Already he saw himself in it, his name surrounded with a glamour of pathetic romance, as the sad widower with a mystery darkening his past and future. It was an agreeable gloom into which he fell. Self-pity warmed him and loosened his fierceness. He sighed with regret for his own misfortunes.

In this frame of mind he reached Sour Creek and its hotel. While he wrote his name in the yellowed register he over-heard loud conversation in the farther end of the room. Two men had been outlawed that day--John Gaspar, the schoolteacher who killed Quade, and Riley Sinclair, a stranger from the North.

Paying no further attention to the talk, he pa.s.sed on into the general merchandise store which filled most of the lower story of the hotel.

There he found the hardware department, and prominent among the hardware were the gun racks. He went over the Colts and with an expert hand took up the guns, while the gray-headed storekeeper advanced an eulogium upon each weapon. His attention was distracted by the entrance of a tall, painfully thin man who seemed in great haste.

"What's all this about Cold Feet, Whitey?" he asked. "Cold Feet and Sinclair?"

"I dunno, Sandersen, except that word come in from Woodville that Sinclair stuck up the sheriff on his way in with Jig, and Sinclair got clean away. What could have been in his head to grab Jig?"

"I dunno," said Sandersen, apparently much perturbed. "They outlawed 'em both, Whitey?"

There was an eagerness in this question so poorly concealed that Cartwright jerked up his head and regarded Sandersen with interest.

"Both," replied Whitey. "You seem sort of pleased, Sandersen?"

"I knowed that Sinclair would come to a bad end," said Sandersen more soberly.

"Why, I thought they said you cottoned to him when the boys was figuring he might have had something to do with Quade?"

"Me? Well, yes, for a minute. But out at the necktie party, Whitey, I kept watching him. Thinks a lot more'n he says, and gents like that is always dangerous."

"Always," replied Whitey.

"But it's the last time Sinclair'll show his face in Sour Creek--alive," said Sandersen.

"If he does show his face alive, it'll be a dead face p.r.o.nto. You can lay to that."

Sandersen seemed to turn this fact over and over in his mind, with immense satisfaction.

"And yet," pursued the storekeeper, "think of a full-grown man breaking the law to save such a skinny little shrimp of a gent as Jig? Eh? More like a pretty girl than a boy, Jig is."

Cartwright exclaimed, and both of the others turned toward him.

"Here's the gun for me," he said huskily, "and that gun belt--filled--and this holster. They'll all do."

"And a handy outfit," said Whitey. "That gun'll be a friend in need!"

"What makes you think they'll be a need?" asked Cartwright, with such unnecessary violence that the others both stared. He went on more smoothly: "What was you saying about a girl-faced gent?"

"The schoolteacher--he plugged a feller named Quade. Sinclair got him clean away from Sheriff Kern."

"And what sort of a looking gent is Sinclair? Long, brown, and pretty husky-looking, with a mean eye?"

"You've named him! Where'd you meet up with him?"

"Over in the hills yonder, just where the north trail comes over the rise. They was sitting down under a tree resting their hosses when I come along. I got into an argument with this Sinclair--Long Riley, he called himself."

"Riley's his first name."

"We pa.s.sed some words. Pretty soon I give him the lie! He made a reach for his gun. I told him I wasn't armed and dared him to try his fists.

He takes off his belt, and we went at it. A strong man, but he don't know nothing about hand fighting. I had him about ready to give up and begging me to quit when this Jig, this girl-faced man you talk about--he pulls a gun and slugs me in the back of the head with it."

Removing his sombrero he showed on the back of his head the great welt which had been made when he struck the ground with the weight of Sinclair on top of him. It was examined with intense interest by the other two.

"Dirty work!" said Sandersen sympathetically.

The storekeeper said nothing at all, but began to fold up a bolt of cloth which lay half unrolled on the counter.

"It knocked me cold," continued Cartwright, "and when I come to, they wasn't no sign nor trace of 'em."

Buckling on the belt, he shoved the revolver viciously home in the holster.

"I'll land that pair before the posse gets to 'em, and when I land 'em I won't do no arguing with fists!"

"Say, I call that nerve," put in the storekeeper, with patent admiration in his eyes, while he smoothed a fold of the cloth. "Running agin' one gent like Sinclair is bad enough--let alone tackling two at once. But you'd ought to take out a big insurance on your life, friend, before you take that trail. It's liable to be all out-trail and no coming back."

A great deal of enthusiasm faded from Cartwright's face.

"How come?" he asked briefly.

"Nothing much. But they say this Sinclair is quite a gunfighter, my friend. Up in his home town they scare the babies by talking about Sinclair."

"H'm," murmured Cartwright. "He can't win always, and maybe I'll be the lucky man."

But he went out of the store with his head thoughtfully inclined.

"Think of meeting up with them two all alone and not knowing what they was!" sighed Sandersen. "He's lucky to be alive, I'll tell a man."

Whitey grinned.

"Plenty of nerve in a gent like that," went on Sandersen, his pale blue eyes becoming dreamy. "Get your gat out, will you, Bill?"

Bill Sandersen obliged.

"Look at the b.u.t.t. D'you see any point on it?"

"Nope."

"Did you look at that welt on the stranger's head?"

"Sure."

"Did you see a little cut in the middle of the welt?"

"Come to think of it, I sure did."

"Well, Sandersen, how d'you make out that a gun b.u.t.t would make a cut like that?"