“Have a chair, Bill, will you?” said the sheriff.  He tilted back in his own and tossed his heels to the top of his desk.  “Getting sort of warm today, ain’t it?”

Bill Wood had never seen the sheriff so cheerful.  He sat down gingerly, knowing well that some task of great danger lay before them.

14

All that Gaspar dreaded in Riley Sinclair had come true.  The schoolteacher drew his horse as far away as the trail allowed and rode on in silence.  Finally there was a stumble, and it seemed as if the words were jarred out from his lips, hitherto closely compressed:  “You killed Quade!”

A scowl was his answer.

But he persisted in the inquiry with a sort of trembling curiosity, though he could see the angry emotions rise in Sinclair.  The emotion of a murderer, perhaps?

“How?”

“With a gun, fool.  How d’you think?”

Even that did not halt John Gaspar.

“Was it a fair fight?”

“Maybe—­maybe not.  It won’t bring him back to life!”

Riley laughed with savage satisfaction.  Gaspar watched him as a bird might watch a snake.  He had heard tales of men who could find satisfaction in a murder, but he had never believed that a human being could actually gloat over his own savagery.  He stared at Riley as if he were looking at a wild beast that must be placated.

Thereafter the talk was short.  Now and again Sinclair gave some curt direction, but they put mile after mile behind them without a single phrase interchanged.  Gaspar began to slump in the saddle.  It brought a fierce rebuke from Sinclair.

“Straighten up.  Put some of your weight in them stirrups.  D’you think any hoss can buck up when it’s carrying a pile of lead?  Come alive!”

“It’s the heat.  It takes my strength,” protested Gaspar.

“Curse you and your strength!  I wouldn’t trade all of you for one ear of the hoss you’re riding.  Do what I tell you!”

Without protest, without a flush of shame at this brutal abuse, John Gaspar attempted to obey.  Then, as they topped a rise and reached a crest of a range of hills, Gaspar cried out in surprise.  Sour Creek lay in the hollow beneath them.

“But you’re running straight into the face of danger!”

“Don’t tell me what I’m doing.  I know maybe, all by myself!”

He checked his horse and sat his saddle, eying Gaspar with such disgust, such concentrated scorn and contempt, that the schoolteacher winced.

“I’ve brought you in sight of the town so’s you can go home.”

“And be hanged?”

“You won’t be hanged.  I’ll send a confession along with you.  I’ve busted the law once.  They’re after me.  They might as well have some more reasons for hitting my trail.”

“But is it fair to you?” asked Gaspar, intertwining his nervous fingers.

Sinclair heard the words and eyed the gesture with unutterable disgust.  At last he could speak.