Even as he spoke, the hoofbeats of a hard-driven and laboring horse were heard entering town from the east. The three men looked at each other and listened intently, and Ezra muttered angrily, “Some dang fool has rode the laigs plumb off his hawse. He’ll be lucky if he makes it this far.” They all turned and went curiously to push out the swinging doors of the saloon and see who the horse-killing rider was.

  He was coming up Main Street in a cloud of dust, sitting erect in the saddle and flailing his lathered black with a quirt. The horse had his head low and he stumbled as he came on gallantly under his rider’s lash, found a final burst of speed that brought him up in front of the Gold Eagle where he staggered to a stop, stood on braced legs drawing great wheezing breaths through blood-red nostrils.

  The rider was a big man, a complete stranger to the trio who moved across the board-walk toward him. He wore a black sateen shirt and a black Stetson, smooth leather chaps and big-roweled spurs on his heels. He wore one gun, in an open holster on a cartridge-studded belt outside his chaps. It was a right-hand holster, but he wore it on the front of his left thigh with the black butt of a .45 resting against his left groin.

  In all his life, Pat Stevens had seen only one other man who carried his gun in that peculiar way. That was Tombstone Jake, a cold-blooded killer with seventeen notches on his gun. Tombstone boasted the fastest draw in Arizona when Pat knew him, clearing leather across the front of his body with a sweeping motion that swung the muzzle into shooting position a split-second faster than any of his opponents who trusted the orthodox draw.

  The black-garbed stranger flung his body from the saddle and lunged toward the men on the board-walk, shouting hoarsely, “The stage. Back yonder. They’re dead. All dead.”

  “What’s happened, stranger?” Pat pushed forward. “Who’s dead?”

  “Them that were ridin’ thuh stage,” the man panted. Though his voice was hoarse and excited it retained a distinctive Texas drawl. “It passed me this side of Hopewell Junction an’ I come on thuh place half an hour later. Landslide, it looks like. Took a piece out of thuh road an’ smashed thuh stage to the bottom of thuh canyon. I rode down fer a quick look. Two of ’em daid. I didn’t see no others. Damn near killed my hawse bringin’ thuh news.”

  Pat and his companions didn’t wait to hear more. Other men were running up to hear the news, and they knew that plenty of help would follow them as soon as horses could be saddled. The three men leaped to their saddled mounts at the hitching rail and thundered out of town eastward a few moments later. They didn’t waste time talking. In the mind of each one of them was the tragic realization that the village storekeeper had been due home from Pueblo on this stage. The stranger said he’d seen two dead. They knew that would be the driver and Mr. Winters unless something had occurred to hold Winters in the city another day.

  They let their horses out in a fast gallop, pacing them carefully to make the utmost speed without riding them off their feet as the stranger had done with his. They knew the only spot a landslide was likely to occur was on the stretch of steep side-hill road on the other side of the low pass beyond the head of Powder Valley, and they were looking ahead for the spot and saw the break in the edge of the road when they were still two hundred yards distant.

  Pat reined his horse down, panting, “That’s it. Right yonder. Too steep to go over the edge there. We better turn down into the canyon here.”

  Sam and Ezra followed Pat in pulling his horse back on his haunches and turning him to plunge over the edge and down at the same point the murderous rider had chosen less than an hour earlier when he rode down to inspect the result of his careful planning.

  The two broken-legged lead horses of the stage team, more inextricably tangled in their harness than before, were still struggling to free themselves and neighing piteously as the three men rode up.

  Pat saw their broken legs at once, and swung out of the saddle swearing grimly as he pulled his gun. His first act was to send a merciful bullet into the brain of each pain-crazed animal, and for a fleeting moment he wondered what sort of man the stranger could be when he neglected this act when he was there earlier.

  But more grisly things claimed Pat’s attention and thoughts at once. The coach lay on its side, the driver’s seat and front portion smashed to kindling wood by the huge boulder which had also killed the wheel team instantly.

  The body of Taw Drummond was in that smashed wreckage, flattened to an indistinguishable pancake of flesh and blood and shattered bones, and a few feet beyond the coach lay the body of Mr. Winters where he had evidently been tossed clear, his face and head smashed to a bloody pulp so it was difficult to recognize him.

  The three men, indescribably shocked by the death of their good friend, gathered around Winters’ body and Pat shook his head sadly, muttering, “I don’t see how he got smashed up that way. The back of the coach ain’t smashed at all, an’ it looks like he was flung out while it was turning over an’ over coming downhill.”

  “If he wasn’t settin’ up with Taw on the driver’s seat like he usually did,” Sam Sloan put in.

  Pat shook his head, frowning angrily. “He’d be plumb crushed to death like Taw if he’d been sitting up beside him. You can see where that rock, ’most as big as a house, loosened from up above an’ dropped right square down on top of the front part.”

