“JN? I don’t know it. What’s the JN brand got——”
“I’m askin’ questions—not answerin’ ’em. Have yuh got a brand registry at yore office?”
“Yeah, I’ve got one.”
“Then let’s go and find out where it is located—this JN outfit.”
They paid for their meal and went outside. Hale was interested enough to go with them. As they crossed the street, going toward Hork’s store, the sheriff stopped, with a muttered exclamation. It was too dark to distinguish clearly, but in the yellow lights from the opposite building, there appeared to be a number of horses in front of the sheriff’s office.
“What the —— is goin’ on down there?” wondered Sudden.
The sheriff grunted and started down the middle of the street, when, from a point about midway between them and the office, some one fired a gun. The shooter blended into the wall of the building and was not visible, and his shot was evidently fired into the air as a warning.
A moment later several bullets whispered past the five men in the street, and they all broke for shelter. Hashknife and Sleepy ran across toward Hork’s store, while the others scattered separately.
Men came running out of the store, only to be driven back by a fusillade of bullets, which splintered the wooden sidewalks and bit chunks out of Hork’s porch posts. Hashknife and Sleepy flattened themselves against the building. Here and there a door crashed shut, as men decided that the street was no place to be in that storm of lead.
And about a minute later a group of horsemen swept up the street from the jail, shooting promiscuously to drive every one off the street. A bullet smashed through a window beside Hashknife and Sleepy, and they dropped flat. But as the horsemen rode through the cross lights of the Totem Saloon and Hork’s store, they saw the huge figure of Eph King, sitting straight in the saddle, leading his men out of the town where he was so badly hated.