Hungry Horse news and Columbian. [volume] (Columbia Falls, Mont.) 1946-1948, 1948-01-23
CHAPTER XIV

1t had come on to rain, a soft, fine
rain that blurred the landscape. The
mountains were no longer visible,
and the foothills were vague and
shadowy. Calhoun Terry had united
his slicker from the saddle and put
it on.
Terry descended long slope at a
walk, forded a trickle of a stream
winding down the draw, and put his
mount at the slope. The rim above
was fringed with bushes, and back
of these rose small grove of aspen.
A bullet whistled past him. There
was a puff of smoke from the as
pens. Terry swung his horse swiftly
and raced for the wild cherries on
the bank of the little creek he had
just left. There was another shot
A slug tore through the arm of the
slicker he was wearing. After this.
scarce three seconds later, two more
explosions sounded. But before the
echo of the last had died away Cal
noun was in the bed of the stream,
crouched behind a screen of wild
cherry tangle. He had freed the
horse and let it wander down the
draw, but not before he had with
drawn the rifle from its boot.
His gaze swept the slope, to make
sure his enemies were not circling
the hillside for flank attack.
For there were at least two of
them. The first two shots were from
a rifle, the others from a revolver.
There was something strange about
this. The man with the revolver
had waited until Calhoun was practi-
cally out of range. Nor had Calhoun
seen the bullets strike on the hill
side.
While the foreman waited there
came to him news on the breeze.
Back of the rim and out of sight
man was riding from the aspens. He
heard the swish of bushes and the
clink of hoof against rock. A
vague, distant rumor told Terry that
the horseman was still going. There
might be two of them. He could
not tell that.
Terry did not intend to come into
the open, nor did he mean to wait
there for a possible rear attack. He
slipped along the bed of the little
creek and reclaimed his horse.
Leading the animal, he came to the
end of the draw and circled hill,
taking care not to let himself be
seen by anyone who might still be
watching from the aspens. He
mounted, but still kept to the low
country until he had made circuit
which brought him back of and be-
low the grove from which the shots
had come.
This had taken time. Twenty-Five
minutes or half an hour, Calhoun
guessed. He tied the horse and be-
gan a slow approach to the rock
rim. Before he left he meant to
find out all that could be learned
about this attempt on his life
Darkness was beginning to fall.
He found the tracks of two horses
cut the sign of them where they had
come in and again where they had
left. A few moments later he came
on a discovery that shocked him.
The body of man lay face down On
the mold formed by last years
leaves. To his back paper was
pinned. On it was written, This is
what happens to rustlers.
The body was still warm, though
the heart had ceased to beat an
hour ago. Calhoun turned it over.
The man was Black Yeager, no.
torious bad man, the first one to
have his name put on the black list
at the meeting in Denver. He had
been shot twice. One bullet had
torn into his stomach. A second had
struck him between the eyes. Evil
IDENTIFY the revolver had been fired
at close quarters, for there were
marks on the face. Yea
gers rifle lay beside him, still
clutched in one hand.
Terry tried to reconstruct the
scene. Two men had ridden into
the aspen clump together. They had
dismounted and tied their horses.
Whether they had been quarrellng'
mr. whether there was an old AMI
mostly between them, he did not
know. At least there had been no
open enmity which would have pre-
vented them from siding each other
on this ride.
To guess the details of what fol-
lowed was not possible. Yeager had
taken two shots at him. The empty
shells showed that. Had the other
man protested? There had been
hardly time for an exchange OF
words after Black had fired. More
over. the dead mans face was
witness to the contrary. Fixed on
II was a look of shocked surprise,