CHAPTER ONE
One of the brush clumps which clung to the ragged rim of the twisting canyon was tall enough to have hidden the carefully approaching cowboy if the cowboy had remained upright.
“Rip” Campbell measured exactly six feet four inches in his socks, weighed a hundred and forty pounds, and looked as if he had never had enough to eat in his life.
But despite his bony appearance and loose-jointed gait, the unusually tall puncher was moving with a speed and ease which carried him to the brush along the canyon rim in an incredibly short time.
Rip stooped as he reached the first tough bushes, removed his big, floppy black Stetson, and laid the hat carefully aside.
He glanced back to where the big, sweat-marked bay bronco he had just quit stood eying him wonderingly.
Rip’s yellow thatched head twisted back around, and for a moment his angular, bony cheeked, blunt-jawed face settled into a scowl.
His lips, usually wide and grinning, were a thin, puckered line, and his blue eyes were troubled as he sat listening to the rolling thunder of swiftly fired guns.
Those guns were slamming somewhere down in the canyon just beyond this brush, and Rip felt a keen desire to snake on out along the rim until he could have a look-see.
At the same moment, he argued with himself that whatever was happening down in that canyon was none of his business, most likely.
Yet there was a remote—a very remote—possibility that whatever was happening down in that canyon did concern him. Rip wore a single gun strapped low on his left thigh.
His big, long fingered left hand dropped, instinctively testing the gun to see that it was not jammed too far into the holster.
His lean body pressed close to the rocky soil, he began inching through the bushes, careful to make as little sound as possible.
When the rim yawned blue and deep just before him, he flattened down still more, swerving left to where a big boulder reared up from the very brink, as if poised there a moment before leaping off into the canyon’s misty depth.
But that old boulder had been there many a long century, and would probably remain a good many more, despite the fact that it was balanced in such a manner that a strong man could have made it move by shoving against it.
Rip pressed close to the base of the balanced rock, noting how it stood upon a natural pivot.
Then his eyes were raking out and down, studying the broad, boulder-strewn floor of the dry canyon.
He was less than a hundred feet directly above the canyon floor, yet a good twenty feet of the drop was sheer, weather-beaten rock wall which reached up to the rim.
Beyond the straight drop, a very steep slope dropped on down to the floor of the canyon.
Rip’s eyes had little trouble locating one of the hombres who was burning so much powder.
The fellow was directly below him, crouched behind a brush-shrouded boulder at the base of the steep slant.
Then four puffs of smoke lifted from rock and bush farther out in the canyon’s bottom, and Rip’s yellow thatched head nodded knowingly.
“This feller just under me here has got good cover, and is managing to stand off four others,” he mused softly.
“But that still don’t tell me much.”
Rip craned his neck, shivering a little at the dismal breeze of a bullet which had glanced from a boulder beside the crouching man at the bottom of the steep slope.
Rip saw that hombre plainer as the man shifted—saw that he was a short, grizzled fellow, dressed in cow-country boots, dark woolen trousers, and gray flannel shirt.
Behind the grizzled man, lying on the ground, was an expensive-looking gray Stetson, crown showing two black holes where a bullet had ripped completely through.
“That feller is a rancher, from his looks,” Rip muttered.
“Prosperous, too, I’d bet. And a rancher like that getting dry gulched. Dangnation!”
Rip’s last word was one of sympathy.
The grizzled ranchman below him had stood up cautiously, Winchester resting across the top of a rock.
But as the grizzled hombre’s head lowered for sighting, the man lurched, swayed backward, and fell heavily, right hand clutching at left elbow.
Rip saw crimson stain the man’s clutching Angers, and watched the blocky, grim-lipped face turn slowly white as the rancher lay there, glancing wildly about.
“Hey, boss, I think I winged the coyote that time!” a coarse, heavy toned voice came from out in the canyon.
“Don’t be fool enough to show yourself,” another voice roared in answer.
“That old Simpson buzzard is as sharp as they come. Maybe he’s playing a trick; so keep your head down, Cal.”
“Yeah, Simpson might be playing a trick,” a third voice chimed in,
“but I don’t think so. I figure Cal tagged the skunk. Simpson ain’t shooting no more.”
Simpson, the wounded rancher, evidently heard those words, and realized that he had to put doubt into the minds of his enemies.
He reared up, staggered back to the rock, and leaned weakly against it, left arm dangling limply.
