e group.

Sim Squires was a fellow of medium height and just under middle-age,
whose face was smooth shaven--or had been some two days back. He smiled
chronically, just as chronically he swung his shoulders and body with a
sort of swagger, but the smile was vapid, and the swagger an empty
boast.

"I jest heered erbout this hyar ruction a leetle while back," he
announced with inquisitive promptness, "an' I rid straightway over hyar
ter find me out somethin'."

"Thar comes Bas Rowlett now," suggested the storekeeper, waving his hand
toward the creek-bed road along which a mule and rider came at a placid
fox-trot. "He's ther feller that fotched ther stranger in, an' shot back
at ther la'rel. Belikes he kin give us ther true sum an' amount of ther
matter."

As Sim Squires and Peanuts Causey glanced up at the approaching figure
one might have said that into the eyes of each came a shadow of
hostility. On Sim's face the chronic grin for once faded, and he moved
carelessly to one side--yet under the carelessness one or two in that
group discerned a motive more studied. Though no one knew cause or
nature of the grievance, it was generally felt that bad blood existed
between Bas and Sim, and Sim was not presumed to court a collision.

When Bas Rowlett had dismounted and come slowly to the porch, the
loungers fell silent with the interest accorded one of the principal
actors in last night's drama, then the hunchback demanded shortly:

"Bas, we're all frettin' ourselves ter know ther gist of this hyar
trouble ... an' I reckon ye're ther fittin' man ter tell us."

The new arrival glanced about the group, nodding in greeting, until his
eyes met those of Sim Squires--and to Sim he did not nod. Squires, for
his part, had the outward guise of one looking through transparent
space, but Peanuts and Bas exchanged greetings a shade short of cordial,
and Peanuts did not rise, though he sat obstructing the steps and the
other had to go around him.

"I reckon ye've done heered all I kin tell ye," said Bas, gravely. "I'd
done been over ter ther furriner's house some siv'ral times bekase he
war a neighbour of mine--an' he seemed a mighty enjoyable sort of body.
He war visitin' at old man Harper's las' night an' I met up with him on
ther highway. He'd done told me he'd got a threatenin' letter from
somebody thet was skeered ter sign hit, so I proffered ter walk along
home with him, an' as we come by ther rock-clift somebody shot two
sh