With a hi and a yi and a hi-yi laddy o-aye.”
“I can hear shingin’,” declared Alden.
“Yea-a-ah; and that ain’t a marker to what yo’re goin’ to see, feller.”
Bam! And Alden Marsh thought somebody had thrown a lighted match in a car-load of fireworks. Terry could pistol-whip a man nicely, when he put his mind to it.
CHAPTER XV: LOOTING AND DEATH
That same evening Blaze Nolan had made up his mind to ride out to the JK and tell Kelton the whole story of his alleged connection with Kendall Marsh. He intended explaining everything; but lost his nerve before he reached the ranch, and turned back to town. He heard the three men singing in Bad News’s little office, and guessed rightly that they were full of the cup that cheers.
He tied his horse in front of the post office and had just stepped up on the sidewalk, when there came a thudding jar which seemed to shake the buildings. It was not unlike a small earthquake. His horse swung nervously around, jerking back on the tie-rope.
The jar must have been considerable, because the singers had stopped in the midst of a cowtown song which had fifty verses and twice as many choruses. Wondering what had happened, Blaze went slowly up the street, starting past the front of the bank, when his bootheels crushed down on broken glass.
He thought he heard a muffled voice in the alley, and stepped back. It was pitch dark in that alley, but Blaze was so sure he had heard a voice that he started down there blindly. It was not a wide alley and was not over sixty feet long to where it opened out at the rear of the Medicine Tree Bank.
It was lighter there, and Blaze saw a man. At least it looked like a man, wearing white pants, and staggering around. Blaze went toward him, and was just opposite the rear door of the bank, when another man seemed to hurtle through the doorway, crashed into Blaze, who went to his knees, grasping blindly at the other. Came a thudding blow on the head, and Blaze went sprawling on his face, his two hands clutching some object, which he fastened on to in the crash.