"Yu meant to kill King although yu knowed what he had just done was an accident?" Slype said quickly.
"I certainly did," Sudden said, and there was a flicker of a smile on his grim lips. "Did yu suppose I wanted to congratulate him?" The faint amusement faded from his face. "Listen to me, Slype; this was Burdette's fourth try at puttin' me outa business. First, King sends his gunman, Whitey, an' when he fails to turn the trick, Mart bushwhacks me at Dark Canyon, an' yu nearly hang Luce for it. Then another of his men, Riley there, pushes me in the Sluice an' sends a couple o' slugs after me for company."
The deputy sprang to his feet. "That's..."
"The truth--an' yu know it," Sudden said sternly. "On the top o' that, King carries off Miss Purdie."
"Bah! She warn't in no danger," the marshal sneered. "He was just usin' her to collect his debt from her father."
Purdie stepped forward, his face flaming. "There yu lie in yore throat, Slippery," he cried. "All I owed the Circle B could be paid with a bullet. Burdette's word to me was that unless I made over my ranch an' cattle to him he'd throw my daughter to his men."
The statement brought forth oaths of surprise and indignation from the audience. Rough, uncultured, hard-shelled as these men were, they possessed the instinctive respect of their type for the weaker sex, be she never such a poor example of it. The marshal saw the effect created and hastened to destroy it.
"Sheer bluff," he asserted. "Burdette wanted to git yu on yore knees without a battle. But we're driftin' from the point, which is this; ever since this fella Green appeared this town's had trouble, an' he's bin the hub of it. I reckon yu gotta git a new foreman, Purdie."
"Meanin' yu aim to run him out?" the rancher asked. "I'll see yu in hell first."
The marshal stood up, his thin, rodent-like jaws working. "I'm lettin' yu down easy," he rasped. "This yer town stood for Burdette's bullying, but it ain't goin' to stand for yores. Sabe?"
A confirming growl told him he had struck the right note. Sudden, sardonically scanning the coarse, savage faces around the room, saw that, for the moment, the marshal was on top. He knew the shallow minds of these men, easily stirred to passion, and jealous of their rights as free and independent citizens. He knew too the swift certainty with which they would strike when once they had come to a decision. He glanced at Purdie and guessed his thought; the C P owner was wishing he had brought more of his outfit. Ere the stinging retort which might have precipitated a fracas could leave the rancher's lips, the foreman interposed.
"How long yu givin' me to leave, marshal?" he quietly asked.
The puncher's friends could scarcely believe their ears. Slype's expression was one of mingled triumph and amazement; he had not looked for so easy a victory. The fellow was a four-flusher after all. He laughed evilly.
`Yu got till sundown; after that, yore stay is liable to be plenty permanent," he answered.
Someone sniggered at the. gibe. Bill Yago opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking when he caught his foreman's eye. Weldon, the blacksmith, moved as though about to say something, but changed his mind when Sudden shook his head. Leaning indolently against the wall, his thumbs tucked in his belt, the man who had been so unceremoniously told to "pull his freight" looked at the ring of faces. Many of them were hard and hostile, others contemptuous, while all expressed curiosity. Deliberately he got out his "makings," rolled a cigarette and lighted it. He dropped the match, placed his foot upon it, and straightened up as though he had reached a decision.
"Good enough, marshal, that'll give me time to complete what I came to these parts to do," he said. Holding open one flap of his vest, he disclosed a metal star sewn on the inside. "Yu know what that is?" he questioned. They all did, and a ripple of surprise ran through the spectators. What was a United States deputy-sheriff doing in Windy? Upon Slype the appearance of an officer whose authority far exceeded his own fell like an avalanche. Half-dazed, he heard the C P foreman explain that he had been sent to investigate the Black Burdettes, tales of whose plunderings for a hundred miles round had come to the Governor's ears. This statement restored the marshal to normality; the Battle Butte gang was broken, the deputy's work was done; he, the marshal, had nothing to fear from him. Satisfied on this point, he began to bluster.
"Why didn't yu come to me right away an' declare yoreself?" he asked. "I could 'a' helped yu."
Sudden smiled mirthlessly. "Yu did, but I ain't thankin' yu," he replied. "When yu bumped off Mart Burdette ..."
The marshal jumped as though jerked with a string. "Why, I was in the bar there when the fight ended," he protested.
"Yu left before he did, an' turned my hoss loose so that I'd be delayed, which would help when yu tried to throw suspicion on me," Sudden replied evenly. "Raw work, marshal."
"All damn nonsense," Slype sneered. "Mart was a friend."
"An' so was Sim, huh? Yet yu shot him down under a flag o' truce in the fight at the Circle B," the cold voice continued.
The hiss of indrawn breath betokened the amazement of the spectators of this strange scene. Save for the scuffle of restless feet as men leant forward, there' was little sound. All eyes were focused on the man in the chair, who from being accuser had so swiftly become the accused.
The marshal's laugh was not convincing. "Musta bin a wonderful shot," he said, "seein' I was in town an' asleep at the time, Purdie not havin' asked for my assistance."
This remark caused some merriment, but the puncher's next statement stilled it.
"I saw yu at the moment yu fired," he said.
"That goes for me too," came the wheezy, cracked voice of California. "Shore thought yu was on Purdie's side an' that mebbe yu didn't notice the flag."
The marshal's agile brain was racing. How much did this damned interloper know? He must gain time to think.
"Might as well claim I wiped out King too while yo're about it," he sneered.
"Not exactly, but yu had to do with it," Sudden returned. "He came straight from yore office to `The Plaza,' an' I figure you sent him in search o' me, hopin' we'd kill one another."
Slippery shrugged his shoulders disdainfully; the needed flash of inspiration had come, and he thought he saw a way out. He turned to the waiting, breathless company.
"Well, boys, I s'pose I gotta explain," he began. "For quite a while I've knowed the Burdettes was bad medicine --robbers, rustlers, an' killers."
"But friends o' yores," came the acid reminder.
The marshal achieved a passable chuckle. "I let 'em think so," he said. "A fella what represents the law don't allus have to show his hand; yu didn't yoreself, Green." A sly glance at his hearers told him he had scored a point. "I kept cases on 'em an' waited for opportunities. Some o' yu may think it was a sneaky way o' doin', but, when yu go after a wolf yu don't give him a chance to bite, an' if I'd come out into the open, how long would I 'a' lasted, marshal or no? Well, I got Mart an' Sim, an' would 'a' got King in time, doin' this yer town the biggest service any fella could." He affected a jocularity he was by no means feeling as he nodded at the deputy-sheriff. "Me an' yu was workin' on the same job, an' if yu'd come to me at the start it might 'a' bin put through in better shape."
He slumped back in his chair and mopped his brow, conscious of excited whispering. His story was clever, plausible, and daring. Because the Burdettes were a threat to the town he had made war upon them. His methods might be questionable, but he was not the first law-officer to strain his powers and shoot a criminal instead of arresting him; such a procedure was only too common in those turbulent times. These fools would swallow it, was his thought. Then he looked at his accuser, and shivered; here was a man who would not. For in the narrowed eyes he read the scornful disbelief of one who knows what he has heard to be untrue. Sudden's voice, coldly impassive, told him that the battle was not yet over.