpitated across the darkness in stark and terrifying distinctness, like a nightmare dream. Lying there, she had the sensation of the cruel weight of this land pressing down on her, smothering her.

      CHAPTER III.

       THE CHARMING SINNER

       Table of Contents

      Dan Bellew walked through the thickening crowd and across the square to Townsite's store, feeling his nerves loosen and grow ragged. It was, he realized distantly, the inevitable after-punishment a man took for throwing his past and future into one debatable moment of time. All the sounds and sensations of the fight remained with him, and the last scene—of Tom Addis lying on the earth like a vagrant shadow—was etched in his mind with an intaglio sharpness. Thinking of it, his eyes assumed a somber, smoky coloration. Townsite and Jubilee noticed that the moment they followed Dan into the store.

      Townsite, older and wiser, said nothing; he began a little chore of whittling plug tobacco for his pipe. But Jubilee, whose thoughts always ran parallel to those of his partner, cast a keen glance at Dan and broke the spell.

      "He was free, white, and twenty-one. He had his plain choice, and he chose to make the fight. Forget it: Might of been you, Dan."

      "I'm sorry for him," said Dan, profoundly regretful.

      Townsite drawled: "A man always goes through these scraps twice. Durin' the shootin' and after the shootin'. Second time is hardest."

      "I should have moved into the play sooner," said Dan, reviewing each step of the way. "I caught him too late, after he was set. He was in no frame of mind to back up. I'm sorry for that. It wasn't his personal fight—it was the fight of the man that ordered him to Trail." His temper rose and rubbed the words. "There's something else to put on Neel St. Cloud's record."

      "You sure?" questioned Jubilee.

      "Not the slightest doubt of his part in this," answered Bellew. "He's not sure he can muster the votes to put his thugs in office. So he's going to the gun."

      Townsite removed his pipe, bent over the counter. "We can't let him, boys. It'll be a taste of raw meat for him and his kind. Once the wild ones climb the saddle, this valley will be bloody ground, I'm telling you."

      Jubilee squatted on a sugar sack, shook tobacco in a brown paper. He threw back his angular, sorrel head and surveyed the others slantwise. "Well, first shot has been fired."

      "There will be more," observed Bellew, very quiet. "The break's been made. It can't be stopped—not short of a decisive defeat for one side or the other."

      Townsite's bearded face waggled slowly from side to side. He muttered forebodingly: "I hate to think of the next ten days."

      "Why