The Rules of the Game Part 107

Bob bounded to his feet. Ware had whirled in his tracks, had crouched, and was glaring fixedly across the openings at the forks. The revolver smoked in his hand.

"Oh, are you hurt? Are you hurt?" Amy was crying over and over, as, regardless of the stiff manzanita and the spiny deer brush, she tore her way down the hill.

"All right! All right!" Bob found his breath to a.s.sure her.

She stopped short, clenched her hands at her sides, and drew a deep, sobbing breath. Then, quite collectedly, she began to disentangle herself from the difficulties into which her haste had precipitated her.

"It's all right," she called to Ware. "He's gone. He's run."

Still tense, Ware rose to his full height. He let down the hammer of his six-shooter, and dropped the weapon back in its holster.

"What was it, Amy?" he asked, as the girl rejoined them.

"Saleratus Bill," she panted. "He had his gun in his hand."

Bob was looking about him a trifle bewildered.

"I thought for a minute I was. .h.i.t," said he.

"I knocked you down to _get_ you down," explained Ware. "If there's shooting going on, it's best to get low."

"Thought I was shot," confessed Bob. "I heard two shots."

"I fired twice," said Ware. "Thought sure I must have hit, or he'd have fired back. Otherwise I'd a' kept shooting. You say he run?"

"Immediately. Didn't you see him?"

"I just cut loose at the noise he made. Why do you suppose he didn't shoot?"

"Maybe he wasn't gunning for us after all," suggested Bob.

"Maybe you've got another think coming," said Ware.

During this short exchange they were all three moving down the wagon trail. Ware's keen old eyes were glancing to right, left and ahead, and his ears fairly twitched. In spite of his conversation and speculations, he was fully alive to the possibilities of further danger.

"He maybe's laying for us yet," said Bob, as the thought finally occurred to him. "Better have your gun handy."

"My gun's always handy," said Ware.

"You're bearing too far south," interposed the girl. "He was more up this way."

"Don't think it," said Ware.

"Yes," she insisted. "I marked that young fir near where I first saw him; and he ran low around that clump of manzanita."

Still skeptical, Ware joined her.

"That's right," he admitted, after a moment. "Here's his trail. I'd have swore he was farther south. That's where I fired. I only missed him by about a hundred yards," he grinned. "He sure made a mighty tall sneak.

I'm still figuring why he didn't open fire."

"Waiting for a better chance, maybe," suggested Amy.

"Must be. But what better chance does he want, unless he aims to get Bob here, with a club?"

They followed the tracks left by Saleratus Bill until it was evident beyond doubt that the gun-man had in reality departed. Then they started to retrace their steps.

"Why not cut across?" asked Bob.

"I want to see whereabouts I _was_ shooting," said Ware.

"We'll cut across and wait for you on the road."

"All right," Ware agreed.

They made their short-cut, and waited. After a minute or so Ware shouted to them.

"Hullo!" Bob answered.

"Come here!"

They returned down the dusty mill road. Just beyond the forks Ware was standing, looking down at some object. As they approached he raised his face to them. Even under its tan, it was pale.

"Guess this is another case of innocent bystander," said he gravely.

Flat on his back, arms outstretched in the dust, lay Oldham, with a bullet hole accurately in the middle of his forehead.

x.x.xV

"Good heavens!" cried Amy. "What an awful thing!"

"Yes, ma'am," said Ware; "this is certainly tough. But I can't see but it was a plumb accident. Who'd have thought he'd be coming along the road just at that minute."

"Of course, you're not to blame," Amy rea.s.sured him quickly. "We must get help. Of course, he's quite dead."

Ware nodded, gazing down at his victim reflectively.

"I was shootin' a little high," he remarked at last.

Up to this moment Bob had said nothing.

"If it will relieve your mind, any," he told Ware, "it isn't such a case of innocent bystander as you may think. This man is the one who hired Saleratus Bill to abduct me in the first place; and probably to kill me in the second. I have a suspicion he got what he deserved."

"Oh!" cried Amy, looking at him reproachfully.