LITMIR.BIZ

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matched it. He heard the man fall.

      There was no time left now. Window glass broke. Perrine bellowed his wrath through the openings. Chaffee ran five yards from the house, commanding a dim view of the door and the near window. They began to find their guns and rake the doorway from the inside. Chaffee lifted his voice. "Better light the lamp and cave in. I've got this dump covered."

      "Yuh ain't broad enough to cover it!" roared Perrine. They placed him from his voice, and in a moment he heard them crawling through the window on the far side. One man raced headlong around the corner, flinging lead at each step. Chaffee dropped him. But the tide was setting out; they had gotten beyond his control and in another moment they would have him trapped in this bowl. So, with Thcodorik Perrine's boot still tucked under his belt—a valuable trophy in itself—and knowing that he had in a measure shaken the gang, he raced along the path, got his horse, and threaded the lava to open country. He pointed the pony toward Roaring Horse town, dropping the spurs. He heard Theodorik Perrine following, and he knew that before the night had run its course he would collide with the giant again.

      "Bad odds from now on," he murmured to himself. "If I ducked back to Stirrup S I might find the gang home. And we'd take Theodorik into camp. But if the outfit ain't back then I'm only invitin' a wholesale bonfire. That's what Theodorik would do. If I hit into the open country and try to outrun those boys I ain't doing a thing but admit I'm licked. And then I ain't of any use. I'm out. Same as havin' a price on my head. No, sir. I'll track into town and see what this boot tells me. They'll follow. But I don't believe they've got nerve enough to try' a wholesale battle with everybody lookin' on. Theodorik will brace me alone. If he ain't able to do it he'll shunt another of the bunch on me. I don't mind that kind of a scrap. And I can do a lot of duckin' around the buildings in case it gets too hot."

      He lost sound of the pursuing party. Halfway to Roaring Horse he stopped to listen. Presently he heard the drum of pursuit swelling through the soft shadows; so he raced on, came into the main street of the town, and left his horse down a convenient back alley. It was late, yet the saloons were still open, a few nighthawks loitered along the building porches, and Doc Fanchers' light beckoned through a window above Tilton's. Jim Chaffee climbed the stairs.

      Hardly had he disappeared from sight when Theodorik Perrine and the rest of the renegades slipped quietly around the rodeo field and dismounted. There in the darkness they debated.

      "Don't see his horse," said Sleepy Slade.

      "He's here," grunted Penrine. "Runnin' for a hole. Hidin' out somewhere. Red, skin down to the other end of the street and block it. Duck, you stay here with me. Sleepy, wait near the Gusher. Rest scatter along the alleys. He don't get away, see? He's makin' a payment on the damage he did back at the hut." The man's tremendous body seemed to swell. "Jupiter, but I hate to let him alone! But I got orders to keep away personal. I ain't in no shape to disobey, either. So, whichever you boys see him—he's yore game. Get that?"

      "Some town dudes roamin' up the street," murmured Slade.

      "Never mind 'em," replied Perrine. "They don't make no difference. What they see don't count. We're protected. Listen to me. Chaffee's in this town. He don't ever leave it alive. Take no chances when yuh see him. Don't give him a break. Start reachin' before he gets a chance. They ain't nobody in this outfit except me that's as fast as he is. So keep out o' the light and let him have it. Shoot him in the back if yuh can. Now get goin'."

      They spread apart, slouching down the dark lanes, closing quietly upon their designated stations. Both ends of town were closed, the alleys were covered; and one of the gang, stumbling upon Chaffee's hidden horse, led it away. So silently and discreetly was the maneuver accomplished that not a single one of the loitering townsmen knew what had occurred. Roaring Horse was blockaded; and Sleepy Slade stood in a black corner of the hotel porch, facing that stairway up which Jim Chaffee had a moment ago climbed. And down which Jim Chaffee would presently come.

      IX. DISASTER

       Table of Contents

      Fancher was reading; he looked up to Jim Chaffee and lowered his feet to the floor, somewhat astonished. "Where in thunder have you been?"

      "It wouldn't sound right if I told you," answered Chaffee. "I don't even sound right when I tell myself. It's been sort of an active evening. Here's a little trophy I took into camp. Bring out that biggest tar model and let's see what we can see."

      He laid the captured boot on Fancher's table. The latter studied it with professional interest for some moments, then turned to his cabinet and drew out one of the models. Capsizing the boot, he fitted the model to the sole of it. Chaffee rolled a cigarette, his eyes half closed against the light.

      "What would you think a jury might say to that, Doc?"

      "A coroner's jury could easy hold a man over on that similarity," decided Fancher. "Whether a trial jury would convict on that much evidence, I ain't saying. The heels of the boot are some run over on the outer edges. Seems to show something like that in the model, doesn't it?"

      "Now you're talkin' like an officer of the county, Doc. Get out and walk among humble citizens awhile. What's in the back of your head?"

      "Boot and model—they fit. Of course it might be some other big man left the same kind of tracks, Jim."

      "Yeah. How many fellows in Roarin' Horse with that size footgear?"

      "I'm thinkin' of only one in particular."

      Chaffee blew smoke to the ceiling. He seemed drawn and strangely hard-faced to Fancher. Nothing easy going, nothing humorous. "Well, Doc, the man you're thinking about is Theodorik Perrine. And that's Theodorik's boot. Put it away with the rest of our relics. I'm satisfied those were the big man's hoofprints. Ain't interested in what a jury would say. This won't get to a jury, Fancher."

      "How'd you discover that boot, anyhow?"

      "Took it away from Theodorik," said Chaffee, showing the first trace of amusement. It was a grim amusement, marked by a sudden flaring of the still aroused fighting temper. "At the point of a gun."

      Fancher was visibly worried. "Jim, that's bad. He won't let you get away with it. You're in a hole. And I'm blamed if I see just how you figure to whistle out of it!"

      "He's in town with his playmates right now," was Chaffee's laconic announcement.

      "Damnation, why didn't you say that in the beginning! Foolin' away all this time. My boy, it's high time to do some figurin'. Any Stirrup S men around here yet?"

      "All gone home."

      "Any of your particular friends on hand?"

      "None that I know about."

      Fancher swore. "You'd better begin to get worried. Luis Locklear won't lift his little finger to stop a bust of gun play. He ain't that kind of a sheriff. He's feedin' out of a different trough. Understand what I mean? And half of the town men are swappin' politics. I know that blamed well. Something's changing things in Roarin' Horse. Rest of the storekeepers and so forth won't dare give you a boost. Ain't you got any ace in the hole, Jim?"

      "None."

      Fancher studied Jim Chaffee. He had been in the country many years and he had seen good men and bad men take their turn on the stage and depart. Sometimes the good men won out, and sometimes they lost. He had seen them step out to fight; he had pronounced a medical verdict over them after they had gone down in the dust. He knew the meaning of the narrow, fixed expression on Chaffee's lean cheeks. Once a man reached that state of mind he never backed out. Sighing a little, Fancher turned to the wall and reached for his gun belt. He buckled it around him. "All right, Jim. Let's go."

      "Did I ask you for help?" snapped Chaffee, suddenly harsh and somber.

      "I didn't hear as how you had a monopoly on trouble. Shut up. Come on."

      Chaffee shook his head. "It's my fight, Doc. I'm obliged for the offer. But I started this thing solo and I'll finish solo."

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