As Roy came to a halt, the cold perspiration broke out on him. Directly in front of Mr. Cook, a thick rattlesnake was crawling slowly across his path. “Why don’t he shoot it?” was Roy’s only thought. But the Company manager seemed not to notice the reptile. As the boy stepped back, he could see Mr. Cook standing with his eyes, not on the snake, but on Mike Hassell.
Then, as the venomous thing slid away in the sand, the man who had come to find Hassell began to advance once more.
Fifty yards, then thirty. Then, as one, [two pistol shots sounded in] the hollow of [the desert]. Roy, trembling and aghast, clenched his hands. What had happened? Who had shot? The boy had seen neither man draw a revolver; not a word had been said. But, in the two balls of white smoke, Roy saw Mike Hassell crumble to his knees; saw his revolver sink to the sand, and the black hatted fugitive was flat on his face.
Just before him, Roy also saw Mr. Cook slowly returning his revolver to its holster. His aim had been true. Hassell had missed.
[CHAPTER XV]
ROY MAKES MR. COOK A PRESENT
The fugitive was dead before Mr. Cook and Roy reached his body.
“It was me or him or both,” exclaimed the Company manager. “And after this, my boy, when you see two men out in this country eyeing each other as Mike and I were, you get to one side—not behind one of ’em. Killin’ Mike don’t prove he was a thief, but I’m goin’ to do that now.”
The briefest examination enabled Mr. Cook to make his word good. Of the stolen money, four thousand dollars was in one-hundred-dollar bills, each thousand dollars in a separate wrapper. The other thousand had been in one package about two inches thick; two hundred dollars in ones; two hundred dollars in twos; and the remainder in five-and ten-dollar bills. Hassell had divided the small bills into two parcels which he had stuffed into his hip pockets. The thin, green packet of new and unused bills, was in his inside waistcoat pocket.