“It’s Wellman. Freel’s there by the door,” Carver said.
“How can you tell? It’s too black to see,” Bart insisted.
“Wellman would be the one to go in. Freel would be the one to hang back,” Carver said. “That’s why I planned for you and me to stay outside in the grass instead of waiting inside. Wellman and me used to be friends—likely would be still if it wasn’t for Freel. It makes a difference, some way. Wellman’s harmless to us from now on, outlawed for this night’s business. He’ll be riding the hills with the wild bunch till some one comes bringing him in.”
He stopped speaking to listen to the thud of many hoofs pounding down the trail from the ridge.
“Now I wonder who that will be,” he speculated.
“You know now,” Bart accused. “You always know. Whoever it is didn’t come without you had it planned in advance. But I’ll never tell what I think.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” Carver advised.
Mattison reached the foot of the trail with his men.
“What’s up?” he inquired. “We’d just stopped at the Half Diamond H to ask you to put us up for the night. Nobody home. I thought I might find you here so we’d just started over when all that shooting set in and we hustled along. You two out hunting for owls?”
“Yes,” Carver said. “There’s one by the door. The other one flew out the window. Bart and I was reclining out here in the grass talking things over when the pair of them eased up to the door and one slipped on in. I asked how about it and the man in the door started to shoot. Then we did some shooting ourselves. The party there by the door is our amiable sheriff.”