Partners of Chance Part 36

"Won't do no good, pardner." And without waiting for Bartley to say anything more, Cheyenne stepped up to him and held out his hand. "So long," he said.

"Well, good luck!" replied Bartley, and shook hands with him heartily.

"I hope you win."

Cheyenne gestured toward the door. Bartley stepped out into the hallway.

The light in the room flickered out.

"I reckon you'll be goin' back to your hotel," said Cheyenne. "Wait.

I'll just step down first."

At the foot of the stairs Cheyenne paused and glanced up and down the street. Directly across the way the Hole-in-the-Wall was ablaze with light. A few doors east of the gambling-hall an indistinct group of riders sat their horses as though waiting for some one. Cheyenne drew back into the shadows of the hallway.

Bartley peered out over Cheyenne's shoulder. From up the street in the opposite direction came the distant click of boot-heels. A figure strode swiftly toward the patch of white light in front of the gambling-hall.

"Just stand back a little, pardner," said Cheyenne.

Bartley felt his heart begin to thump as Cheyenne gently loosened his gun in the holster.

"It's Panhandle!" whispered Bartley, as the figure of Sears was silhouetted against the lighted windows of the place opposite.

Out of the shadows where the riders waited came a single, abrupt word, peremptory, incisive: "Panhandle!"

Panhandle, about to turn into the lighted doorway, stopped short.

Sneed had called to Panhandle; but it was Posmo the Mexican who rode forward to meet him. Sneed, close behind Posmo, watched to see that the Mexican carried out his instructions, which were simply to tell Panhandle to get his horse and leave town with them. Seeing the group behind the Mexican, Panhandle's first thought was that Posmo had betrayed him to the authorities. It _was_ Posmo. Panhandle recognized the Mexican's pinto horse.

Enraged by what he thought was a trap, and with drunken contempt for the man he had cheated, Panhandle jerked out his gun and fired at the Mexican; fired again at the bulky figure behind Posmo, and staggered back as a slug shattered his shoulder. Cursing, he swung round and emptied his gun into the blur of riders that separated and spread across the street, returning his fire from the vantage of the shadows. Flinging his empty gun at the nearest rider, Panhandle lurched toward the doorway where Cheyenne and Bartley stood watching. He had almost made the curb when he lunged and fell. He rose and tried to crawl to the shelter of the doorway. One of Sneed's men spurred forward and shot Panhandle in the back. He sank down, his body twitching.

Bartley gasped as he saw the rider deliberately throw another shot into the dying man. Then Cheyenne's arm jerked up. The rider swerved and pitched from the saddle. Another of Sneed's men crossed the patch of light, and a splinter ripped from the door-casing where Cheyenne stood.

Cheyenne's gun came down again and the rider pitched forward and fell.

His horse galloped down the street. Again Cheyenne fired, and again.

Then, in the sudden stillness that followed, Cheyenne stepped out and dragged Panhandle into the hallway. Some one shouted. A window above the saloon opposite was raised. Doors opened and men came out, questioning each other, gathering in a group in front of the Hole-in-the-Wall.

Stunned by the sudden shock of events, the snakelike flash of guns in the semi-darkness, and the realization that several men had been gravely wounded, perhaps killed, Bartley heard Cheyenne's voice as though from a distance.

Cheyenne's hand was on Bartley's arm. "Come on. The game is closed for the night."

As they stepped from the doorway a man stopped them and asked what had happened.

"We're goin' for a doctor," said Cheyenne. "Somebody got hurt."

Hastening along the shadowy wall of the building, they turned a corner and by a roundabout way reached the city marshal's office.

The marshal, who had been summoned in haste, was at his desk. "Sneed and his bunch got Panhandle," stated Cheyenne quietly. "Mr. Bartley, here, saw the row. Four of Sneed's men are down. One got away."

"Sure it was Sneed?"

"I reckon your men will fetch him in, right soon. Panhandle got Sneed and a Mexican, before they stopped him."

Colonel Stevenson glanced at Cheyenne's belt and holster. Cheyenne drew his gun and handed it to the marshal. "She's fresh loaded," he said.

"Cheyenne emptied his gun trying to fight off the men who killed Panhandle," said Bartley, stepping forward.

"And you're sure they were Sneed's men?" queried the marshal.

Cheyenne nodded.

"I am obliged to you," said the marshal. "But I'll have to detain you both until after the inquest."

CHAPTER XXV

TWO TRAILS HOME

Bartley was the chief witness at the inquest. He told his story in a manner that impressed the coroner's jury. Senator Brown was present, and identified one of the dead outlaws as Sneed. Posmo, killed by Panhandle's first shot, was known in Phoenix. Panhandle, riddled with bullets, was also identified by the Senator, Cheyenne, and several habitues of the gambling-hall. Bartley himself identified the body of one man as that of Hull.

Cheyenne was the last witness called. He admitted that he had had trouble with Panhandle Sears, and that he was looking for him when the fight started; that Sneed and his men had unexpectedly taken the quarrel out of his hands, and that he had fired exactly five shots at the men who had killed Panhandle and it had been close work, and easy. Panhandle had put up a game fight. The odds had been heavily against him. He had been standing in the light of the gambling-hall doorway while the men who had killed him had been in the shadow. "He didn't have a chance,"

concluded Cheyenne.

"You say you were looking for this man Sears, and yet you took his part against Sneed's outfit?" queried the coroner.

"I didn't just say so. Mr. Bartley said that."

"Mr. Bartley seems to be the only disinterested witness of the shooting," observed the coroner.

"If there is any further evidence needed to convince the jury that Mr.

Bartley's statements are impartial and correct, you might read this,"

declared the city marshal. "It is the antemortem statement of one of Sneed's men, taken at the hospital at three-fifteen this morning. He died at four o'clock."

The coroner read the statement aloud. Ten minutes later the verdict was given. The deceased, named severally, had met death by gunshot wounds, _at the hands of parties unknown_.

It was a caustic verdict, intended for the benefit of the cattle-and horse-thieves of the Southwest. It conveyed the hint that the city of Phoenix was prompt to resent the presence of such gentry within its boundaries. One of the daily papers commented upon the fact that "the parties unknown" must have been fast and efficient gunmen. Cheyenne's name was not mentioned, and that was due to the influence of the marshal, Senator Brown, and the mayor, which left readers of the papers to infer that the police of Phoenix had handled the matter themselves.

Through the evidence of the outlaw who had survived long enough to make a statement, the Box-S horses were traced to a ranch in the neighborhood of Tucson, identified, and finally returned to their owner.

The day following the inquest, Bartley and Cheyenne left Phoenix, with Fort Apache as their first tentative destination, and with the promise of much rugged and wonderful country in between as an incentive to journey again with his companion, although Bartley needed no special incentive. At close range Bartley had beheld the killing of several men.

And he could not free himself from the vision of Panhandle crawling toward him in the patch of white light, the flitting of hors.e.m.e.n back and forth, and the red flash of six-guns. Bartley was only too anxious to leave the place.

It was not until they were two days out of Phoenix that Cheyenne mentioned the fight--and then he did so casually, as though seeking an opinion from his comrade.

Bartley merely said he was glad Cheyenne had not killed Panhandle.

Cheyenne pondered a while, riding loosely, and gazing down at the trail.