“Uh-huh—only one left. The rest cashed in one night. I dunno who’s moved in since he left.”
“You don’t mean to say that you——”
Kirk stopped.
Skeeter got slowly to his feet and hitched up his belt.
“’F you folks don’t mind I’ll spread m’ blankets out by the li’l corral,” he said.
“There’s room in here,” said Mrs. Kirk.
Skeeter shook his head and went out to his saddle, where he untied his blanket-roll and took it up by the little tumble-down corral.
Moonlight silvered the hills, and the moon itself was stereoscopic, hanging like a huge ball in the sky, instead of showing as a flat plane. From the bed-ground came the soft bleating of sheep, while farther back in the hills a coyote barked snappily for a moment and wailed out his dismal howl.
Skeeter wrapped up in his blanket and puffed slowly on a cigaret. He was thinking of Sunbeam and of Mary Leeds, who had come seeking her father. Skeeter had ridden away the night he had been instrumental in cleaning up the outlaws of Sunbeam, the night that Mary Leeds’ father had been killed.
Skeeter’s partner, Judge Tareyton, was Mary’s father, but no one knew it until after the judge had died, and Skeeter, broken-hearted over the death of his old partner, had ridden away in the night; ridden away, so that with his going, Sunbeam might be entirely rid of outlaws.