. Then there was the faintest jutting
out of Riley's jaw.

"Lowrie was sure raving," said Quade.

Sinclair looked carelessly down at the gray face of Quade. "I guess
maybe he was, but what he asked me to say was: 'Hell is sure coming to
what you boys done.'"

"He thought about that might late," replied Quade. "Waited till he
could shift the blame on me and Sandersen, eh? To hell with Lowrie!"

"Maybe he's there, all right," said Sinclair, shrugging. "But I've got
rid of the yarn, anyway."

"Are you going to spread that story around in Sour Creek?" asked Quade
softly.

"Me? Why, that story was told me confidential by a gent that was about
to go out!"

Riley's frank manner disarmed Quade in a measure.

"Kind of queer, me running on to you like this, ain't it?" he went on.
"Well, you're fixed up sort of comfortable up here. Nice little shack,
partner. And I suppose you got a wife and kids and everything? Pretty
lucky, I'd call you!"

Quade was glad of an opportunity to change the subject. "No wife yet!"
he said.

"Living up here all alone?"

"Sure! Why?"

"Nothing! Thought maybe you'd find it sort of lonesome."

Back to the dismissed subject Quade returned, with the persistence of a
guilty conscience. "Say," he said, "while we're talking about it, you
don't happen to believe what Lowrie said?"

"Lowrie was pretty sick; maybe he was raving. So you're all along up
here? Nobody near?"

His restless, impatient eye ran over the surroundings. There was not a
soul in sight. The mountains were growing stark and black against the
flush of the western sky. His glance fell back upon Quade.

"But how did Lowrie happen to die?"

"He got shot."

"Did a gang drop him?"

"Nope, just one gent."

"You don't say! But Lowrie was a pretty slick hand with a gun--next to
Bill Sandersen, the best I ever seen, almost! Somebody got the drop on
him, eh?"

"Nope, he killed himself!"

Quade gasped. "Suicide?"

"Sure."

"How come?"

"I'll tell you how it was. He seen a gent coming. In fact he looked out
of the window of his hotel and seen Riley Sinclair, and he figured that
Riley had come to get him for what happened to his brother, Hal. Lowrie
got sort of excited, lost his nerve, and when the hotel keeper come
upstairs, Lowrie thought it was Sinclair, and he didn't wait. He shot
himself."

"You seem to know a pile," said Quade thoughtfully.

"Well, you see, I'm Riley Sinclair." Still he smiled, but Quade was as