“Shucks!” said Stone disgustedly, “what would any half-man do?”
Fair stood Nance upon her feet.
She raised her unspeakable head and glanced at the tense faces.
“Where’s this Provine? Tell us, Nance,” said Fair still in that thin, hard voice. He hitched his holster a little farther forward on his thigh.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I tore his face to ribbons—I’d have killed him if I could. He crawled that way.”
She nodded toward the north.
Fair loosed her gently and was turning away, when Bossick caught his arm.
“Hold hard, Smith—Mr. Fair,” he said, “not in your condition. Jermyn—go see what you can find. In the meantime—there’s Big Basford. The boy was quick——”
Here Rod Stone broke in, speaking frankly.
“I’d like to say men, that when young Allison killed Big Basford he got the man who threw his father down Rainbow Cliff and stretched the rope that lamed him. John Allison had found the only outside way to the rim and was looking down into the Pot here, when Basford went to meet him.”