Simpson’s right hand pawed a six-gun from holster, however, and Rip Campbell held his breath as he watched the rancher sight carefully.
Out in the center of the valley, a huge, moon-faced jasper had lifted himself slowly, and was standing half crouched, Winchester clutched in big, thick hands, bulging eyes rolling uneasily. Simpson’s six-gun spat, and the fat Sheriff dived back into the brush from which he had arisen, his voice coming in shrill, angry howls.
But in that brief instant while the big man showed himself, this whole thing took on a different meaning so far as Rip Campbell was concerned.
Pinned to the moonfaced hombre’s vest had been a star-shaped badge! Rip had unconsciously been rooting for that grizzled Simpson hombre, even figuring on helping him if things got too hot. Now, however, Rip had other ideas.
He snaked his own six-gun out, cocked it carefully, and measured the distance down to Simpson’s position through blue eyes that were squeezed tight and eagle-keen.
“That Simpson feller has been up to something crooked, looks like, or he wouldn’t be tangling with the law,” Rip muttered.
“With the job I’ve got to do in this country, I’ll shore need the law on my side, Rip sighted swiftly as he spoke, and the crash of the big .45 drowned out his words. Behind his barricade of rocks. Simpson lurched wildly, flinging around in panic.
A bullet had struck the rock only a foot from his body, spraying him with bits of lead and grit.
Simpson’s white face was tense and drawn, and his eyes were searching frantically along the base of the bluff.
“Drop that gun, Simpson,” Rip called grimly.
“I’ve got you dead center in my sights, and can kill you with my next shot. Drop that smoker!” Simpson swayed, cursed wearily, and tossed the six-gun aside, good right hand lifting.
From out in the valley came excited yells, yet no man showed himself until Rip called out to them.
“All right, badge-toter, I’ve got your man plumb tamed down for you,” the bony cowpoke yelled.
“You and your posse come on up and snag him. He’s through fighting now.”
“Who—who are you, feller?” Simpson called grimly.
“You ain’t one of them murdering Leaning L gunnies, or I’d know your voice.”
Rip glanced beyond the wounded Simpson to where four men had quit cover and were advancing warily, guns ready for instant use.
“You wouldn’t know me, son, since I’m a plumb stranger around here,” Rip called, wanting to keep Simpson’s attention.
“I just rode over into this Arizona Territory from New Mexico way. The name is Campbell, in case-”
“Rip Campbell!” Simpson cried in low, tense tones.
“My gosh, son, tum that badge-toter and them Leaning L coyotes back. Rip, you come hunting your missing partner, Roy Stover, didn’t you?” Rip Campbell almost slithered into full view before he could catch himself.
“How’d you know about Roy Stover bein’ my partner and that he was missing?”
“Not so loud!” Simpson croaked.
“Unless you and me can do something, Roy Stover will hang to-night just as shore-”
Simpson’s voice ended with the dull, slapping Sound of a bullet striking into yielding flesh.
The grizzled rancher shuddered and toppled slowly forward.
From out in the valley came an exultant whoop.
“I got him, boss!” a short, thick bodied jasper yelled gloatingly.
“Simpson was trying to sneak off up that slope yonder, blast him! But I stopped him that time.”
CHAPTER TWO
Simpson had not been trying to sneak away.
On top of that, his back had been turned to that squat hombre who had downed him.
Those two facts hammered through Rip Campbell’s brain in the fleeting moment it took him to twitch his big Colt up and sidewise. The big gun spat flaming thunder.
The squat jasper who had shot Simpson squealed like a stuck pig, fell kicking in a clump of prickly pear which grew among brown rocks.
The fellow’s voice lifted in a mighty wail, and he reared up, clawing at sides and back where spines had buried deeply into his flesh. Rip’s big left hand swayed slowly, and from that jutting black gun came a continuous stream of flame and smoke.
The huge, bug-eyed sheriff tangled over his own feet and fell heavily behind a wedge-shaped boulder.
A lanky, stony-faced hombre and a big, powerfully built man wheeled and dodged into the protection of a brush clump.
Then gun s were spitting angry replies to Rip’s shots, and the gaunt cowboy crouched low as his deft fingers reloaded the cylinder of his hot gun.
The instant that gun was reloaded he sent a slug digging into the boulder behind which the fat officer had hidden.
“Come out of there, big feller!” Rip yelled.
