"What's that?" cried the bad-man, astounded. His uninjured hand crept to a revolver-butt.
"I believe in my soul that you murdered my boy."
"You're crazy, man—locoed sure enough. The Mexican—"
"Is a witness against you. When you heard that he had followed Ford that night, you got to worryin'. You didn't know how much he had seen. So you decided to play safe an' lynch him, you hellhound."
"Where did you dream that stuff, Wadley?" demanded Dinsmore, eyes narrowed wrathfully.
"I didn't dream it, any more than I dreamed that you followed Ford from the cap-rock where you hole up, an' shot him from behind at Battle Butte."
"That's war talk, Wadley. I've just got one word to say to it. You're a liar. Come a-shootin', soon as you're ready."
"That's now."
The cattleman reached for his forty-five, but before he could draw, a shot rang out from the corral. Wadley staggered forward a step or two and collapsed.
Pete did not relax his wariness. He knew that one of the gang had shot Wadley, but he did not yet know how badly the man was hurt. From his place behind the horse he took a couple of left-handed shots across the saddle at the helpless man. The cattleman raised himself on an elbow, but fell back with a grunt.