Skeeter kicked the door open, placed the food inside and came back to the gun. He looked it over and pumped out an empty shell. The gun had been fired recently, and a grin overspread Skeeter’s face as he visualized Mrs. Kirk shooting at a target to try the gun.
“Kicked her so danged hard that she dropped it and busted off across country for fear it might go off ag’in,” mused Skeeter; but as his eyes searched for a possible target he stared at the fringe of the old dry-wash, about fifty feet away.
Taking a deep breath, he walked straight out there and looked down at the body of a man. Skeeter did not know him. He was a big man with a deeply lined face, and his hair was slightly gray. He wore a faded blue shirt, nondescript vest, overalls and bat-winged chaps. One of his arms was doubled under him, and that hand evidently held a six-shooter, the barrel of which protruded out past his hip.
Skeeter turned him over and felt of his heart. The man had evidently received the whole charge of buckshot between his waist and shoulders, and there was no question but that he was dead.
Skeeter squatted down beside the dead man with the shotgun across his lap. There was no question in his mind but that either Kirk or his wife had fired the fatal shot. Which one, it did not matter. They had only been protecting their rights; but would the law look at it in the right way?
Skeeter had become so engrossed in the problem that he forgot his wild ride from town. He knew that he must dispose of this body at once—wipe out all evidence of this tragedy—anything to get it away from the sheep-camp and out of the light of day.
The brushy bottom of the old dry-wash suggested the handiest spot, and without a moment’s delay he swung the body around, climbed partly down the bank and hoisted the body to his shoulder. The loose dirt gave way with him, and he almost fell to his knees at the bottom, but managed to right himself. As he plunged ahead into the brush he seemed to be surrounded by horsemen, some of them almost crashing into him.
He swung the body aside into a bush and reached for his gun, but looked up into the muzzles of four guns, and one of them was in the hand of Ben Freel, the sheriff. Two other cowboys came riding through the brush and stopped near them.
Freel spurred his horse ahead and looked down at the dead man.
“By ——!” he grunted. “Cleve Hart!”