“You’re tampering with the law, feller,” the fat hombre’s voice roared in answer.
“This here is Sheriff Tom Dalton orating. You’re under arrest for Oweee!”
Sheriff Dalton’s voice ended in a shrill wail.
Rip Campbell had seen one broad portion of the sheriff’s anatomy exposed momentarily.
A well-aimed slug from Rip’s guns burned lengthwise through a big hip pocket, and now Sheriff Dalton was on his feet, doing a wild and undignified dance, both hands clapped aft and saying things which were far from gentle or mild.
Rifle slugs were whispering deadly sounds in Rip’s ample ears, and he was forced to crouch low behind the balanced rock.
He reloaded the two spent chambers in his gun while he waited for the storm of lead to pass.
“You’ll pay for this, whoever you are,” the sheriff was yelling hotly.
“I’m wounded, but not bad enough to keep me from trailing you down. Coaxed us out into the open, then opened up on us, did you?”
“It’ll do you no good to stall,” Rip answered hotly.
“One of your posse men murdered Simpson cold.”
“That’s a lie, Dalton!” the squat rascal who had tumbled into the prickly-pear nest howled.
“Whoever that jasper is, he’s lying when he says I shot Simpson down cold. Simpson was making’ a sneak, so I stopped him.”
Rip’s six-gun began hammering madly, as he raked the canyon below with whistling bullets.
But even as he fired Rip was scuttling into the bushes behind him. The gaunt cowpoke bored through the brush, heading for a deep, scar like gap he had noticed in the bluff a few rods up canyon.
He came to the lip of the scar, nodding quick approval when he saw that it was, as he had hoped, a broad crack, which would let him down over the bluff to the steep, brushy slope beyond.
Sheriff Dalton and those other three were hammering away at the balanced rock with Winchesters, no doubt thinking Rip had simply ducked down to reload once more.
The big, gawky cowboy hastily reloaded his six-gun, then slid into that narrow, boulder-strewn slide and began working his way swiftly down.
Luck favored him, for the twisting and windings of the narrow slot hid him perfectly from the four gunmen below.
And brush grew thickly at the base of the cliff, which made it simple enough for Rip to get out on the steep slope without being discovered.
The brush thinned out after a few rods, however, and Rip saw that he would be forced to cross openings from time to time as he worked on down toward the boulder where Simpson lay.
Showing himself meant drawing the lead of those four riflemen, Rip knew.
But he had ridden almost three hundred miles to find out why his stumpy, red-headed partner had apparently vanished into thin air here in this Arizona bad-lands country.
And Simpson had proved definitely that he knew something of Roy Stover.
Rip was willing to take almost any risk in order to reach Simpson, in the hope that the man was not too far gone to talk.
“I’ve got to reach Simpson and see if he’s able to tell me what he meant about Roy hanging to-night unless something was done,” Rip panted as he crouched at the upper edge of the first dangerous opening.
The rifles out in the canyon were silent now.
Rip tensed his gaunt, stringy-muscled body, gripped his reloaded gun, and shot from the brush like a frightened buck, long legs hurtling him over the ground at an amazing speed.
He was halfway across the little clearing before bullets came whining hotly about him.
The smash of guns rolled up from the valley floor, and Rip heard the hoarse yelling of the four riflemen.
Then Rip was in brush once more, bending low as branches ripped and tore at him.
“Reload, men, and watch sharp!” Sheriff Tom Dalton bellowed.
“We’ve got that feller now, since he was fool enough to come down here. Any of you ever see that string-bean cowboy before?”
“He’s a stranger to us, Dalton,” one of the other riflemen answered.
“But he’ll hole up in the brush clump a while, that’s shore. He’s got to, Hey, look out! Here he comes!”
Rip Campbell was not holing up any place just then.
The gaunt cowboy smashed from the lower edge of the thicket, six-gun spitting flame and smoke as he sighted a man rearing up from behind a brush clump out in the valley.
The hombre who had reared up dropped hastily back.
Rip’s slug had come mighty close to the fellow’s head.
Then Rip was entering another brush patch, only to bore through it like a cyclone and come out into still another opening.
The big cowboy’s wild charging, and the fact that he was not acting as the four riflemen had naturally expected him to act, was saving his life.
The sheriff and his three companions were so rattled that their lead was flying wild, and Rip Campbell took full advantage of that fact by racing on and on.
Once a bullet came close enough to leave a dull welt across his bony neck.
