Millie Wayne, unable to sleep, although the cowgirl in bed with her was piling up strength for the morrow like a child, heard the knock, not far from midnight, on the door on the next room, heard Pres Campbell’s quick call of “Who is it?” and the voice of one of the local rodeo committeemen in the hotel corridor, saying:
“Sorry to wake you up, Mr. Campbell, but one of your men’s been killed, downtown, and the police have just come and got another one for doing it.”
“What’s that?” Millie heard Campbell’s feet hit the floor, his room door open. “Who’s killed? How?”
“Marling. Curly Bratton did it, it seems. Shot him. The cops came out and found the pistol in his room. Recently fired. They had a quarrel this afternoon.”
“Come in while I get dressed. I know about that quarrel—it was over the bulldogging win. At least I thought it was; come to think of it, I didn’t hear a word of it. Where did they get to fighting? Which one went after his gun first?”
“It don’t seem to have been a fight,” the local man said. “Marling was shot in the back of the head.”
Wide-eyed, Millie swung around to sit on the edge of her bed. She heard Pres Campbell exclaim:
“The thunder he was! I’d ’a’ swore Bratton wa’n’t that kind of a boy. Does he admit it?”
“No. He says he hasn’t seen Marling since this afternoon’s show. But he can’t prove where he was this evening. Says he was downtown till ten o’clock and didn’t see anybody he knew that can alibi him.”