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Updated: April 30, 2025
MacKelvey's greeting to him was, "Martin, that girl of yours is a wonder! There's not a man in the country would have tackled the thing she did to-day." "Pshaw," grunted Hume, his sneering manner having come back to him with his growing displeasure. "It was simple enough for all of its spectacular staging." "Was it?" MacKelvey asked sharply. "I'll bet you five hundred dollars, Mr.
Shandon?" he said genially, removing his hat to mop his moist forehead and then coming closer to extend his hand. "I was passing and thought I'd drop in." Shandon who had been squatting by the fire got to his feet and stared. "Well?" he demanded sharply. He fully expected to hear other voices in a moment, MacKelvey's voice, perhaps Sledge Hume's. "My card," smiled the genial gentleman pleasantly.
Flight lay before him; his quickened senses told him what lay behind unless he fled now and swiftly. "MacKelvey's a fool at best," he grunted, snatching at a ray of hope. "Once I get on a horse " He was taking a chance but he had to take chances. Making a short circuit he ran at last, still stooping as he ran.
And Shandon, tossing back his head as he rode, rushed down towards them, shot between them, turned down the knoll after Hume. The gun in MacKelvey's hand spat flame and lead. The bullet, aimed high, hissed above Shandon's head. "Stop!" cried the sheriff lustily, driving his spurs into his own horse's sides and dashing across the line between Venable and Denbigh. "By God, Red, I'll kill you!"
"If you've killed him," grunted Big Bill into MacKelvey's ear as his horse came abreast of the sheriff's, "you might as well make a clean-up and get me, too."
Already, with close to ten miles ahead of him, with Hume still a quarter of a mile to the fore, Wayne Shandon's face had turned white, his shirt was slowly turning red. The bullet from the heavy calibre revolver MacKelvey used had struck in the shoulder. "He's swerved out of his course," was MacKelvey's next thought. "He is losing ground right now.
Can I have a drink and something to eat? I'm half starved." "Certainly. But your suggestion " "Is already working. I'm going to make it so hot for Red Shandon that he'll come to time the first show he gets. MacKelvey is on the jump and not over an hour or two behind me. It's time for trumps now, Leland." Martin jerked his head up at MacKelvey's name and stared at Hume with keen, hard eyes.
MacKelvey's heavy voice came to him again from Leland's study. He dressed swiftly, his eyes glittering. Spinning the cylinder of his revolver, he shoved it into his pocket and into another pocket thrust the thick pad of bank notes which had been under his pillow during the night. Then he went back to the window. He could hear Julia in the kitchen.
He could hear Leland's voice now, now MacKelvey's, then another man's. Was it Johnson's? "That cursed woman," he muttered bitterly. "She double crossed me after all. God! I was a fool!" He did not hesitate. Kinsell was a detective, who had been in Shandon's hire for six months.
Big Bill had mounted and was riding away, his eyes on the ground, refusing to follow the figure of a man he had come to hate most thoroughly. MacKelvey had gone to his horse and was jerking loose its tie rope. Dart was now close to MacKelvey's side. Venable and Denbigh, conversing swiftly in undertones, looked blankly at each other, then at Dart's noncommittal back.
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