“You’re a liar—a rotten liar! You got her to run away with you. You took her in your car to Wagon Wheel. You gave her money to buy a ticket. You were seen on the train with her. I swore I’d kill you on sight, and I’m going to do it. Get out of the way, Silcott!”
The energy flowed back into Ruth’s limbs. She threw in the clutch and drove forward furiously. There was the sound of a shot, then of another. Next moment she was pushing home the brake and shutting off the gas. The car slammed to a halt, its wheels hard against the porch. She had driven directly between the sheepman and his intended victim.
Out of the haze that for a moment enveloped Ruth’s senses boomed a savage, excited voice:
“Turn me loose, Mac! Lemme go! I’ll finish the damned sheepman while I’m on the job.”
The scene opened before her eyes like a moving-picture film. On the porch her husband was struggling with a man for the possession of a gun, while young Silcott was sagging against a corner pillar, one hand clutched to his bleeding shoulder. Thirty yards away Tait lay on the ground, face down, beside his horse. From the corral, from the store, from the adjoining doctor’s office men poured upon the scene.
The place was suddenly alive with gesticulating people.
Rowan tore the rifle from the man with whom he was wrestling. “Don’t be a fool, Falkner. You’ve done enough already. I shouldn’t wonder if Tait had got his.”
“He had it coming to him, if ever a man had. If I’d been two seconds later you’d have been a goner, Mac. I just beat him to it. Good riddance if he croaks, I say.”
McCoy caught sight of Ruth. He moved toward her, his eyes alive with surprise and dismay.
“You—here!”