“Never yuh mind that,” Doc told her seriously. “Yuh get down on your knees this night an’ pray if yuh want to see that boy of yourn again—pray as yuh never prayed afore that nothin’ happens to the White Wolf to-night.”
“Who is he? The White Wolf? What could happen to him?” the woman asked, bewildered.
Doc pointed to a picture of a man on a white horse that hung over the mantelpiece.
“Read me that there title!” he said.
Wondering, the woman read: “I saw a man on a white horse, and his name was Death!”
“That’s him!”
The other two gravely nodded their heads. The woman glanced from the picture to the three solemn faces and then back to the picture again.
Late that night Bill McAllister and Doc Hollis laughed softly to themselves. The rumor they had started was spreading like wildfire. On their way home, at least three friends stopped them and said practically the same thing:
“Yuh know, I been thinkin’. If Slivers Hart was rustlin’ cows, how come there warn’t no cows on the ranch when the sheriff seized it? It’s funny about the killin’ of John Reed——” They all would go that far and then nod as if they could say more if they were so inclined.
“Folks is sure startin’ to think,” McAllister chuckled.