But now Rip saw the sheltering brush and boulders where the grizzled Simpson had fallen and forced his aching legs to hurl him the last few yards.
The gaunt cowboy sent three quick shots smashing toward the four riflemen, who were in plain view.
Then he dropped into the lee of the brush shrouded boulder, panting hoarsely, eyes goggling slowly out as he stared about. Simpson’s rifle and bullet punctured Stetson were lying there on the ground.
But the blocky, grizzled Simpson was nowhere to be seen.
“Careful, men!” Sheriff Dalton’s voice boomed through the canyon.
“That animated match stick is hunkered behind them rocks and bushes with Simpson now. Cal, you and me will stay here and keep that feller bottled up. Larry, you and Matt take a pass out to the rim above. We’ve got that snake right where we want him.”
Rip Campbell knew that he did not dare let a couple of those riflemen get on the rim behind him.
He had looked down upon Simpson from that same rim, and knew he would be killed if those riflemen ever reached that balanced rock, for there was no chance of him hiding.
Rip raked the brush and rocks about him with troubled eyes. Simpson was alive, no question of that, for otherwise he would have been lying there where he had fallen.
Rip saw crimson stains on the brown stones, and could trace the stains to the edge of a thicket, into which Simpson had undoubtedly crawled.
“Simpson!” the lean cowpoke called, as soon as he could catch his breath.
Receiving no answer, Rip moved toward the brush patch, careful to keep his tall body doubled over lest his head show above rocks and brush.
He was peering into the thick brush when a voice came lashing down from somewhere up the slope, causing him to crouch flat.
“All right, Ranger, watch them snakes close now!” that voice called.
“The boys and me will get them hemmed in soon as we can get down there. Keep an eye on Larry Stover and that overfed sheriff. We want them two, especially.”
“Ranger?” came a frightened voice from out in the valley, and Rip heard brush pop noisily.
The tall cowboy had recognized that voice which had come from up the slope.
“Shore, Simpson, I’ll keep an eye on them four jaspers,” he called loudly.
“But hurry, man. If they get to their horses they might get clean away.”
Rip leaped to the boulder which had shielded Simpson earlier.
Peering over, he saw the big, burly hombre, the lanky fellow, and the squat jasper who had fallen into the prickly pear racing wildly toward the far side of the valley.
The big sheriff stood in waist-deep brush, broad face a picture of puzzled uneasiness.
Rip’s Colt snapped forward, and from its yawning muzzle poured stabbing gashes of powder flame.
The three men who were speeding across the canyon leaped and twisted crazily, yelling in genuine alarm as slugs popped and sang about them.
Rip’s gun ran empty just as the trio dived into a deep ditch which meandered along the valley floor.
The gaunt cowboy hastily reloaded his hot gun, grinning faintly when he saw the three hombres reappear, mounted on horses that were being slapped and spurred unmercifully.
Those three were leaving there and leaving in a rush, which pleased Rip Campbell a lot.
“Ail right, Mr. Crooked Sheriff,” Rip snarled.
“Elevate them grub hooks and drag your carcass up here.”
“I ain’t no crook!” the huge sheriff yammered, big hands lifting jerkily.
“I—I didn’t know you was a Ranger, or I’d not have shot at you. Me and the Leaning L men was only trying to-”
“To murder a man,” Rip cut in sharply.
“Come on. Get over here before I plumb run out of patience.”
The big sheriff waddled from the brush, limping noticeably each time his left leg bore his weight.
From behind Rip came the slight sound of someone walking quietly, and the tall cowboy glanced around to see Simpson coming toward him.
Simpson’s left arm rode in a crude neckerchief sling, and the right side of his face and head were smeared with crimson.
He looked white and sick, but he grinned reassuringly.
“Thanks for backing my bluff, son,” he called quietly.
“I reckon the war is over now, with that fatheaded sheriff scared green and them Leaning L coyotes gone.”
“Thanks for thinking of that bluff. Simpson,” Rip laughed.
“I was sure in a pickle until you run that Ranger sandy.”
Rip faced about, and was just in time to see the sheriff halting beyond the rock. Dalton’s bulging eyes were troubled, and his face was very pale.
“Come on around behind this rock, you big hunk of lard,” Rip growled.
“Fine business, ain’t it, when a sheriff tries to help murder an honest citizen?”
“But—but I wasn’t trying to murder nobody,” Dalton croaked.
