“Reckon it had ought to be,” replied Sinclair.  “Like to see this gent that waded into two outlaws with his bare fists.”

“He’s a man, right enough.  Got a room up in the hotel.  Must have a pile of money, because he took the big room onto the north end of the hotel, the room that’s as big as a house.  Nothin’ else suited him at all.  Dad told me.”

“I ain’t got nothing particular on hand,” murmured Sinclair.  “Maybe I can get in on this manhunt—­if they ain’t started already.”

The boy laughed.  “Everybody in town has been trying to get in on that manhunt, but it ain’t any use.  Sheriff Kern has got a handpicked posse—­every one a fightin’ fool, Dad says.  Wish you luck, though.  They ain’t starting till the morning.  Well, here’s where I branch off.  S’long!  Hey, Spot, you old fool, git along, will you?”

Sinclair watched the youngster fade into the gloom behind the ambling cow, then he struck on toward Sour Creek; but, before he reached the main street, he wound off to the left and let his horse drift slowly beyond the outlying houses.

His problem had become greatly complicated by the information from the boy.  He had a double purpose, which was to see Cartwright in the first place, and then Sandersen, for these were the separate stumbling blocks for Jig and for himself.  For Cartwright he saw a solution, through which he could avoid a killing, but Sandersen must die.

He skirted behind the most northerly outlying shed of the hotel, dismounted there, and threw the reins.  Then he slipped back into the shadow of the main building.  Directly above him he saw three dark windows bunched together.  This must be Cartwright’s room.

21

It seemed patent to Bill Sandersen, earlier that afternoon, that fate had stacked the cards against Riley Sinclair.  Bill Sandersen indeed, believed in fate.  He felt that great hidden forces had always controlled his life, moving him hither and yon according to their pleasure.

To the dreamy mind of the mystic, men are accidents, and all they perform are the dictates of the power and the brain of the other world.

Sandersen could tell at what definite moments hunches had seized him.  He had looked at the side of the mountain and suddenly felt, without any reason or volition on his part, that he was impelled to search that mountainside for gold-bearing ore.  He had never fallen into the habit of using his reason.  He was a wonderful gambler, playing with singular abandon, and usually winning.  It mattered not what he held in his hand.

If the urge came to him, and the surety that he was going to bet, he would wager everything in his wallet, all that he could borrow, on a pair of treys.  And when such a fit was on him, the overwhelming confidence that shone in his face usually overpowered the other men sitting in at the game.  More than once a full house had been laid down to his wretched pair.  There were other occasions when he had lost the very boots he wore, but the times of winning naturally overbalanced the losses in the mind of Bill.  It was not he who won, and it was not he who lost.  It was fate which ruled him.  And that fate, he felt at present, had sided against Riley Sinclair.