ad. The boy darted his horse
after her and sent her trotting down the trail, with clicking hoofs and
long, sweeping steps that scuffed up a stifling dust.

"Ain't very good to heat a milker up by running 'em, son," reproved
Sinclair.

"I know it ain't. But it wouldn't make me sorry if old Spot just
nacherally dropped down dead--she gives me that much trouble. Look at
her now, doggone her!"

Spot had turned broadside to them and waited for the boy to catch up
before she would take another forward step.

"You just coming in to Sour Creek?"

"Yep, I'm strange to this town."

"Well, you sure couldn't have picked a more fussed-up time."

"How come?"

"Well, you hear about the killing of Quade, I reckon?"

"Not a word."

"You ain't? Where you been these days?"

"Oh, yonder in the hills."

"Chipping rocks, eh? Well, Quade was a gent that lived out the norm
trail, and he had a fuss with the schoolteacher over Sally Bent, and
the schoolteacher up and murders Quade, and they raise a posse and go
out to hang Gaspar, the teacher, and they're kept from it by a stranger
called Sinclair; when the sheriff comes to get Gaspar and hang him
legal and all, that Sinclair sticks up the sheriff and takes Gaspar
away, and now they're both outlawed, I hear tell, and they's a price on
their heads."

The lad brought it out in one huge sentence, sputtering over the words
in his haste.

"How much of a price?"

"I dunno. It keeps growing. Everybody around Woodville and Sour Creek
is chipping in to raise that price. They sure want to get Gaspar and
Sinclair bad. Gaspar ain't much. He's a kind of sissy, but Sinclair is
a killer--and then some."

Sinclair raised his head to the black, solemn mountains. Then he looked
back to his companion.

"Why, has he killed anybody lately?"

"He left one for dead right today!"

"You don't mean it! He sure must be bad."

"Oh, he's bad, right enough. They was a gent named Cartwright come into
town today with his head all banged up. He'd met up with Gaspar and
Sinclair in the hills, not knowing nothing about them. Got into an
argument with Sinclair, and, not being armed, he had it out with fists.
He was beating up Sinclair pretty bad--him being a good deal of a
man--when Gaspar sneaks up and whangs him on the back of the head with
the butt of his Colt. They rode off and left him for dead. But pretty
soon he wakes up. He comes on into Sour Creek, rarin' and tearin' and
huntin' for revenge. S