hen the clatter of hoofs rang out in the street a couple of men went
to the door. Coming back, "It is the sheriff," they said.

Roderick Norton, entering swiftly, his spurs dragging and jangling,
swept the faces in the room with eyes which had in them none of that
human glint of good-will which the girl at the arroyo had glimpsed in
them. Again they were steely, angry, bespeaking both threat and
suspicion.

"Who is it this time?" he demanded sharply.

"Bisbee, from Las Palmas," they told him.

"Who did it?" came the quick question. And then, before an answer
could come, his voice ringing with the anger in it: "Antone or Kid
Rickard? Which one?"

He had shifted his rifle so that it was caught up under his left arm.
His right hand, frank and unhidden, rested upon the butt of the
heavy-caliber revolver sagging from his belt. Standing just within the
room, he had stepped to one side of the doorway so that the wall was at
his back.

"It was the Kid," some one answered, and was continuing, "He says it
was self-defense . . ." when Norton cut in bluntly:

"Was Galloway here when it happened?"

"Yes."

"Where's Galloway now?"

It was noteworthy that he asked for Jim Galloway rather than for Kid
Rickard.

"In there," they told him, indicating a second card-room adjoining that
in which the Las Palmas sheepman lay. Rod Norton, again glancing
sharply across the faces confronting him, went to the closed door and
set his hand to the knob. But Jim Galloway, having desired privacy
just now, had locked the door. Norton struck it sharply, commanding:

"Open up, Galloway. It's Norton."

There came the low mutter of a voice hasty and with the quality of
stern exhortation, the snap of the lock, and the door was jerked open.
Norton's eyes, probing into every square foot of the chamber, took
stock of Jim Galloway, and beyond him of Kid Rickard, slouching forward
in a chair and rolling a cigarette.

"Hello, Norton," said Galloway tonelessly. "Glad you showed up.
There's been trouble."

A heavy man above the waist-line, thick-shouldered, with large head and
bull throat, his muscular torso tapered down to clean-lined hips, his
legs of no greater girth than those of the lean-bodied man confronting
him, his feet small in glove-fitting boots. His eyes, prominent and
full and a clear brown, were a shade too innocent. Chin, jaw, and
mouth, the latter full-lipped, were those of strength, smashing power,
and a natural cr