June was in the kitchen with Chung Lung. The Reverend Melancthon Browning had just collected two dollars from Chung for the foreign missionary fund. Usually the cook was a cheerful giver, but this morning he was grumbling a little. He had been a loser at hop toy the night before.
“Mister Blowning he keep busy asking for dollars. He tell me givee to the Lord. Gleat smoke, Lord allee timee bloke?”
The girl laughed. The Oriental’s quaint irreverence was of the letter and not of the spirit.
Through the swing door burst Bob Dillon. “Know where there’s a rifle, June?”
She looked at him, big-eyed. “Not the Utes again?” she gasped.
Without a word she turned and led him swiftly down the passage to a bedroom. In one corner of it was a .40-.70 Marlin. From a peg above hung a cartridge belt. Bob loaded the gun.
June’s heart beat fast. “You’ll—be careful?” she cautioned.
He nodded as he ran out of the door and into the alley behind.
Platt & Fortner’s was erecting a brick store building, the first of its kind in Bear Cat. The walls were up to the second story and the window frames were in. Through the litter of rubbish left by the workmen Bob picked a hurried way to one of the window spaces. Two men were crouched in another of these openings not fifteen feet from him.