With that telegram working for him in far-off Colma, Bill Sandersen started out to gather what information he could in Sour Creek.  He drifted from the blacksmith shop to the kitchen of Mrs. Mary Caluson, but both these brimming reservoirs of news had this day run dry.  Mrs. Caluson vaguely remembered a Riley Sinclair, a man who fought for the sheer love of fighting.  A grim fellow!

Pete Handley, the blacksmith, had even less to say.  He also, he averred, had heard of a Riley Sinclair, a man of action, but he could not remember in what sense.  Vaguely he seemed to recall that there had been something about guns connected with the name of Riley Sinclair.

Meager information on which to build, but, having seen this man, Bill Sandersen said the less and thought the more.  In a couple of hours he went back through the night to the telegraph office and found that his Colma friend had been unbelievably prompt.  The telegram had been sent “collect,” and Bill Sandersen groaned as he paid the bill.  But when he opened the telegram he did not begrudge the money.

Riley Sinclair is harder than he looks, but absolutely honest and will pay fairer than anybody.  Avoid all trouble.  Trust his word, but not his temper.  Gunfighter, but not a bully.  By the way, your pal Lowrie shot himself last week.

The long fingers of Bill Sandersen slowly gathered the telegram into a ball and crushed it against the palm of his hand.  That ball he presently unraveled to reread the telegram; he studied it word by word.

“Absolutely honest!”

It made Sandersen wish to go straight to the gunfighter, put his cards on the table, confess what he had done to Sinclair’s brother, and then express his sorrow.  Then he remembered the cruel, lean face of Sinclair and the impatient eyes.  He would probably be shot before he had half finished his story of the gruesome trip through the desert.  Already Lowrie was dead.  Even a child could have put two and two together and seen that Sinclair had come to Sour Creek on a mission of vengeance.  Sandersen was himself a fighter, and, being a fighter, he knew that in Riley Sinclair he would meet the better man.

But two good men were better than one, even if the one were an expert.  Sandersen went straight to the barn behind his shack, saddled his horse, and spurred out along the north road to Quade’s house.  Once warned, they would be doubly armed, and, standing back to back, they could safely defy the marauder from the north.

There was no light in Quade’s house, but there was just a chance that the owner had gone to bed early.  Bill Sandersen dismounted to find out, and dismounting, he stumbled across a soft, inert mass in the path.  A moment later he was on his knees, and the flame of the sulphur match sputtered a blue light into the dead face of Quade, staring upward to the stars.  Bill Sandersen remained there until the match singed his finger tips.