Like a flash his hairy right hand shot down toward the ivory-handled
Colt.
The ranchman's hand touched the handle before Kid Wolf made even a move toward his own weapons. Goliday's eager, fear-accelerated fingers snapped the hammer back. The gun slid half out of its holster as he tipped it up.
There was a noise in the little adobe like a thunderclap! A red pencil of flame streaked out between the two men. Then the smoke rolled out, dense and choking. Thud! A gun dropped to the hard, dirt floor.
Goliday groped out with his two empty hands for support. His face was distorted. A long gasp came from his lips. A round dot had suddenly appeared two inches left of his breast bone. He dropped heavily, grunting as he struck the ground.
Paying no more attention to him, Kid Wolf holstered his own smoking .45 and bent over and picked up Goliday's ivory-handled weapon. He smiled grimly as he peered into the muzzle. A very peculiar gun! There were five grooves and five lands, which are the spaces between the grooves, the uncut metal.
Goliday, with a bullet just below his heart, was not quite dead. He realized what had happened. He was done for. Rapidly, as if afraid that he could not finish what he wished to say, he began to speak:
"Yuh—were right. I killed Thomas. I wanted the S Bar. I'm afraid to go like this, Kid Wolf. I tell yuh I'm afraid!" His voice rose to a shriek. "There's murder on my soul, and there'll—be more. Quick! Quick!"
"Is there anything I can do?" The Kid asked, generous even to a fallen enemy such as Goliday.
"Yes," Goliday groaned. "All my men aren't in town. I sent Steve Stacy and Ed Mullhall—down to the S Bar—a little while ago—to do away with Mrs. Thomas. Stop 'em! Stop 'em! I don't want to die with this on my soul. I—I——"
His words ended in a gurgling moan. His face twitched and then relaxed. He was dead.