white streak appeared and surely he who threw the ball had
every wish to see Pop succeed, for he tossed it high and easily. Again
the gun barked from Giersberg's hand, and again the ball dropped almost
slowly out of sight.

"It's a trick!" gasped Pop. "It's something damned queer."

"They's a considerable pile of gents, that think the same way you do,"
admitted the deputy sheriff, dryly.

Pop glared at him and gritted his teeth.

"Lead the damn thing on ag'in," he said, and muttered the rest of his
sentence to himself. He jerked his hat lower over his eyes, spread his
feet a little more, and got ready for the last desperate chance.

But fate was against Pop. Twenty years before he might have struck that
mark if he had been in top condition, but today, though he put his very
soul into the effort, and though the ball for the third time was lobbed
with the utmost gentleness through the air, his bullet banged vainly
against the sheet of iron and the white, inoffensive ball continued on
its way.

Words came in the throat of Pop, reached his opened mouth, and died
there. He thrust the gun back into its holster, and turned slowly toward
the crowd. There was no smile to meet his challenging eye, for Pop was
a known man, and though he might have failed to strike this elusive mark
that was no sign that he would fail to hit something six feet in height
by a couple in breadth. When he found that no mockery awaited him, a
sheepish smile began at his eyes and wandered dimly to his lips.

"Well, gents," he muttered, "I guess I ain't as young as I was once.
S'long!"

He shouldered his way to the door and was gone.

"That's about all, friends," said the deputy crisply. "I guess there
ain't any more clamorin's for a place today?"

He swept the crowd with a complacent eye.

"If you got no objection," murmured a newcomer, who had just slipped
into the room, "I'd sort of like to take a shot at that."

Chapter XXVII. The Sixth Man

It caused a quick turning of heads.

"I don't want to put you out none," said the applicant gently. His
voice was extremely gentle, and there was about him all the shrinking
aloofness of the naturally timid. The deputy looked him over with quiet
amusement--slender fellow with the gentlest brown eyes--and then with a
quick side glance invited the crowd to get in on the joke.

"You ain't puttin' me out," he assured the other. "Not if you pay for
your own ammunition."

"Oh, yes," answered the