"Couple gents fogging for the open hell-bent. But the meadow's empty."
Charterhouse seemed to be holding a conference with the others. "Think Curly held his bunch pretty well together. They've all gone west, which means Angels, I guess."
"Mebbe we ought to have followed," suggested Seastrom.
"No advantage," decided Charterhouse. "The idea in this was to keep the percentage on our side. Never play their game. Surprise 'em. I think we crippled four-five, but that ain't fair enough exchange for one man dead and one man hurt."
"Then what?" asked Seastrom.
"I'd like to know what they figure to do next," mused Charterhouse. "If Curly goes to Angels, the rest of the pack will be there soon enough. Well, I think I'll drift in by myself and see if I can pick up any dope."
"Not wise," said Fitzgibbon.
"Take me," put in Seastrom.
"No, I'll creep in alone. You boys stay right here until I come back. Meanwhile, somebody will have to ride to Box M and see if the doctor is there. Bring him back for Lee. As for Pink, I hate to say it, but he'd better be buried here and now. We may move fast before daylight."
"Why not cut for Shander's and clean out the joint since we know Curly ain't reinforcing him at present?"
"Move like that would be liable to place us beyond a quick run to Box M. Above all, boys, we've got to keep tab on these Curly wolves. That reminds me, a man had better go up and camp on the ridge trail to see nobody slides up during the dark. Same for the Dead Man trail. We've got our finger on Curly and we can't let him ease off to unknown directions. I'm going. Stick tight. This is a game of checkers. Party that does the most jumping wins. Our idea is to keep the other bunch out of our king row."
"Take Seastrom," said Fitzgibbon. "Two's better'n one. You'll bear more and see more."
"All right. Let's ride, Heck."
"If you ain't back by daylight," went on Fitzgibbon with unusual loquacity, "I'll bust into Angels."
"We'll be back before midnight," promised Clint, swinging away.
"Ain't sure," grumbled Fitzgibbon. "That town is the original breeding place of sin and treachery."
The two left the meadow and tracked over the scene of fighting. Shortly beyond they took the more open area to the west. But once timber began to rank around them Charterhouse led off and hit independently into the ridge. So, silently, they passed across it and lined out for Angels, the lights of which beckoned sardonically at them through the distance. The wind was fresh and clear, the night very dark. From afar one lonely shot faintly reverberated.
"Angels celebrating in its homely, hospitable manner," grunted Seastrom, breaking the long silence.
Charterhouse had been thinking of Casabella politics. "Listen, Heck. We'll say Curly fights because he's a born herd jumper. We'll say Studd plays the same game because he is a sort of peanut politician and looking out for himself. We'll go so far as to admit Wolfert is dote what he is told to do. But Shander—what does he stand to gain by tipping over the bucket? He's got land and cattle. If he loses this ruction, he also loses his property. I don't quite get it. Ain't natural to play so hard for a plumb uncertain stake."
"Casabella style, Casabella fever."
"Always some sort of reason for fevers," countered Clint. "It appears to me there must be a nigger in the woodpile we've overlooked."
Seastrom's reply was slow and cautious. "Any names to add to the list?"
"None. But I believe there's some motives, at present unknown, to add to the list."
"Mebbe, but what of it? We've got plenty of motives to start all the needful friction. We'd better turn off to hit Angels behind the slaughterhouse. It's deserted. Easy place to leave the horses."
Accordingly they veered and slid off from the town's front side. A quarter hour of slow travel brought them near the slaughterhouse. Dismounting, they went forward, Seastrom leading. The windmill was turning and the joints squeaked badly; water trickled in the gloom. Seastrom kept swerving one way and another until he stopped Charterhouse in the lee of a stinking shed.
"Safe enough here," he whispered. "What next?"
"You keep to this side of town, Heck. Cruise along back with your eyes and ears open. I'm cutting around the plaza. Want to see if Shander's in town. We may get some ideas out of the trip. Don't take any chances. Meet me here in about an hour."
"Listen, I ain't so strong for splitting up. This is one tough joint."
"I know, but we'll stand a better chance of getting information that way. But if I don't show up in time, you wait an extra hour and pull out alone. That's to keep Fitz from becoming too nervous. He ain't to move away from the clearing until I get back."
"You're the doctor," assented Seastrom.
They walked the length of the slaughterhouse and reached the back of a store building. Seastrom halted. Charterhouse murmured, "Take it easy," and slipped off. He paused at a narrow alley and saw a small section of the dark plaza down the far end; men crossed his vision and vanished. There was the sudden lure to follow the alley and come out among them, but he disregarded it and went on, studying a beam of light that came through a back door and lay directly across his path. He hesitated, heard voices, and shot over the revealing rays on the run to find himself at the stable's rear. Familiar territory.
Peering down the length of the interior, Clint discovered sundry citizens of Angels leisurely loitering under a lantern suspended from the rafters. A gust of laughter came to him, and he put aside temptation for the second time, pressing around a corral and reaching the open desert. Soundlessly he faded into it.
He had only that moment disappeared when a man flung open the same back door he had recently skirted and ran forward as far as the stable. The man crouched in the darkness, staring all about the shadows of the corral; then he rose and ran beyond the stable and swept the cloaked prairie carefully. A grunt of dissatisfaction escaped him. Doubling back, he went down the stable's vault, out the front and across the plaza hurriedly. About the same time a rider came loping into Angels from eastward and hauled his pony to a cruel stop by Studd's saloon. Dismounting, he thrust a surly question at one of the bystanders. "Where's Wolfert?" The bystander nodded his head, and the rider tramped beyond the saloon a few buildings into a door.
Clint Charterhouse, flat on his belly at the plaza's southwest corner, saw the rider go in. It was too dark to determine the fellow's identity but there was a familiar carriage about those shoulders that interested him. Silently he considered the proposition. "Looks like he was in a hurry. Good news or bad news, maybe, which he wants to impart. Who'd he impart it to if not the wise gents in charge of this scrap? That means he's gone in yonder door to find them. Proceeding from which—"
He got up and slid into the shadows, fouled himself in baling wire and scented the proximity of stale beer kegs.
He was behind Studd's, hearing the swell of talk that emerged. A second-story window lifted to considerable profanity and an empty bottle fell beside him. Farther on he began to listen for particular voices. The building next to Studd's seemed empty and adjacent to that was a store. Beyond the store ran a shorter tenement containing a back porch. He settled on the porch and put his eye to a keyhole, discovering only darkness.
"Let's consider," he muttered. "The fellow went one, two, three doors from Studd's. This must be it. No lights, no sound. I wonder if there's a room between me and the front end—and what am I getting into?"
He stepped away from the porch, scanning the upper windows. "Grated, which means jail above and sheriff or marshal's office below. Now—"
Unexpectedly he discovered men poking along the back of town. A boot slammed into a box near the saloon and somebody's surly curse rolled sluggishly through the darkness. At almost the same time another questing citizen moved up from the opposite buildings, speaking with impatience. "Why don't