“Yuh lost any trouble?” Allen asked, looking up at Lefty.
Not a muscle in his body moved; he still held the cigarette paper and tobacco in his hands. Lefty crouched, his hand hovering like a claw above his gun.
“I always swore to kill the Wolf on sight,” he snarled.
There came a spurt of orange flame, a whirl of smoke, a thunderous report, and Lefty sagged at the knees and sank to the ground. Even before the cigarette paper that Allen had held in his hand fluttered to the ground, he had sprung to his feet and was running toward his saddled horse.
The spectators were still staring in stupefied amazement at Lefty’s huddled body, when there came a thunder of hoofs and Allen flashed along the corral fence and vanished behind some outbuildings.
“Gosh, he fooled Lefty clean—got a gun out with his left hand from a shoulder holster!” a rider cried in awe.
“Fooled him, hell! He outspeeded him. Lefty was standing all set, and look—he didn’t even get his gun out of the holster!”
“Who is the little runt?” still another asked.
Spur Treadwell and the twins swung into the lane and brought their horses to a sliding stop at the group by the bunk house. A babble of explanations greeted them.
“That’s the Wolf, Jim-twin Allen!” Spur roared. “Go get him! There’s ten thousan’ on his head, an’ I’ll clap another five on that to the man who brings me his scalp.”