  Ezra was kneeling beside Winters, feeling carefully over his limp body. He looked up with his one eye glaring redly and suspiciously filmed with moisture. “He’s got a couple of busted ribs but I can’t find nothin’ else wrong.” He sighed deeply and rocked back on his heels, reached for a bandana which he clumsily spread over the face of their friend.

  Pat went to the coach and leaned in through the opening where one of the side doors had been wrenched from its hinges, and studied the interior with growing puzzlement. “I don’t see a mite of blood inside here,” he reported. “Here’s some papers on the floor that fell out of Winters’ pockets so he must of been riding back here by himself when it happened. He must of hit his face against a rock when he was thrown out.”

  “Mighty funny there ain’t no rock around here with blood on it,” Ezra grumbled. He was down on his knees circling the body, searching the ground as though he were trying to smell out evidence.

  Pat and Sam stepped back and watched him hopefully. They knew and respected the peculiar sixth sense which seemed to come to Ezra’s aid at a time like this. He had a way of locating a single dislodged pebble and building a complete set of facts from a tiny scratch on its surface and the position in which he found it, and they waited breathlessly to hear his verdict.

  In the meantime, other riders were arriving from Dutch Springs, some of them stopping at the edge of the broken roadway above, and others riding down into the canyon.

  Pat and Sam moved back to meet these latter ones and to hold them back from the scene and prevent them from milling around and messing up the ground signs more than had already been done.

  To these late-comers, Pat simply explained that the accident had killed both the driver and his single passenger, and that Ezra was merely checking up on the scene for an official report that he would have to make to the insurance company.

  He didn’t mention aloud the thought that was growing stronger in his mind as he watched Ezra quarter back and forth over the ground on his haunches; the suspicion that it might not be an accident at all, but planned murder.

  But he couldn’t help thinking: First Bill Freeman and now Mr. Winters. Winters was the only person in the Valley who had known who the real William Wilcox was. He couldn’t help thinking what a shock it was going to be to the brave girl back in the Jewel Hotel; yes, and what a relief it was going to be to Dick Freeman to know there was now no further danger that Winters would uphold the legality of the girl’s claim.

  Ezra had finished now, and was coming toward him. Pat stepped forward quickly to meet him and draw him back beyond earshot of the curious men whom he and Sam had been holding back. “What do you make of it?” he demanded anxiously.

  “Not much … yet,” grunted Ezra. “I still don’t see how Winters could of got killed like that an’ no rocks around where he could of hit. There’s bin one man here before us,” he went on. “Mebby two men on hawses. It’s hard tuh say on account of thuh way we rode in an’ scattered tracks before I started lookin’. But there’s bin one man on foot before us movin’ around where Winters lays,” he went on positively.

  “Sure,” Pat reminded him. “The man that brought word to us. He said he rode down here for a look-see.”

  “Yeh. I reckon he might of got off to see was Winters plumb dead,” Ezra conceded. He glanced up the slope frowningly at the group of riders excitedly gathered on the road above, and beyond them to the edge of the overhanging cliff from which the huge boulder had been dislodged.

  “I got a mind to ride up yonder to the top an’ take a look-around before it gets messed up,” he announced. “Somethin’ mighty danged funny about this hull thing, Pat. I cain’t get it outta my mind that Winters was …”

  Pat nodded and said quietly, “I know. He was the only man in the Valley that knew whether Bill Freeman was named Wilcox or not. Go ahead on up there, Ezra. Sam an’ me’ll stay here and see to takin’ care of things. We’ll ride up soon as I get a couple of stretchers fixed to take Taw and Winters out on.”

  10.

  By cutting and trimming the branches from four slender saplings, and spreading a saddle blanket across each pair, two rude litters were put together to carry the corpses of Taw Drummond and Mr. Winters up the steep slope to the road where they could be loaded into a carriage driven from Dutch Springs to pick them up.

  Pat Stevens and Sam Sloan supervised the job; and then saw to the removal of the harness from the bodies of the four dead horses, and to the salvaging of the mail sacks and express parcels from the wrecked stage which also had to be taken into Dutch Springs for shipment on southward.

  With this work accomplished; Pat and Sam went up to the broken spot in the roadway above to view the damage wrought when the side of the road had caved away under the weight of the dropping boulder. Fortunately, the road had been more than ten feet wide at that point, and there was enough solid roadway left next to the bank for vehicles to pass the spot without immediate repairs.

  It was past sundown by the time these necessary tasks were completed, and Ezra had not returned from his investigation of the direct cause of the tragedy above them. The funeral carriage had already started back to Dutch Springs with its melancholy load, and the riders were beginning to disperse back toward town or off to their neighboring ranches.

