MATSON MAKES HIS GATHER
LIKE wildfire the news spread through western Wyoming that Tait and Gilroy had been shot down in their sheep wagon by night raiders. Soon there was no ranch so deep-hidden in the hills, no herder’s camp so remote that the story had not been carried there. The tale was a nine-days’ wonder, a sensation that gave zest to colourless lives. The identity of the raiders was a mystery that promised much pleasant gossip.
Furtive whispers of names began to be heard. That of Falkner was mentioned first. He had made threats against Tait, and he was known to be quarrelsome and vindictive. Then the murmured gossip took up the name of McCoy, added shortly to it those of Cole and Silcott. It was known that all four of the suspected men had been absent from the round-up the night of the killing. Two of them were enemies of Tait, the others had been mixed up in the cattle-sheep feud. By their own statements they had all been together during the hours when the raid took place.
The gossipers had no direct evidence, but a great deal of opinion was whispered back and forth in corrals, on porches, and in the saddle. The sentiment was general that Tait had for a long time laid himself open to such an end. But Gilroy was a good citizen, not turbulent, friendly to his neighbours. His murder stirred a deep but not too loudly expressed resentment.
Meanwhile Sheriff Matson moved about his business of gathering evidence with relentless singleness of purpose. He, too, heard whispers and followed them to sources. He rode up and down the country piecing this and that together until he had a net of circumstance encircling the guilty ones.
From one of the herders whom McCoy had saved he gathered valuable information. The man had been awakened by the sound of firing. He had run to the door of the wagon in time to see Gilroy shot down. Tait was already down. The herder had been saved by one of the attackers who had stood between him and another and prevented the second man from murdering him. The first man had called the other one Hal. The raiders were all masked and he had not recognized any of them.
“I ain’t lost any of them raiders, Mr. Sheriff,” the man said with a kind of dogged weakness. “If I know too much, why someone takes a shot in the dark at me an’ that’s the last of Johnnie Mott. No, sir, I done told you too much already. I was plumb excited, an’ maybe I ain’t got it jest the way it was. He mighta called the other fellow Hardy instead of Hal.”
“He might have, but he didn’t, Mott. Keep yore mouth shut and you don’t need to worry about gettin’ shot. I’ll look after you if you’ll stay right here in town. You can hold down that job I got you as janitor at the court house. Nobody’s gonna hurt you any.”
One of the whispers Matson heard took him to Dunc King. That young man had, as usual, been talking too much. The sheriff found him at his mother’s ranch mending a piece of broken fence.
“ ’Lo, Dunc. How’s everything?” the officer asked by way of greeting.