`What's come o' yore dude pill-maker, Mex?' asked Nugget. `Lost it,' snapped the other.
`Where?'
Like a pistol shot the word rang through the room. It was Ginger who had spoken. No longer leaning carelessly against the bar, he had stepped forward and was facing his man with blazing eyes. For a moment Mex was too surprised to answer, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he sneered :
`I dunno as it's any o' yore beesness.'
For all his care in speaking the white man's tongue, the last word tripped him up, and Ginger's lips wreathed in contempt.
`I'm makin' it my beesness,' he said, and flung the little machine on the table. `That's yore toy, ain't it?'
The other man's eyes wavered a fraction as they rested on the familiar shining object, and his pasty face went a shade paler. The men beside and behind him edged a little further away. Mex rose and picked up the cigarette-maker, examining it as though to make sure it was his property. Then he answered the question :
`S'pose it is, what's it gotta do with yu? I lose it an' yu find it. Me, I'm obleege. Yu claimin' a reeward?'
One of the Double X men sniggered at this, but most of the onlookers realised that the Y Z puncher was in deadly earnest. The two men were now alone, standing with the deserted card-table between them; all play had ceased, and there was an ominous silence. Ginger took no notice of the taunt. Crouching slightly, his right hand hanging straight by his side, his narrowed eyes bored into the man facing him.
`I'm askin' yu when an' where yu lost it?' he graned.
`An' I'm tellin' yu to go to hell an' find out,' snarled the other. `I don't need to go that far,' replied Ginger, his tone cold and even. `This was found beside Bud's body, an' yu dropped it there when yu murdered him, yu dirty cattle-thief.'
For a bare second the accused man hesitated, his face grey and sickly, and then, `Yo're a damn liar,' he shouted, and reached for his gun.
Amidst the scuffling of men anxious not to intercept a possible wild shot, the two reports rang out almost as one. Then, as the acrid smoke dissipated, Mex, with a choking cry, crumpled at the knees and fell across the table, his weapon thudding on the board floor. With a set face, on which no emotion was discernible, the cowboy gazed upon the man he had slain.
`I reckon I got him for yu, Buddie,' he muttered. `An' he got me.'
He staggered and fell into the nearest chair, sprawling across it helplessly. Instantly the room came alive again, men surging round, talking excitedly. Green and Snap were examining the wounded man; they found that the bullet had ploughed between two ribs, going clean through and missing any vital spot, loss of blood and shock being responsible for Ginger's collapse. `Damn near thing--little bit more to the left an' they'd 'a' took the long trail togenher,' Snap commented, as he helped Green bandage the wound.
In the midst of this operation the door opened and the marshal came bustling in. He was a short, beefy man, with a puffy, inflamed face, in which two small eyes were set like currants in a dumpling. It is enough to say of him that the only respect he received from the majority of Hatchett's inhabitants was that engendered by his office. He wore two guns and his badge was well in evidence.
`This is a helluva fine thing, ain't it?' he began. `Why couldn't one o' yu fetch me afore the trouble started?' A dozen explained that there was no time--that it was all over in a few minutes, and another dozen began to describe the affair to the marshal, each giving his own version, and all speaking at once.
`Awright, I can hear all that later,' he said testily. `I ain't deaf, an' I don't want to be. Who's the corpse?'
The friends of the dead man had laid out the body on a form at the side of the room, covering the face with his hat. Tonk strode over and looked at it.
`Mex, eh?' he said, and scowled. `Plumb heart shot. Now will one o' yu--one, I said--tell me how it happened.'
`It was thisaway, marshal,' Post Adams said. `We're just havin' a friendly game, all quiet an' peaceful, when Ginger, Lunt, an' this other feller comes in. We don't take no notice of 'em, an' suddenly Ginger starts shootin' off his mouth at Mex, callin' him a cattle-thief, an' allowin' that he knifed Bud, which we all know was done by Injuns. Naturally Mex tells him he's a liar, an' they pulls their guns.'
`An' it was an even break,' Snap contributed. `Ginger didn't try to bush-whack him.'
The long Double X man looked uncomfortable and felt the same; the squinting eyes of the little gunman sent a chill feeling along his spine, and he inwardly cursed himself and Dutch for not having done a better job. If Snap knew--and he evidently at least suspected--life for the pair of them became a very uncertain quantity. But nothing of this showed in his manner as he answered: `Mebbe it was an even break, but Mex warn't lookin' for trouble. Ginger forced his hand. Looks to me as if he came a-purpose.'
Half a dozen voices corroborated the statement and Tonk pushed back his hat and scratched his frowsy head, looking furtively round the room. Green saw Poker Pete, who had kept well in the background, nod slightly when the marshal's travelling gaze reached him. Tonk hesitated another moment, and then said :
"Pears yo're right, Post. I guess I gotta take Ginger for this.' `Better guess again, marshal,' said a quiet voice from behind, and he turned to face the speaker, Green. The Y Z man was standing easily, his hands in plain view, and a half-smile on his lips. There was no threat in his attitude and the official began to bluster.
`Look here, yu. I represent the law.'
`Glad to hear it--some o' the marshals I've met up with on'y succeeded in mis-representin? it,' Green said pleasantly.
`Mebbe they did, that ain't nothin' to do with me,' said Tonk aggressively. `I've got the say-so in this town. Yu been runnin' on the rope too long, an' I tell yu, if I'd been around the day yu come, yu'd 'a' gone to the "cooler" 'stead o' the Y Z, an' yu can stick a pin in that.'
`Yu don't say,' remonstrated the cowboy. `An' what for?' `Beatin' up a valued citizen, that's what for,' said the marshal. Green laughed outright. `The said valued citizen being a tin horn gambler who is now present an' keepin' mighty quiet,' he sneered.
`Never yu mind,' snapped the officer, who had entirely missed the savage look which Pete had favoured him with. `If he's keepin' quiet it's on'y because he knows I'm here--'
`To do his dirty work for him,' interjected Green. Then in an instant he changed, the bantering in his voice vanished, his eyes narrowed to slits, and his attitude became one of alert preparedness.
`Let me tell yu somethin' for yore own good, marshal,' he said. `That star yo're wearin' ain't bullet-proof, an' it ain't big enough to hide behind, as many a better man than yu has found out. Everyone who saw the shootin' knows that it was an even break, an' that Mex was guilty as hell, an' showed it. I know yu got yore orders--I saw the valued citizen give 'em to yu.' Tonk flashed an uneasy look at the gambler, and Green grinned as he continued, `Yu shouldn't 'a' done that, marshal; yo're givin' the game away, an' the valued citizen ain't a bit pleased with yu. Now gents, I'm goin' to put a resolution to the meetin', namely, that Ginger goes back to the Y Z with me. Will anybody kindly second that?'
`I'm pleased to,' said Snap, his eyes twinkling.
`Thank yu, seh,' replied the proposer gravely, and then, `Gents, it has been proposed and seconded that Ginger goes with me. I will now put it to the vote. All in favour will raise both hands--empty.'