He came stumbling around the boulder, bulging brown eyes more uneasy than ever when Simpson met him.
Simpson yanked twin .45s from holsters that rode the sheriff’s huge thighs, and tossed the guns far out into the brush.
“Now sidle over to that rock yonder and set down,” Rip snapped at the officer.
“And you can lower your hands if you want.”
“I don’t feel like setting down,” Dalton growled.
“That bullet of yours blistered this here left hip of mine something fierce. But I’ll overlook that, seeing as how there’s been a misunderstanding on both sides.”
“Come on, Rip,” Simpson called grimly.
“We better high-tail it while we’re able. If Larry Stover and them two gun-slinging punchers of his get out on the rim above us, I’ll get something worse than a nicked elbow and a bullet-cut scalp. Fact is, them three will murder us both if they get the chance.”
“Don’t listen to that old crook Jim Simpson, Ranger,” the fat sheriff growled hoarsely.
“Mr. Stover and his punchers ain’t murderers. They tipped me off that Simpson was sneaking a big herd of stolen cattle out of the country. Help me arrest Simpson, and we’ll clear up the rustling trouble this country is suffering.”
“Yeah, like you cleared up the robbing and such that was taking place around here by jailing Roy Stover and charging him with murdering Cal Blount, the cattle buyer,” Jim Simpson flung hotly at the sheriff.
“Stover never murdered Blount, even if Stover and them two pet killers of his, Matt Brown and Cal Tustin, do claim they seen Roy drill Blount through the back, then rob him.”
“You’re danged whistling I solved that murder case by jailing that Stover skunk,” Dalton roared.
“And I ain’t forgetting that Stover was staying out to your 8 Bar 8, pretending to be hunting a ranch he could lease or buy hereabouts.” Rip Campbell was taking in the conversation avidly, nerves jangling as he realized that his missing partner was into something more than an ordinary mix-up.
“You think you’ve solved that case,” Simpson growled at the sheriff.
“But you’re only letting yourself be used as a tool, Dalton. Roy Stover is not a murderer.”
“He murdered Cal Blount, and robbed Blount of a couple thousand dollars, which the cattle buyer was aiming to pay you for a herd of cattle,” the sheriff snarled.
“I’ve got that Stover skunk cold turkey, and he’ll hang.”
“With three witnesses to swear they seen him do murder and robbery, I reckon Roy’s case is kind of hopeless.” Simpson shrugged wearily
“But don’t be too sure, Dalton. I happen to know who really did kill that cattle buyer.”
“Hear that, Ranger?” the big sheriff cried exultantly, turning to Rip Campbell.
“Hear this old coyote same as admit that he was in on that cattle buyer’s killing?”
“Simpson said was that he knew who did kill this Blount feller you mention.” Rip forced his voice to sound calm.
“Yeah, and the gent who killed Blount is Larry Stover,” Simpson said sharply.
“Roy Stover was on his way from my place to San Carlos town and run smack into Larry Stover, Cal Tustin, and Matt Brown, ail three bending over Cal Blount, searching Blount’s dead body. Stover’s gun was still smoking when Roy, after hearing a shot just ahead of him, spurred through a screen of brush and rode up on them three.”
“Lies!” Dalton yowled.
“Ranger, that’s just opposite from what happened. Mr. Stover and his two men heard a shot, and rode down a canyon in time to see this Roy Stover snake searching Blount, the cattle buyer. Blount was dead, an* Stover got the drop on Stover and fetched him in to town. Get the drop on Simpson, Ranger, and we’ll take-”
“I’m not a Ranger,” Rip snarled.
“Simpson called me Ranger, just to throw a scare into you and them murdering whelps you had with you. I’m Roy Stover’s partner, and here’s something that’ll teach you not to call Roy a murdering snake like you have.” Rip’s long right arm whipped up and out, propelling a big, knobby fist. That fist landed with the force of a maul against Sheriff Dalton’s three chins, and the thick-witted badge-toter sat down with a jarring suddenness.
“Come on, Rip!” Jim Simpson rasped.
“Larry Stover and his two partners framed a hanging bee in San Carlos with Roy Stover the guest of honor, so to speak. If they beat us back to a-”
Rip Campbell heard no more of what Jim Simpson was saying.
The huge sheriff had lurched suddenly upright, moon face purple with rage.
