The voice came from the doorway in no uncertain tones. A gray mustached, white-haired man of stocky build stepped through the swinging doors. To the lapel of his open vest was pinned a sheriff’s badge. A blue-barreled .45 covered Tad.
Behind the sheriff stood a mottle-faced, white-aproned man in shirt sleeves. The man’s clothes were torn and dust-covered. His pudgy hands and mottled face were covered with small cuts.
Tad shoved his gun back into the waistband of his faded overalls. He grinned pleasantly at the sheriff, nodded, then his grin widened as he looked at the portly man in the discolored apron.
“So yo’re back, eh?” he said pleasantly. “Jest like a danged jack-in-the-box. I pitch yuh out the window and yuh come back through the door.”
Tad turned to Shorty, who, heedless of the interruption, was lending an attentive ear to the pleadings of the whipped miner.
“Let up on the big rock-buster, Shorty,” he called. “John Law has done took chips in the game.”
Tad’s words had much the same effect as a bucket of ice water thrown on a couple of fighting dogs. Shorty got to his feet, felt of a discolored and partially closed eye, and reached for papers and tobacco. He grinned uneasily into the cold-blue eyes of the sheriff.
“Hand me my gun, Taddie,” he said, his breath coming in labored gasps. “We’d jest as well be moving along, I reckon.”
But the sheriff blocked the exit.
“I’m takin’ charge uh the shootin’ irons,” he said sternly. “Ante, big ’un. Butts first. Thanks.”