Now for the first time the sheriff, stepping across the room, looked for such evidence as flying lead might have left for him.  In the wall just behind the spot where Bisbee had stood were two bullet holes.  Going to the far end of the room where the chair leaned against the table, he found that a pane of glass in the window opening upon the street had been broken.  There were no bullet marks upon wall or woodwork.

“Bisbee shot two or three times, did he?” he cried, wheeling on the Kid.  “And missed every time?  And all the bullets went through the one hole in the window, I suppose?”

The Kid shrugged insolently.

“I didn’t watch ’em,” he returned briefly.

Galloway and Antone were allowed to come again into the room, and of Galloway, quite as though no hot word had passed between them, Norton asked quietly: 

“Bisbee had a lot of money on him.  What happened to it?”

“In there.”  Galloway nodded toward the card-room whose door had remained closed.  “In his pocket.”

A few of the morbid followed as the sheriff went into the little room.  Already most of the men had seen and had no further curiosity.  Norton drew the blanket away, noted the wounds, three of them, two at the base of the throat and one just above the left eye.  Then, going through the sheepman’s pockets, he brought out a handful of coins.  A few gold, most of them silver dollars and half-dollars, in all a little over fifty dollars.

The dead man lay across two tables drawn together, his booted feet sticking out stolidly beyond the bed still too short to accommodate his length of body.  Norton’s eyes rested on the man’s boots longer than upon the cold face.  Then, stepping back to the door so that all in the barroom might catch the significance of his words, he said sharply: 

“How many men of you know where Bisbee always carried his money when he was on his way to bank?”

“In his boots!” answered two voices together.

“Come this way, boys.  Take a look at his boots, will you?”

And as they crowded about the table, sensing some new development, Galloway pushing well to the fore, Norton’s vibrant voice rang out: 

“It was a clean job getting him, and a clean job telling the story of how it happened.  But there wasn’t overmuch time and in the rush. . . .  Tell me, Jim Galloway, how does it happen that the right boot is on the left foot?”

CHAPTER IV

AT THE BANKER’S HOME

Rod Norton made no arrest.  Leaving the card-room abruptly he signalled to Julius Struve, the hotel keeper, to follow him.  In the morning Struve, in his official capacity as coroner, would demand a verdict.  Having long been in strong sympathy with the sheriff he was to be looked to now for a frank prediction of the inquest’s result.  And, very thoughtful about it all, he gravely agreed with Norton; the coroner’s jury, taking the evidence offered by Jim Galloway, Kid Rickard, and Antone, would bring in a verdict of justifiable homicide.