The Heart of the Range Part 44

Racey's hands were folded on the horn of his saddle. Thompson's right hand hung at his side. Racey had told the truth when he spoke of Thompson as a good snap shot. He was all of that. And he was fairly quick on the draw as well. It would seem that, taking into consideration the position of Thompson's right hand, that Thompson had a shade the better of it. Racey thought so. But he hoped, nevertheless, by shooting through the bottom of his holster, to plant at least one bullet in Thompson before the latter killed him.

The decision lay with Thompson. Would he elect to fight? Racey could almost see the thoughts at conflict behind Thompson's frontal bone.

Mr. Saltoun, hoping against hope, sat tensely silent. Racey's eyes held Thompson's steadily.

Slowly, inch by inch, Thompson's right hand moved upward--and away from the gun b.u.t.t. He gathered his reins in his left hand and with his. .h.i.therto menacing right he tilted his hat forward and began to scratch the back of his head.

"If you don't mean more'n you say," offered Thompson, "you don't mean much."

"Which is all the way you look at it," said Racey.

"And a d.a.m.n good way, too," nipped in Mr. Saltoun, hurriedly, inwardly cursing Racey for not letting well enough alone. "What was the fight about, Thompson?"

"Cards," said Thompson, laconically, switching his eyes briefly to Mr.

Saltoun's face.

"And the stranger cold-decked him?" inquired Racey.

"Something like that, but I can't say for sh.o.r.e. I wasn't playing with him. Doc Coffin was, and so was Honey Hoke and Peaches Austin. Peaches said he kind of had an idea the stranger dealt himself a card from the bottom just before old Dale started to crawl his hump. But Peaches ain't sh.o.r.e about it. Seemin'ly old Dale is the only one was sh.o.r.e, and he's dead."

"And yo're going for the coroner, huh?" asked Racey.

"I said so."

"But you didn't say if anybody was chasing the stranger now. Are they?"

"Sh.o.r.e," was the prompt reply. "They all took out after him--all except McFluke, that is."

Racey nodded. "I expect McFluke would want to stay with Dale," he said, gently, "just as you'd want to go to Farewell after the coroner.

Yo're sh.o.r.e it is the coroner, Thompson?"

"Say, how many times do you want me to tell you?" demanded the badgered Thompson. "Of course it's the coroner. In a case like this the coroner's gotta be notified."

"I expect," a.s.sented Racey. "I expect. But if yo're really goin' for the coroner, Thompson, what made you tell us when you first met us you were going for the sheriff?"

"Why," said Thompson without a quiver, "I'm a-goin' for him, too. I must 'a' forgot to say so at first."

"Yeah, I guess you did." Thus Racey, annoyed that Thompson had contrived to crawl through the fence. He had hoped that Thompson might be tempted to a demonstration, for which potentiality he, Racey, had prepared by removing his right hand from the saddle horn.

"It don't always pay to forget, Thompson," suggested Mr. Saltoun, coldly.

"It don't," Thompson a.s.sented readily. "And I don't--most always."

"Don't stay here any longer on our account, Thompson," said Racey.

"You've told us about enough."

"Try and remember it," Thompson bade him, and lifted his reins.

"We will, and, on the other hand, don't you forget yore sheriff and yore coroner."

"I won't," grinned Thompson and rode past and away.

"He ain't goin' for the sheriff and the coroner any more'n I am,"

declared Mr. Saltoun, disgustedly, turning in the saddle to gaze after the vanis.h.i.+ng horseman.

"Of course he ain't!" almost barked Racey. "In this country fellers like Thompson don't ride h.e.l.lbent just to tell the sheriff and the coroner a feller has been killed. Murder ain't any such e-vent as all that. Unless," he added, thoughtfully, "Thompson is the stranger."

"You mean Thompson might 'a' killed him?"

"I don't think it would spoil his appet.i.te any. You remember how fast he was pelting along down in the wash, and how he slowed up after seeing us? A murderer would act just thataway."

Mr. Saltoun nodded. "A gent can't do anything on guesswork," he said, bromidically. "Facts are what count."

"You'll find before we get to the bottom of this business," observed Racey, sagely, "that guesswork is gonna lead us to a whole heap of facts."

"I hope so," Mr. Saltoun said, uncomfortably conscious that the death of Dale might seriously complicate the lifting of the mortgage.

Racey was no less uncomfortable, and for the same reason. He felt sure that the killing of Dale had been inspired in order to settle once for all the future of the Dale ranch. No wonder Luke Tweezy had been so positive in his a.s.sertion that Old Man Saltoun would not lend any money to Dale. The latter had been marked for death at the time.

Despite the fact that Tweezy and Harpe were at last being seen together in public, thus indicating that the "deal," to quote Pooley's letter to Tweezy, had been "sprung," Racey doubted that the murder formed part of Jacob Pooley's "absolutely safe" plan for forcing out Dale. While in some ways the murder might be considered sufficiently safe, the method of it and the act itself did not smack of Pooley's handiwork. It was much more probable that the killing was the climax of Luke Tweezy's original plan adhered to by the attorney and his friends against the advice and wishes of Jacob Pooley.

"Guess we'd better go on to McFluke's," was Racey's suggestion.

They went.

"Looks like they got back mighty soon from chasing the stranger,"

said Racey, when they came in sight of the place, eying the number of horses tied to the hitching-rail.

"Maybe they got him quick," Mr. Saltoun offered, sardonically.

They rode on and added their horses to the tail-switching string in front of the saloon. Racey did not fail to note that none of the other horses gave any evidence of having been ridden either hard or lately.

Which, in the face of Thompson's a.s.sertion that the men he left behind had ridden in pursuit of the murderer, seemed rather odd. Or perhaps it was not so odd, looking upon it from another angle.

The saloon, when they had ridden up, had been quiet as the well-known grave. It remained equally silent when they entered.

McFluke, behind the bar, wearing a black eye and a puffed nose, nodded to them civilly. In chairs ranged round the walls sat an a.s.sortment of men--Peaches Austin, Luke Tweezy, Jack Harpe, Doc Coffin, Honey Hoke, and Lanpher. The latter was nursing a slung right arm. They were all there, the men mentioned by name by Thompson as having been in the place when Dale was killed.

"What is this, a graveyard meetin'?" asked Racey of McFluke, glancing from the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude to McFluke and smiling slightly. It was no part of wisdom, thought Racey, to let these men know of his encounter with Thompson. He had Thompson's story. He was anxious to hear theirs.

'"A graveyard meeting,'" repeated the saloon-keeper. "Well, and that's what it is in a manner of speaking."

Racey stared. "I bite. What's the answer?"

The saloon-keeper cleared his throat. "Old Dale's been killed."

"Has, huh? Who killed him?" Racey allowed his eyes casually to skim the expressionless faces of the men backed against the walls.

"A stranger killed him," replied McFluke, heavily.

Racey removed his eyes from the slack-chinned countenance of the saloon-keeper to thin-faced, foxy-nosed Luke Tweezy. Luke's little eyes met his.