“Not me. I got matches, though.”
“I’ve got matches,” Shayne growled. He slid the automatic into his coat pocket so he could get out a box and strike one. It flickered out as he held it up to peer inside.
He stepped over the threshold before lighting another. It burned steadily, the tiny flame gnawing a small circle out of the blackness. He moved carefully, bumped into a sturdy table in the center of the room. The glass chimney of a kerosene lamp caught the final flicker of the match as it burned out.
He heard Strenk’s measured breathing close behind him as he fumbled for another match. He lifted the chimney and put flame to the wick, dropping his hand to the gun in his pocket while replacing the chimney.
Yellow light flooded the one-room cabin.
Shayne stood very still and his gaze made a complete circuit of the room. He was beginning to catch the jitters from the old miner. He took a step forward and the toe of his shoe struck something yielding on the floor.
He moved the lamp to the edge of the table so its light fell on the figure of a man lying almost under the table.
It was Joe Meade. His left arm was outflung and his cheek rested on it. Blood streamed from a wound in his right forehead. A short.32 revolver lay on the floor a few inches from the curled fingers of his right hand.
Shayne dropped to his knees and found a feeble pulse beating irregularly in Meade’s wrist. The head-wound looked dangerous but not necessarily fatal. The area around it was pitted with exploding powder. As he drew a clean linen handkerchief from his pocket to bind the wound, he snapped over his shoulder:
“Get down the hill fast and get a doctor. This looks bad.”