“Rivers claimed, I suppose, that he had gotten it from a family that had owned it ever since it was made, and showed letters signed ‘D.  Boone’ and ‘Davy Crockett’ to prove it?”

“No, he claimed to have gotten it in trade from some wayfaring collector,” Gresham replied.  “He convinced Uncle Whiskers, but the N.R.A. took a slightly dimmer view of the transaction, so Rivers doesn’t advertise in the Rifleman any more.”

“Wasn’t there some talk about Whitneyville Walker Colts that had been made out of 1848 Model Colt Dragoons?” Rand asked.

“Oh Lord, yes!  This fellow Umholtz was practically turning them out on an assembly-line, for a while.  Rivers must have sold about ten of them.  You know, Umholtz is a really fine gunsmith; I had him build a deer-rifle for Dot, a couple of years ago—­Mexican-Mauser action, Johnson barrel, chambered for .300 Savage; Umholtz made the stock and fitted a scope-sight—­it’s a beautiful little rifle.  I hate to see him prostitute his talents the way he does by making these fake antiques for Rivers.  You know, he made one of these mythical heavy .44 six-shooters of the sort Colt was supposed to have turned out at Paterson in 1839 for Colonel Walker’s Texas Rangers—­you know, the model he couldn’t find any of in 1847, when he made the real Walker Colt.  That story you find in Sawyer’s book.”

“Why, that story’s been absolutely disproved,” Rand said.  “There never was any such revolver.”

“Not till Umholtz made one,” Gresham replied.  “Rivers sold it to,”—­he named a moving-picture bigshot—­“for twenty-five hundred dollars.  His story was that he picked it up in Mexico, in 1938; traded a .38-special to some halfbreed goat-herder for it.”

“This fellow who bought it, now; did he see Belden and Haven’s Colt book, when it came out in 1940?”

“Yes, and he was plenty burned up, but what could he do?  Rivers was dug in behind this innocent-purchase-and-sale-in-good-faith Maginot Line of his.  You know, that bastard took me, once, just one-tenth as badly, with a fake U.S.  North & Cheney Navy flintlock 1799 Model that had been made out of a French 1777 Model.”  The lawyer muttered obscenely.

“Why didn’t you sue hell out of him?” Rand asked.  “You might not have gotten anything, but you’d have given him a lot of dirty publicity.  That’s all Fleming was expecting to do about those wheel locks.”

“I’m not Fleming.  He could afford litigation like that; I can’t.  I want my money, and if I don’t get it in cash, I’m going to beat it out of that dirty little swindler’s hide,” Gresham replied, an ugly look appearing on his face.

“I wouldn’t blame you.  You could find plenty of other collectors who’d hold your coat while you were doing it,” Rand told him.  Then he inquired, idly:  “What sort of a pistol was it that Lane Fleming is supposed to have shot himself with?”

Gresham frowned.  “I really don’t know; I didn’t see it.  It’s supposed to have been a Confederate Leech & Rigdon .36; you know, one of those imitation Colt Navy Models that were made in the South during the Civil War.”