Rip saw the sheriff’s right arm spring back, then dart forward, but did not sense the danger until too late.
A rock the size of a man’s fist struck Rip a smashing blow in the temple, and the gaunt cowpoke sprawled limply sidewise, out cold.
CHAPTER THREE
Rip Campbell regained his senses when a booted foot crashed solidly into his ribs.
The gaunt puncher gasped, rolled weakly aside, and lay listening to harsh, ugly voices that came seeping through the pain fog that still dulled his brain.
The shock of that rock striking him on the head was passing, however, and his eyes focused, becoming less glassy.
Rip forgot his throbbing head instantly, for he was looking directly at Sheriff Tom Dalton, who sat leaning back against a big rock, face a white, crimson-smeared mask.
Dalton’s face showed the unmistakable signs of having been thoroughly pummeled by hard knuckles, and the sheriff acted as if he was too sick to care what went on about him.
Beside the sheriff sat old Jim Simpson.
The 8 Bar 8 owner’s face was also a bruised, crimson-smeared mask, and Rip realized suddenly that neither the sheriff nor Simpson had been talking.
But those voices still came plainly, and Rip twisted his aching head, to discover three hard-case jaspers standing only a few feet beyond, staring down upon him out of eyes that were coldly dangerous.
He recognized the three hombres as the ones who had been with the sheriff earlier, helping bay old Jim Simpson here behind these very rocks.
Rip sat up, wincing at the stab of pain which ran along his boot bruised ribs.
“Take it easy, Rip,” Jim Simpson called warningly.
“That big feller is Larry Stover, owner of the Leaning L.
The gangly, frozen faced hombre is Matt Brown, and the square-built buffoons is Cal Tustin. This muddle-headed sheriff bested me right after he knocked you out, then called them three poison things back here, much to his sorrow.”
Barrel-chested Larry Stover spat an oath toward Simpson, warning the old fellow to keep his mouth shut.
The Leaning L owner’s small dark eyes were flaming coldly, and his thick, crooked lips were lifted from huge white teeth when he turned to stare down upon Rip.
“So you come nosing around here hunting that red-headed feller, hey?” Stover rumbled.
“I come looking for my partner, Roy Stover.” Rip nodded.
His eyes shifted to lank, stony-faced Matt Brown.
Slitted black eyes and thin, bloodless lips gave the stony-faced gunman a truly sinister look, and Rip knew instantly that of the three Brown would prove the most deadly in any sort of fight.
Cal Tustin, a sour, dark-featured man with chill gray eyes and full stamp of an out-and-out cutthroat, was glowering at Rip. Tustin’s right shirt sleeve was red stained at the shoulder, where Rip’s bullet had nicked him, throwing him into the prickly-pear clump earlier.
“Go right ahead, you blasted crook, and look us over good,” Larry Stover snarled.
“You’re going to get that long neck of yours stretched plenty, feller, and that danged pronto/’
“I don’t savvy this a-tall, Mr. Stover,” the huge sheriff gurgled.
“Why did you and your two punchers jump me? I never done nothing to you fellers, did I?”
“I tried all along to tell you that Stover and these two were plain skunks,” old Jim Simpson answered the sheriff.
“You fool, they’re afraid it might finally soak through that thick head of yours that they killed Cal Blount, so they aim to hang you before you get such notions.”
“And we’ll see that a mob busts down your jail to-night and hangs Roy Stover!” Matt Brown grinned coldly at the sheriff.
“Your neck is gonna stretch, too, Simpson, don’t forget that,” Cal Tustin rumbled.
“You old buzzard, this splatter-brained Dalton never would have got suspicious of us three if you had kept your mouth shut.”
“I doubt if Dalton ever would get suspicious, anyhow, because he ain’t got that much sense,” Larry Stover growled.
“But the fool objected when I wanted to hang this Rip Campbell snoop and old Simpson, so we’ll hang the sheriff along with them other two.”
“You jaspers ain’t going hang me,” Dalton roared.
“By damn, I’m beginning’ to savvy à few things now! Maybe I have been dumb, but you three better not-”
The sheriff’s voice ended in a hoarse snarl as he hurtled to his feet, massive arms flailing out wildly. Larry Stover and Matt Brown rushed the sheriff, intending to shove him back to earth.
But that big officer was a hard hombre to handle.
Brown crashed backward, cursing through crimson-smeared lips, knocked slightly dizzy.
