Suddenly Chick started back with an exclamation as Doc Riley loomed up in the light of the door, carrying a body over his shoulder. Stepping into the room while his friends leaped to their feet in amazement and incredulity, he lowered his burden to a bench and faced them, bloody and furious.
"What's th' matter?" exclaimed Meeker, the first to find his voice, leaping forward and dropping the cup to the floor. "Who did that?"
Doc placed his sombrero over the upturned face and ripped out a savage reply. "Antonio! Yore broncho-buster! Th' snake that's raising all th' devil on this range! Here—see for yoreself!" tossing the cartridge shell to his foreman, who caught it clumsily, looked at it, and then handed it to Dan. Exclamations and short, fierce questions burst from the others, who crowded up to see the shell.
"Tell me about it, Doc," requested Meeker, pacing from wall to wall.
"He was shot down like a dog!" Doc cried, his rage sweeping over him anew in all its savagery. "I saw th' whole thing in th' sand, plain as day. Th' Greaser got his cayuse first an' then rode rings around him, keeping out of range of Curley's Colt, for Curley had leaded his rifle. It was Colt against Sharps at five hundred, that was what it was! He didn't have a show, not a measly show for his life! Shot down like a dog!"
"Where'd it happen?" asked Chick, breathlessly, while the low-voiced threats and imprecations swelled to an angry, humming chorus.
"Away down in th' southwest corner," replied Doc, and he continued almost inaudibly, speaking to himself and forgetful of the others. "Me an' him went to school together an' I used to lick every kid that bullied him till he got big enough to do it hisself. We run away together an' shared th' same hard luck. We went through that Sioux campaign together, side by side, an' to think that after he pulled out of that alive he had to be murdered by a yaller coward of a Greaser! If he'd been killed by a human being an' in a fair fight it would be all right; but by that coyote—it don't seem possible, not noway. I licked th' feller that hurt him on his first day at school—I'm going to kill th' last!
"Meeker," he said, coming to himself and facing the angry foreman, "I'm quitting to-night. I won't punch no more till I get that Greaser. I take up that trail at daylight an' push it to a finish even if it takes me into Mexico—it's got to be him or me, now."
"You don't have to quit me to do that, an' you know it!" Meeker cried. "I don't care if yo're gone for six months—yore pay goes on just th' same. He went down fighting for me, an' I'll be everlastingly condemned if I don't have a hand in squaring up for it. Yo're going on special duty for th' H2, Doc, an' yore orders are to get Antonio. Why, by th' Lord, I'll take up th' trail with you, Doc, an' with th' rest of th' boys behind me. This ranch can go galley-west an' crooked till we get that snake. Dan an' Salem stays with my girl an' to watch th' ranch—th' rest of us are with you—we're as anxious as you to push him Yonder, Doc."
"If I can get him alive, get my two hands on his skinny neck," Doc muttered, his fingers twitching, "I'll kill him slow, so he'll feel it longer, so he'll be shore to know why he's going. I want to feel his murdering soul dribble hell-wards, an' let him come back a couple of times so I can laugh in his yaller face when he begs! I want to get him—so!" and Chick shuddered as the knotted, steel-like fingers opened and shut, for Doc was half devil now. While Chick stared, the transformed man walked over to the bench and picked up the body in his brawny arms and strode into the blackness—Curley was going to lie in the open, with the stars and the sky and the sighing wind.