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Updated: June 20, 2025
Bartley led Joshua through the barn to the back, where he was tying him to a wagon wheel when a figure loomed up in the semi-darkness. "Ridin', stranger?" The figure struck a match and lighted a cigarette. Bartley at once recognized him as one of Sneed's men. Resenting the other's question and his attitude of easy familiarity, Bartley ignored his presence. "Hard of hearin'?" queried Hull.
Now, if I'd 'a' knowed you was around, I'd 'a' asked you to have a drink with me." A tall, heavy-set mountain man, bearded, and limping noticeably, stepped round the end of the spring fence and strode toward him. From Uncle Frank's description, Cheyenne at once recognized the stranger as Sneed. Across Sneed's left arm lay a rifle. Cheyenne saw him let down the hammer as he drew near.
Persimmon Sneed's mare seemed as fresh as himself, and when he would turn, as he often did, to face the fatigued, wilted, overwhelmed jury jogging along on their jaded steeds, tired out with the long day's jaunt and the rough footing, the mare would move swiftly backward in a manner that would have done credit to the manege of a circus.
"I was in there, figurin' hard how to get my hosses and get away, when, somehow, Jimmy got to the corral and turned Sneed's stock loose and hazed 'em down the trail. But where he run 'em to is the joke. I figured he would show up at our camp. It would be just like him to run the whole bunch into the ranch corral. And I reckon he done it." "But, Mr. Sneed!" exclaimed Dorothy.
"Go 'way, you snake eyes!" he chanted as he threw the dice along the bench. "Little Jo, where you bushin' out? You sure are bashful!" He threw again. "Roll on, you box-car! I don't like you, nohow! Nine? Nine? Five and a four! Six and a three! Just as easy!" Sneed came to the doorway and glanced at Cheyenne, who continued shooting craps with himself, oblivious to Sneed's muttered comment.
Bartley seems to be the only disinterested witness of the shooting," observed the coroner. "If there is any further evidence needed to convince the jury that Mr. Bartley's statements are impartial and correct, you might read this," declared the city marshal. "It is the antemortem statement of one of Sneed's men, taken at the hospital at three-fifteen this morning. He died at four o'clock."
Cheyenne made the saddle on the run, reined toward the corral, and, passing it on the run, turned in the saddle to glance back. Sneed was in the doorway. Cheyenne jerked his horse to one side and dug in the spurs. Sneed's rifle barked and a bullet whined past Cheyenne's head. He crouched in the saddle. Again a bullet whistled across the sunlit clearing. The cow-horse was going strong.
Sundry acquaintances among the honorary attendants paused to greet her pleasantly as they passed, but old Sneed's disapprobation of a woman's appearance on so public an occasion was plainly expressed on his features. For all the Turks are not in Turkey.
It is too much to say that a thrill of fear tried the fibres of Persimmon Sneed's obdurate old heart. But he listened for a moment to hear, perchance, the sound of voices from the group he had left, or the champing of the picketed steeds. He was an active man, and had come fast and far since quitting his companions. Not even a vague murmur rose from the silent autumnal woods.
As he reined in at the second switchback he saw, far below, and going at a lively trot, seven or eight horses, and behind them, hazing them along as fast as the trail would permit, Little Jim. "If Sneed's outfit gets to the rim before he makes the next turn, they'll get him sure," reasoned Cheyenne. He thought of turning back and trying to stop Sneed's men.
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