The Rangeland Avenger

wrie or the killing of Quade, but for singing on the trail to Sour Creek. And sing he did

ment in the little town Yonder a dog barked and a coyote howled a thin answer far away, but, aside from these, all other sounds were the happy noises of fami

roused the mustang cruelly to a gallop, the hoofs o

out to find Sandersen and, having found him, to shoot him and flee. Yet he had a sense of fatality connected with Sandersen. Lowrie's own conscience had betrayed him, and his craven fear had been his executioner.

l, looked to his feed, and then went slowly back to get a room. He registered and went in silence up to his room. If there had been the need, he could have kept on ri

desk to find a long, gaunt man leaning above

Sandersen?" he asked. "

who had jerked his head up from the study of the regis

proprietor. "Maybe he

e he's some

nge, you mean?"

like a hard one. He's got one

figh

ent was to come in here and tell me a pretty strong yarn about Riley Sinclair, o

e I wouldn't," answered

out the man. And he understood the reason for it as soon as he saw the name on the register. Sinclair! The name carried him back to the picture of the man who lay on his back, with the soft sands al

m had concurred in the thing. He devoutly wished that the thing were to be done over again. He swore to himself that in such a case he would stick with h

r Sinclair's presence in Sour Creek. Sandersen crossed the street to the newly installed telegraph office

*

f Riley Sinclair of Colma-over six feet tall, wei

*

ned eyes at the patron. Bill Sandersen returned that glance with so much interest that the opera

ek. He drifted from the blacksmith shop to the kitchen of Mrs. Mary Caluson, but both these brimming reservoirs of news had thi

ey Sinclair, a man of action, but he could not remember in what sense. Vaguely he seemed to

rs he went back through the night to the telegraph office and found that his Colma friend had been unbelievably prompt. The telegram h

irer than anybody. Avoid all trouble. Trust his word, but not his temper. Gun

a ball and crushed it against the palm of his hand. That ball he pr

utely

of Sinclair and the impatient eyes. He would probably be shot before he had half finished his story of the gruesome trip through the desert. Already Lowrie was dead. Even a child could have put two an

behind his shack, saddled his horse, and spurred out along the north road to Quade's house. Once warned,

nd dismounting, he stumbled across a soft, inert mass in the path. A moment later he was on his knees, and the flame of the sulphur match sputt

impulse, after his agitation had diminished to such a point that he was able to think clearly again, was to flee headlong into the night and

death. Once he turned his back to flee from Riley Sinclair, the gunfighter would become a nightmare that would haunt him the rest of his life. No matter where he fled, every footstep behind him would be the foot

lved to take t

ley's brother was abandoned in the desert by three strong men who had been his bunkies. And that story, Sandersen knew, would conde

l at once he recalled that he was not acting normally. He had just come from seeing the dead body of his best friend. And

n he spurred his horse down the path, flung himself with a shout out of the saddle,

Bill Sandersen.