The man was apparently about fifty, with a seamed, pain-lined face. His beard was stained with dust, his hair was gray with it; his clothing looked as though he had been dragged through it. He was hatless, and one of his boots was off. The foot had been bandaged with a handkerchief, and through the handkerchief the dark stains of a wound appeared.
The man’s shirt was open in front; and the rider saw that another wound gaped in his chest, near the heart. The man had evidently made some attempt to care for that wound, too, for a piece of cloth from his shirt had been cut away, to permit him to get at the wound easily.
The man’s left side seemed to be helpless, for the arm was twisted queerly, the palm of the hand turned limply upward; but when the rider came upon him the man was trying to tuck a folded paper into one of the cylinders of a pistol.
He had laid the weapon in the sand, and with his right hand was working with the cylinder and the paper. When he saw the rider he sneered and ceased working with the pistol, looking up into the rider’s face, his eyes glowing with defiance.
“No chance for that even, eh?” he said, glancing at the paper and the pistol. “Things is goin’ plumb wrong!”
He sagged back, resting his weight on the right elbow, and looked steadily at the rider—the look of a wounded animal defying his pursuers.
“Get goin’!” he jeered. “Do your damnedest! I heard that sneak, Dolver, yappin’ to you. You’re ‘Drag’ Harlan—gun-fighter, outlaw, killer! I’ve heard of you,” he went on as he saw Harlan scowl and stiffen. “Your reputation has got all over. I reckon you’re in the game to salivate me.”
Harlan sheathed his gun.
“You’re talkin’ extravagant, mister man.” And now he permitted a cold smile to wreathe his lips. “If it’ll do you any good to know,” he added, “I’ve just put Dolver out of business.”
“I heard that, too,” declared the man, laughing bitterly. “I heard you tellin’ Dolver. He killed your partner—or somethin’. That’s personal, an’ I ain’t interested. Get goin’—the sooner the better. If you’d hand it to me right now, I’d be much obliged to you; for I’m goin’ fast. This hole in my chest—which I got last night while I was sleepin’—will do the business without any help from you.”