The Rider of Golden Bar Part 9

Riley Tyler, meanwhile, was fixedly regarding Jack Murray.

"Meaning?" said Riley Tyler.

Jack Murray came right out into the open. "Ain't you able to stand up for yourself no more?"

There it was--the deliberate insult. Followed the movement so swift no eye could follow. But Riley's gun caught. Jack Murray's didn't. When the smoke began to wreathe upward in the windless air, Jack Murray was calmly walking away up in the street and Riley Tyler was hunched across the packing case. Blood was running down the boards of the packing case and seeping through the cracks in the sidewalk.

Billy Wingo was the fourth man to reach Riley. The boy, for he was not yet twenty-one, had been turned over on his back on the sidewalk. He was unconscious. Samson, the Green-Front Store owner, was bandaging a wound in Riley's neck.

"Lucky," observed Samson, "just missed the jugular."

"Where else is he shot?" queried Billy, his eyes on the blood-soaked front of Riley's s.h.i.+rt.

"Right shoulder," Samson informed him.

"I heard three shots," said Billy. "Two was close together but the last one was maybe ten seconds later."

"I only found the two holes," declared Samson.

But when Billy and another man picked up Riley to carry him to the hotel, Billy found where the third shot had gone. It had penetrated Riley's back on the left side, bored between two ribs, missed the wall of the stomach by a hair and made its exit an inch above the waistband of the trousers.

The marshal, who had seen the crowd going into the hotel, arrived as Billy and Samson were making Riley as comfortable as possible on a cot in one of the hotel rooms.

The marshal, whose surname being Herring was commonly called "Red,"

thrust out a lower lip as he surveyed the man on the bed.

"Even break, I hear," said the marshal.

Billy set him right at once. "You heard wrong, Red. Riley's gun caught. I found where the sight had slipped through a crack in the leather. Besides, Riley was plugged in the back after he was down. Do you call that an even break?"

"Well, no," admitted Red Herring, who was inclined to be just, if being just did not interfere with his line of duty. "Anybody see it besides you?"

"I didn't see it a-tall. I didn't have to. I heard the shots--two close together and one a good ten seconds later. Oh, Riley was plugged after he was down and out, all right enough. Besides, Riley was lying across his gun hand when he was picked up, Samson says."

"That's right," nodded Samson.

"Jack was a little previous, sort of," frowned the marshal.

"You think so," said Billy sarcastically. "Maybe you're right."

"Well, I can't do a thing," said the marshal. "I didn't see it. And these fraycases will happen sometimes."

"n.o.body's asking you to do anything," said Billy. "I'm looking after this."

"Now don't you go pickin' a fight with anybody," urged the marshal, instantly perceiving his line of duty. "Judge Driver is dead against these promiscuous shootings."

"Judge Driver can go to h.e.l.l," Billy said with heat. "What's this here but a promiscuous shooting, I'd like to know? And I don't see you arrestin' anybody for it. You said you couldn't."

"I didn't see this one, and besides Riley ain't been killed, and no complaint has been made," defended the marshal, who was no logician.

"But where a feller says he's gonna attend to somebody, that shows premeditation and malice aforethought, which both of 'em is against the statute as made and provided in such cases."

"How you do run on," commented Billy.

But the Red Herring lacked a sense of humor. Heavy of soul, he frowned heavily at Billy.

"You go slow," was his fishy advice.

"Be careful and otherwise refrain from violence," observed Billy, whose English became better as his temper grew worse. "I grasp your point of view," he added gravely. "But I don't like it. Not for a minute I don't. I'll do as I think best. I'd rather, really."

"Don't you go startin' nothin' you can't finish," said the marshal, lost in a maze of words. "I don't want to have to arrest you."

"I don't want you to have to either," Billy averred warmly. "Arrestin'

me would surely interfere with my plans. Yeah."

"A sheriff-elect had oughta set a good example," argued the marshal.

Riley Tyler rolled his head from side to side. He muttered incoherently. The men about the cot turned to look down at him. Then he said, speaking distinctly:

"He shot me after I was down."

Billy Wingo raised his eyes and stared at the marshal.

"How's that, umpire?" said Billy.

"He's raving," snapped the marshal.

"A man speaks the truth when he's thataway," rebuked Billy. "I'm going to see about this."

But the marshal blocked his way. "I told you----" he began.

"Get out of my way!" directed Billy, his gray eyes ablaze.

The marshal got. After all, he had no specific orders to prevent a meeting between Jack Murray and Billy Wingo. Let Jack look out for himself. No doubt Rafe and sundry other of his friends would be annoyed, but it couldn't be helped. The marshal betook himself hurriedly to the back room of the Freedom Saloon.

Billy, coldly purposeful, made a round of the saloons first. In none of them did he find his man or news of him. Finally, from the stage company's hostler tending a cripple outside the company corral, he learned that Jack had left town.

"Which he went surging off down the Hillsville trail," said the hostler, "like he hadn't a minute to lose. He told me he was going to Hillsville."

"Told you?" Surprisedly.

"Yes, told me, sure. 'If the marshal wants me,' says he, as he loped past, 'tell him I've gone to Hillsville.'"

Here was an odd thing. Jack Murray knew where he stood with the powers that were and consequently knew that the marshal would not want him for the shooting. Yet here was Jack Murray not only leaving town hastily, as though he feared capture, but taking pains to leave word where he was going. The two facts did not fit. True, a gentleman seeking to mislead possible pursuers might lie as to where he was going. In which case such a gentleman would not take a trail like the Hillsville trail--a trail visible from Golden Bar for almost five miles in both directions. But if a person wished to be pursued----

"I think I can see his dust still," said the hostler helpfully, pointing toward the spot where the Hillsville trail entered a grove of pines five miles out.

"I think I see it too," declared Billy grimly, and went hurriedly to the hotel for his rifle and saddle.

Hazel Walton, jogging along the homeward way, was overtaken by a horseman. He nodded and called, "'Lo," as he galloped by. She returned his greeting with careful courtesy. But she scowled and made a little face after his retreating back. She did not like Jack Murray.