第57章

The Sixth Man

It caused a quick turning of heads.

"I don't want to put you out none," said the applicant gently.His voice was extremely gentle, and there was about him all the shrinking aloofness of the naturally timid.The deputy looked him over with quiet amusement--slender fellow with the gentlest brown eyes--and then with a quick side glance invited the crowd to get in on the joke.

"You ain't puttin' me out," he assured the other."Not if you pay for your own ammunition.""Oh, yes," answered the would-be man-hunter, "I reckon I could afford that."He was so serious about it that the crowd murmured its amusement instead of bursting into loud laughter.If the man was a fool, at least he was not aggressive in his folly.They gave way and he walked slowly towards the counter and stepped into the little open space beside the master of ceremonies.Very obviously he was ill at ease to find himself the center of so much attention.

"I s'pose you been practicin' up on tin-cans?" suggested the deputy, leaning on the counter.

"Sometimes I hit things and sometimes I don't," answered the stranger.

"Well," and this was put more crisply as the deputy brought out a large pad of paper, "jest gimme your name, partner.""Joe Cumber." He grew still more ill at ease."I hear that even if you hit the mark you got to talk to the sheriff himself afterwards?""Yep."

The applicant sighed.

"Why d'you ask?"

"I ain't much on words."

"But hell with your gun, eh?" The deputy sheriff grinned again, but when the other turned his head toward him, his smile went out, suddenly while the wrinkle of mirth still lay in his cheek.The deputy stroked his chin and looked thoughtful.

"Get your gun ready," he ordered.

The other slipped his hand down to his gun-butt and moved his weapon to make sure that it was perfectly loose in the leather.

"Ain't you goin' to take your gun out?" queried the deputy.

"Can I do that?"

"I reckon not," said the deputy, and looked the stranger straight in the eyes.

His change to deadly earnestness put a hush over the crowd.

Across the target, not tossed easily as it had been for Pop Giersberg, but literally thrown, darted the line of white, while the gun flipped out of its holster as if it possessed life of its own and spoke.The white line ended half way to the farther side of the target, and the revolver slid again into hiding.

A clamor of amazement broke from the crowd, but the deputy looked steadily, without enthusiasm, at the stranger.

"Joe Cumber," he said, when the noise fell away a little, "I guess you'll see the sheriff.Harry, take Joe Cumber up to Pete, will you?"One of the bystanders jumped at the suggestion and led the other from the room, with a full half of the crowd following.The deputy remained behind, thoughtful.

"What's the matter?" asked one of the spectators."You look like you'd seen a ghost.""Gents," answered the deputy, "do any of you recollect seein' this feller before?"They did not.

"They's something queer about him," muttered the deputy.

"He may be word-shy," proffered a wit, "but he sure ain't gun-shy!""When he looked at me," said the deputy, more to himself than to the others, "it seemed to me like they was a swirl of yaller come into his eyes.Made me feel like some one had sneaked up behind me with a knife."In his thoughtfulness his eyes wandered, and wandering, they fell upon the notice of the reward for the capture, dead or alive, of Daniel Barry, about five feet nine or ten, slender, with black hair and brown eyes.

"My God!" cried the deputy.

But then he relaxed against the counter.

"It ain't possible," he murmured.

"What ain't possible?"

"However, I'm goin' to go and hang around.Gents, I got a crazy idea."He had no sooner started toward the door than he seemed to gain surety out of the motion.

"It's him!" he cried.He turned toward the others, white of face."Come on, all of you! It's him! Barry!"But in the meantime Harry had gone on swiftly to the office of the sheriff with "Joe Cumber." Behind him swirled the curious crowd and for their benefit he asked his questions loudly.

"Partner, that was sure a pretty play you made.I've seen 'em all try out to crack them balls, but I never seen none do it the way you did--with your gun in the leather at the start.What part of the country might you be from?"The other answered gently: "Why, from over yonder.""The T O outfit, eh?"

"Beyond that."

"Up in the Gray Mountains? That so! I s'pose you been on trails like this before?""Nothin' to talk about."

There might have been a double meaning in this remark, and Harry looked twice to make sure that there was no guile.

"Well, here we are." He threw open a door which revealed a bald-headed clerk seated at a desk in a little bare room."Billy, here's a gent that cracked it the first whack and started his gun from the leather, by God.

He--"