“Lowrie was pretty sick; maybe he was raving.  So you’re all along up here?  Nobody near?”

His restless, impatient eye ran over the surroundings.  There was not a soul in sight.  The mountains were growing stark and black against the flush of the western sky.  His glance fell back upon Quade.

“But how did Lowrie happen to die?”

“He got shot.”

“Did a gang drop him?”

“Nope, just one gent.”

“You don’t say!  But Lowrie was a pretty slick hand with a gun—­next to Bill Sandersen, the best I ever seen, almost!  Somebody got the drop on him, eh?”

“Nope, he killed himself!”

Quade gasped.  “Suicide?”

“Sure.”

“How come?”

“I’ll tell you how it was.  He seen a gent coming.  In fact he looked out of the window of his hotel and seen Riley Sinclair, and he figured that Riley had come to get him for what happened to his brother, Hal.  Lowrie got sort of excited, lost his nerve, and when the hotel keeper come upstairs, Lowrie thought it was Sinclair, and he didn’t wait.  He shot himself.”

“You seem to know a pile,” said Quade thoughtfully.

“Well, you see, I’m Riley Sinclair.”  Still he smiled, but Quade was as one who had seen a ghost.

“I had to make sure that you was alone.  I had to make sure that you was guilty.  And you are, Quade.  Don’t do that!”

The hand of Quade slipped around the butt of his gun and clung there.

“You ain’t fit for a gun fight right now,” went on Riley Sinclair slowly.  “You’re all shaking, Quade, and you couldn’t hit the side of the mountain, let alone me.  Wait a minute.  Take your time.  Get all settled down and wait till your hand stops shaking.”

Quade moistened his white lips and waited.

“You give Hal plenty of time,” resumed Riley Sinclair.  “Since Lowrie told me that yarn I been wondering how Hal felt when you and the other two left him alone.  You know, a gent can do some pretty stiff thinking before he makes up his mind to blow his head off.”

His tone was quite conversational.

“Queer thing how I come to blunder into all this information, partner.  I come into a room where Lowrie was.  The minute he heard my name he figured I was after him on account of Hal.  Up he comes with his gun like a flash.  Afterward he told me all about it, and I give him a pretty fine funeral.  I’ll do the same by you, Quade.  How you feeling now?”

“Curse you!” exclaimed Quade.

“Maybe I’m cursed, right enough, but, Quade, I’d let ’em burn me, inch by inch in a fire, before I’d quit a partner, a bunkie in the desert!  You hear?  It’s a queer thing that a gent could have much pleasure out of plugging another gent full of lead.  I’ve had that pleasure once; and I’m going to have it again.  I’m going to kill you, Quade, but I wish there was a slower way!  Pull your gun!”