“Maybe not, stranger,” and Hamlin leaned back against the table, lowering his weapon slightly, as he glanced watchfully about the room, “but I ’ll keep the gun handy just the same until we understand each other.  Anybody else in this neighborhood?”

“Not unless it’s Le Fevre, an’ his outfit.”

“Then I reckon you did the shooting, out there a bit ago?”

The man shuffled uneasily, but the Sergeant’s right hand came to a level.

“Did you?”

“I s’pose thar ain’t no use o’ denyin’ it,” reluctantly, eyeing the gun in the corner, “but I did n’t mean to shoot up no outfit but Le Fevre’s.  So help me, I did n’t!  The danged snow was so thick I could n’t see nohow, and I never s’posed any one was on the trail ’cept him.  Thar ain’t been no white man ’long yere in three months.  Didn’t hit none of yer, did I?”

“Yes, you did,” returned Hamlin slowly, striving to hold himself in check.  “You killed one of the best fellows that ever rode these plains, you sneaking coward, you.  Shot him dead, with his back to you.  Now, see here, it’s a throw of the dice with me whether I fill you full of lead, or let you go.  I came in here intending to kill you, if you were the cur who shot us up.  But I ’m willing to listen to what you have got to say.  I ’m some on the fight, but plain murder don’t just appeal to me.  How is it?  Are you ready to talk?  Spit it out, man!”

“I ’ll tell yer jest how it was.”

“Do it my way then; answer straight what I ask you.  Who are you?  What are you doing here?”

“Kin I sit down?”

“Yes; make it short now; all I want is facts.”

The man choked a bit, turned and twisted on the stool, but was helpless to escape.

“Wal, my name is Hughes—­Jed Hughes; I uster hang out round San Antone, an’ hev been mostly in the cow business.  The last five years Le Fevre an’ I hev been grazin’ cattle in between yere an’ Buffalo Creek.”

“Partners?”

“Wal, by God!  I thought so, till just lately,” his voice rising.  “Anyhow, I hed a bunch o’ money in on the deal, though I ’ll be darned if I know just what’s become o’ it.  Yer see, stranger, Gene hed the inside o’ this Injun business, bein’ as he ’s sorter squaw man—­”

“What!” interrupted the other sharply.  “Do you mean he married into one of the tribes?”

“Sorter left-handed—­yep; a Cheyenne woman.  Little thing like that did n’t faze Gene none, if he did have a white wife—­a blamed good-looker she was too.  She was out here onc’t, three years ago, ’bout a week maybe.  Course she did n’t know nothin’ ‘bout the squaw, an’ the Injuns was all huntin’ down in the Wichitas.  But as I wus sayin’, Gene caught on to this yere Injun war last spring—­I reckon ol’ Koleta, his Injun father-in-law, likely told him what wus brewin’—­he’s sorter a war-chief.  Anyhow he knew thet hell wus to pay, an’ so we natch’ally gathered up our long-horns an’ drove ’em east whar they would n’t be raided.  We did n’t git all the critters rounded up, as we wus in a hurry, an’ they wus scattered some ’cause of a hard winter.  So I come back yere to round up the rest o’ ther bunch.”