He knew that Severance would have to ride through the same gorge in which Sim had waylaid Spurrier, and he meant to get there first, rifle-armed.
It was sunset when, quite unsuspecting of danger, at least for the moment, Severance turned his mule into the gorge. He was felicitating himself, since without an acre of land or a drop of oil he had “declared himself in” on another’s wealth. His mule was a laggard in pace, and the rider did not urge him. He was content to amble.
Back of the rock walls of the great cleft, the woods lay hushed and dense in the closing shadows. An owl quavered softly, and the water among the ferns whispered. All else was quiet.
But from just a little way back, a figure hitched forward as it lay belly-down in the “laurel hell.” It sighted a rifle and pressed a finger.
The mule snorted and stopped dead with a flirt of ears and tail and with no word, without even a groan, the rider toppled sidewise and slid from the saddle.
The man back in the brush peered out. He noted how still the crumpled figure lay between the feet of the patient, mouse-colored beast, that switched at flies with its tail. It lay twisted almost double with one arm bent beneath its chest.
So Colby crept closer. It would be as well to haul the body back into the tangle where it would not be so soon discovered, and to start the beast along its way with a slap on the flank.
But just as the assassin stooped, Severance’s right hand darted out and, as it did so, there was a quick glint of blue steel, and three instantly successive reports.
Colby staggered backward with a sense of betrayal and a horrible realization of physical pain. His rifle dropped from a shattered hand and jets of blood broke 277 out through his rent clothing. Each of those three pistol balls had taken effect at a range so close that he had been powder-burned. He knew he was mortally hurt, and that the other would soon be dead if he was not so already.