“That last dollar,” said Dan, and his soft voice was the first sound out of the silence, “wasn’t good.  It didn’t ring true.  Counterfeit?”

It seemed that no one heard his words.  The men were making a wild scramble for the dollars.  They dived into the dust for them, rising white of face and clothes to fight and struggle over their prizes.  Those dollars with the chips and neat round holes in them would confirm the truth of a story that the most credulous might be tempted to laugh or scorn.  A cowpuncher offered ten dollars for one of the relics—­but none would part with a prize.

The moment the shooting was over Dan stepped quietly back and restored the guns to the owners.  The first man seized his weapon carelessly.  He was in the midst of his rush after one of the chipped coins.  The other cowpuncher received his weapon almost with reverence.

“I’m thankin’ you for the loan,” said Dan, “an here’s hopin’ you always have luck with the gun.”

“Luck?” said the other.  “I sure will have luck with it.  I’m goin’ to oil her up and put her in a glass case back home, an’ when I get grandchildren I’m goin’ to point out that gun to ’em and tell ’em what men used to do in the old days.  Let’s go in an’ surround some red-eye at my expense.”

“No thanks,” answered Dan, “I ain’t drinkin’.”

He stepped back to the edge of the circle and folded his arms.  It was as if he had walked out of the picture.  He suddenly seemed to be aloof from them all.

Out of the quiet burst a torrent of curses, exclamations, and shouts.  Chance drew Jim Silent and his three followers together.

“My God!” whispered Lee Haines, with a sort of horror in his voice, “it wasn’t human!  Did you see?  Did you see?”

“Am I blind?” asked Hal Purvis, “an’ think of me walkin’ up an’ bracin’ that killer like he was a two-year-old kid!  I figger that’s the nearest I ever come to a undeserved grave, an’ I’ve had some close calls!  ‘That last dollar wasn’t good!  It didn’t ring true,’ says he when he finished.  I never seen such nerve!”

“You’re wrong as hell,” said Silent, “a woman can shoot at a target, but it takes a cold nerve to shoot at a man—­an’ this feller is yellow all through!”

“Is he?” growled Bill Kilduff, “well, I’d hate to take him by surprise, so’s he’d forget himself.  He gets as much action out of a common six-gun as if it was a gatling.  He was right about that last dollar, too.  It was pure—­lead!”

“All right, Haines,” said Silent.  “You c’n start now any time, an’ the rest of us’ll follow on the way I said.  I’m leavin’ last.  I got a little job to finish up with the kid.”

But Haines was staring fixedly down the road.

“I’m not leaving yet,” said Haines.  “Look!”

He turned to one of the cowpunchers.

“Who’s the girl riding up the road, pardner?”

“That calico?  She’s Kate Cumberland—­old Joe’s gal.”