That last came out with a snap, and the revolver of Quade flicked out of its holster with a convulsive jerk of the big man’s wrist.  Yet the spit of fire came from Riley Sinclair’s weapon, slipping smoothly into his hand.  Quade did not fall.  He stood with a bewildered expression, as a man trying to remember something hidden far in the past; and Sinclair fingered the butt of his gun lightly and waited.  It was rather a crumbling than a fall.  The big body literally slumped down into a heap.

Sinclair reached down without dismounting and pulled the body over on its back.

“Because,” he explained to what had been a strong man the moment before, “when the devil comes to you, I want the old boy to see your face, Quade!  Git on, old boss!”

As he rode down the trail toward Sour Creek he carefully and deftly cleaned his revolver and reloaded the empty chamber.

4

Perhaps, in the final analysis, Riley Sinclair would not be condemned for the death of Lowrie or the killing of Quade, but for singing on the trail to Sour Creek.  And sing he did, his voice ringing from hill to hill, and the echoes barking back to him, now and again.

He was not silent until he came to Sour Creek.  At the head of the long, winding, single street he drew the mustang to a tired walk.  It was a very peaceful moment in the little town Yonder a dog barked and a coyote howled a thin answer far away, but, aside from these, all other sounds were the happy noises of families at the end of a day.  From every house they floated out to him, the clamor of children, the deep laughter of a man, the loud rattle of pans in the kitchen.

“This ain’t so bad,” Riley Sinclair said aloud and roused the mustang cruelly to a gallop, the hoofs of his mount splashing through inches of pungent dust.

The heaviness of the gallop told him that his horse was plainly spent and would not be capable of a long run before the morning.  Riley Sinclair accepted the inevitable with a sigh.  All his strong instincts cried out to find Sandersen and, having found him, to shoot him and flee.  Yet he had a sense of fatality connected with Sandersen.  Lowrie’s own conscience had betrayed him, and his craven fear had been his executioner.  Quade had been shot in a fair fight with not a soul near by.  But, at the third time, Sinclair felt reasonably sure that his luck would fail him.  The third time the world would be very apt to brand him with murder.

It was a bad affair, and he wanted to get it done.  This stay in Sour Creek was entirely against his will.  Accordingly he put the mustang in the stable behind the hotel, looked to his feed, and then went slowly back to get a room.  He registered and went in silence up to his room.  If there had been the need, he could have kept on riding for a twenty-hour stretch, but the moment he found his journey interrupted, he flung himself on the bed, his arms thrown out crosswise, crucified with weariness.