Buck’s mouth opened, then closed without saying a word. He had been on the verge of telling the wagon boss the whole thing. Until now, Buck Bell had accepted the trust of his fellowmen as a matter of course. Now, well, now it was all over. He was beginning to pay already for his crime.
“I’ll just make ’er out fer a hundred dollars, Buck.”
Horace was misinterpreting the cowboy’s silence. Buck shook his head.
“I’d ruther not, Horace. I’ll make ’er somehow. It’s right white of you and the Old Gent. I won’t fergit it.”
The sheriff came in, an icy gust of wind and snow following him inside the lamplit, smoke hazed saloon.
Dick Powell was a blunt statured man, husky, reddish of hair, with keen gray eyes and a drooping mustache. A good natured sort of fellow who was rated as a crackerjack cow hand. The grin on Dick’s mouth held a grim twist as his eyes swept the crowd with slow deliberation.
“Belly up to the mahogany, Dick,” invited some one.
Dick Powell did not seem to hear. A hush fell over the gathering. The fiddle in the hands of a Cree breed squeaked thinly and went silent. The bartender, from force of habit, reached for the sawed off shotgun under the bar.
“Boys,” said the blocky sheriff, his voice heavy with sadness, rather than anger, “there’s a damn’ skunk amongst us tonight. When you boys rode in, I give you the run of the town. A man hates to think he has to watch boys that he’s worked with in the wet and cold and hot weather. I never thought a Circle C man would coyote on me.”