“Who in —— do yuh reckon it is?”
“Silent!” grunted Brick.
“Yeah—Silent! What in —— hit me, Brick?”
“Did yuh get hit?” asked Harp quickly.
“Didn’t yuh feel the jar?” wailed Silent. “By grab, it sure made cream
out of the Milky Way. Did I get hit? Kinda.”
“What did yuh get hit with?” asked Brick.
“Think I selected it?” wailed Silent.
“Yuh didn’t get shot, did yuh?” This from Harp.
“Didn’t I? Thanks, Harp. I’m sure as —— glad there’s somethin’ that
didn’t hit me.”
Silent got painfully to his feet and rubbed his head. His hand went to
his holster and he grunted aloud.
“They went fifty-fifty with me on guns, anyway.”
“Did—did they take the gun I found?” spluttered Brick.
“No-o-o,” drawled Silent. “They pulled m’ shirt out all the way around
to get the one I put inside though.”
“That was the one I gave you, Silent.”
“Naw, it wasn’t. I figured that Klein might hanker for that gun, and I
played safe and put that yaller-handled one in my holster. Danged good
gun, Brick. I sure winged Klein with it. We had a nice li’l party while
it lasted, but some snake-hunter popped me on the nut as I backed out
the door.”
“Out of McGill’s place?” asked Brick.
“Uh-huh.”
Silent searched his pockets and grunted mournfully:
“They took all m’ money—the danged burglars. It was good money, too. I
made McGill take back the counterfeits and pay me in good old U. S. A.”
Gradually Brick drew the whole story from Silent, but he was unable to
tell who hit him. It was a certainty that it was neither Klein, Duggan,
Romeo nor McGill. Whether any of them had a hand in taking Silent away
from the doorway would be hard to prove.
Brick was sorry that Silent had mentioned the bad money and also that he
had told of finding the gun. Somehow Brick knew that there was a
connection between that lost gun and some of the other things, but just
what it was he did not know. He wondered if Soapy Caswell was mixed up
in it in some way, and if he discharged Klein for the effect it would
have in his favor.
It was easy enough to see why Klein made his gun-play at Silent. Klein
was smarting from the fight at Otto’s place, sore at Silent for what he
had said in front of the livery-stable, and when he heard Silent
repeating it—well, it would make any man fight. Duggan would probably
assist Klein, if he had a chance. McGill had made little protest on
taking back the bad money, but that meant nothing. If there was a lot of
the counterfeit in circulation a saloon-keeper would get more than his
share, especially in a town like Silverton, where every other building
is a saloon.
Silent was leaning against the corral fence rubbing his head. Harp had
sat down on a pile of poles, but Brick stood apart, thinking deeply.
Moonlight silvered the old pole corral and softened the harsh outlines
of the rough barn. From far up the street came the shrill notes of a
violin, and the hoarse voice of a man, calling a quadrille:
“Balance all! Swing yore pardners!”
A man walked between them and the rear of McGill’s place, carrying a
lighted lantern, which cast a grotesque shadow of enormous legs; which
seemed to take long steps but did not. He stopped at a shack, and the
lifting-lever of his lantern creaked as he lifted the chimney and blew
it out. From far out on the hills came the yip-yip of a lonesome coyote.