“Hear Larson’s bought the K T brand. Anything to it?” asked Dud.
“Paid seven thousand down, time on the balance,” Mike said. “How you lads makin’ it on Elk?”
“Fine. We got the best preëmptions on the river. Plenty of good grass, wood an’ water handy, a first-class summer range. It’s an A1 layout, looks like.”
“At the end of nowhere, I reckon,” Mike grinned.
“The best steers are on the edge of the herd,” Dud retorted cheerfully. “It’s that way with ranches too. A fellow couldn’t raise much of a herd in Denver, could he?”
A sound like the explosion of a distant firecracker reached them. It was followed by a second.
It is strange what a difference there is between the report of one shot and another. A riotous cowpuncher bangs away into the air to stress the fact that he is a live one on the howl. Nobody pays the least attention. A bullet flies from a revolver barrel winged with death. Men at the roulette wheel straighten up to listen. The poker game is automatically suspended, a hand half dealt. By some kind of telepathy the players know that explosion carries deadly menace.
So now the conversation died. No other sound came, but the two cattlemen and the bartender were keyed to tense alertness. They had sloughed instantly the easy indolence of casual talk.
There came the slap of running footsteps on the sidewalk. A voice called in excitement, “They’ve killed Ferril.”
The eyes of the Elk Creek ranchers met. They knew now what was taking place. Ferril was cashier of the Bear Cat bank.