Larry Stover howled wildly when a huge fist cracked against his cheek. Seeing that his two companions had more than a handful of trouble, Cal Tustin ripped out twin guns, charging the snarling, fist-swinging sheriff.
And in that moment Rip Campbell came to life.
Rip saw his own gun, plus the six-gun and rifle that belonged to Jim Simpson, piled beside a bush a few feet away.
He lifted himself half erect, then dived wildly toward the piled weapons as Matt Brown yelled, drew twin guns.
Only the fact that Brown was groggy from a wallop m the teeth saved Rip’s life.
Brown triggered, and his slugs flew wild by a narrow margin.
Rip landed on chest and elbows, bony hands scooping frantically at the two six-guns—his and Jim Simpson’s—which lay beside the rifle.
Rip rolled sidewise even as he palmed the guns, and leaden death churned the earth where he had been a moment before.
He spun around as he rolled, however, and his hot, glinting eyes showed him that Cal Tustin had succeeded in clubbing the sheriff senseless, and that old Jim Simpson was springing toward Larry Stover’s legs from behind.
Stover and Cal Tustin had whirled to face Rip, and red lances of blazing powder licked hungrily from the barrels of their guns as they snarled oaths.
But Rip’s own weapons flamed, and Tustin spun, sobbing a choked oath as his right leg crumpled, letting him fall limply.
Larry Stover toppled at the same instant, for Jim Simpson had crashed into the man from behind, sending him sprawling facedown.
Rip felt the burn of a bullet tearing through the flesh of his upper right arm, and knew that the gun dropped from his right hand. Another bullet seared along his bony right jaw even as he shifted, left hand gun stabbing out.
Rip’s weapon blasted throatily, and Matt Brule’s head jerked sharply sidewise.
Then Brule’s body thumped the ground solidly.
That murderous jasper had pulled his last gun trigger!
Rip watched Larry Stover kick loose from old Jim Simpson and lurch upright.
Stover’s guns steadied, black bores weaving to target.
Rip Campbell triggered, and it seemed that,the three six-guns, two in Stover’s big fists and the one in Rip’s blared at the same instant.
Rip felt a slug rake skin from his side, and heard another slap the dirt an inch or less from his body.
But Larry Stover dropped both guns, flung his hands to his deep, arching chest, and stood swaying uncertainly for a moment, a dazed, sick expression spreading slowly over his face.
Then Stover coughed crimson spray, buckled at the knees, and struck limply across the earth, death rattling in his corded throat.
“You done it, son!” Jim Simpson whooped.
“Danged if you didn’t down dall three of them killers. Hurt much, Rip?”
“Bullet-nicked some, but nothing fatal,” Rip called.
“How’s the sheriff feeling?”
“Terrible!” Dufîy groaned. “I sure made a mess of things, looks like.”
Rip got to his feet, walked to where Cal Tustin lay shivering and moaning.
Tustin’s leg was broken at the thigh, and his face was the sick, white face of a man who suffered terrifically.
“Well, sheriff, here’s one of the snakes that will live, anyhow,” Rip called.
“We’ll get him to town, toss him into the jug, and let the law hang him instead of Roy Stover. Tustin may be the one who bushwhacked Cal Blount.”
“Guess again, long feller,” Tustin choked. “Larry Stover shot that cattle buyer down cold. Larry was mad because Blount wouldn’t buy Leaning L cattle instead of 8 Bar 8 stuff. Larry swore that he would only stick Blount up, or Matt Brown and me never would ’a’ helped him. As it was, Matt and me was only onlookers, because we never helped shoot or rob that cattle buyer. Larry done the whole thing and cussed me and Matt for yellow rats when we wouldn’t help.”
“I reckon you heard that, sheriff.” Rip grinned widely.
“Now will you go turn Roy Stover out of jail?”
“I sure will.” The big sheriff nodded gloomily.
“That sorrel topped little cuss will have the laugh on me, too. He’s told me every day I’d have to let him loose sooner or later, and that he’d whip me the minute he was out from behind bars.”
“If Roy said he’d whip you, sheriff, maybe you better give me your jail key and let me go turn him loose,” Rip chuckled.
“Because that little hunk of sorrel-topped dynamite wasn’t kidding when he said he’d give you a licking. Seems to me you’ve had punishment enough for one day, so sort of stay under cover when we get our prisoner to town and turn Roy loose.”
The End
Chris Lowry Books 