He mounted swiftly. Men crowding up to the scene of the affray stopped suddenly. Few of them had seen the like before. They shrank back, awed, from the killer. He rode down the street, gun in hand, casting swift glances right and left, ready for any attempt to stop him. There was none. He vanished in the swells of brown grasses, riding at an easy lope, as unhurried as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
CHAPTER XXIII
Tom McHale reached Chakchak, stabled his horse, made a hasty toilet, and attacked a belated supper. While he was eating with hearty appetite Casey and Wade strolled in.
"Did that freight come?" asked Casey.
"Nope," said McHale. "I got a tracer started after her."
"Anything doing in town?"
"Why, I reckon there was a leetle excitement there for a few minutes," said McHale. "Sort of an argument in front of Bob Shiller's."
Casey, from his knowledge of McHale, came to attention at once. "Well?" he asked abruptly.
"Well, it was me and this here Cross," McHale explained. "I downed him."
"In the argument?" laughed Wade, who did not comprehend. But Casey asked quickly: "Gun?"