  Thus far, no one except Pat and his two companions had noticed anything at all irregular about the supposed accident, and not the slightest suspicion had been voiced as to the cause of the tragedy. Desiring to keep all such suspicions allayed for the time being at least, Pat and Sam hung back and urged all the others to ride on before they put their horses up the steep slope to the top of the cliff where Ezra patiently awaited them.

  They found the big, one-eyed man squatted back from the edge placidly smoking a cigarette, and as soon as they rode up and Pat saw the pleased expression on Ezra’s scarred face he knew his partner had struck pay-dirt in his investigation.

  He swung out of his saddle with a sigh and squatted beside Ezra, began to build a cigarette and said, “Let’s have it.”

  Ezra waited until Sam was settled on the other side of him before saying angrily, “’Twas murder, right enuff. The front part of the cliff where the rock fell from shows signs of bein’ dug away with a pick. Not fresh signs, mind yuh, an’ not much. Looks like it was done a day or so ago, mebby, an’ the rock was left sorta balanced till somebody wanted it tuh fall.”

  Pat sucked on his cigarette and said grimly, “Go on.”

  “A rider was up here this afternoon. One man on a hawse. There’s a set of tracks comin’ up from off thuh road, an’ another set leadin’ down again. Cain’t tell where he went after he hit the road ’cause there was too many new tracks messin’ it up before I got to it.” Ezra turned his single, red-rimmed eye accusingly on the sheriff to indicate his official laxity in allowing this to happen.

  “When we first got here,” Pat said shortly, “we didn’t have no thought that tracks or anything was goin’ to be important.” He got up from his squatting position and strolled over to the edge to study the spot from which the boulder had fallen. He shook his head and complained, “Maybe a little bit in front was dug away, but you can see here where the rock rested an’ I’d say it’d take at least a dozen men to push it over the edge. Unless they put a pry-board under it from behind to help it along.”

  Ezra shook his head placidly. “There wasn’t no pry-board used. That woulda left marks behind, an’ yore killer was too smart for that. ’Twould of took about a dozen men pushin’ on it though, jest like you say.”

  “Then how in tarnation do you reckon he managed it?”

  Ezra chuckled placidly. “A good ropin’ hawse kin pull as much as a dozen men. You know that.”

  “Sure, I know a good hawse can pull a dozen men from the saddlehorn,” Pat agreed hotly. “But that rock was balanced on the edge of the cliff. To get a rope-pull on it, the hawse would have to be out in front hangin’ in the air. Maybe he had wings on his four feet to hold him up, huh?”

  Ezra was unperturbed. “I said yore killer was smart. Take a look at thuh base of that tree leanin’ out over the edge. There’s rope burns around it. He passed his rope around that tree an’ back here to where his hawse had solid ground to pull on. With his loop fastened to thuh rock, all he had tuh do was wait till the stage was right underneath an’ then put on the pressure. Pulling around the tree, the rope jerked the rock forward and over the edge even if the hawse was here behind it.”

  Pat said, “I’ll be plumb damned. Simple, but plenty smart.” He came back to the other two, his gray eyes hot with anger. “You make anything else outta them tracks?”

  Ezra shook his head. “Hawse was shod all the way around. But there’s lotsa shod hawses in Powder Valley.”

  Pat squatted down beside the other two to build another cigarette. It was deep twilight now on top of the cliff. In the west, angry traces of daylight still lingered above the horizon, streaks of violet and of crimson lighting the heavy cloudbanks gathering there.

  “Bill Freeman and Mr. Winters both in two days,” Pat said evenly. “Two of the best men in the Valley. I’d say this cinches it. If that rock was dug away yesterday or the day before like you say, it’s a sure bet that whoever done it knew Winters was due on today’s stage an’ waited till Drummond drove underneath. Just to get Winters, I’d say.”

  “Ain’t no doubt about that,” Sam agreed from the other side of Ezra. “The mailbags an’ express wasn’t tampered with. Whoever done it rode down after the stage went over an’ found Winters throwed out on the ground not plumb dead. He fixed that by finishing him off with a rock while he was layin’ there … then carried the rock off with him and hid it hopin’ we’d jest think Winters hit his head rollin’ down thuh slope.”

  “That the way you make it out, Ezra?” Pat asked.

  “That’s the way it’s gotta be,” Ezra agreed heavily. “Whoever done it was after Winters. The fallin’ rock didn’t get him, so he went down an’ finished thuh job.”

  “Mr. Winters was like Bill Freeman,” Pat said slowly. “Didn’t have an enemy in the whole Valley. I reckon he was the best-liked an’ most-trusted man hereabouts.”

  Both his partners nodded gloomy assent. Sam said, “I reckon there ain’t a man in the Valley that ain’t been beholden tuh Winters at one time or ’nother. He’s carried all of us on his books for chuck when we was hard up, and he never dunned no man tuh pay his bill. We’ll never get another storekeeper like him tuh carry us over hard times.”

  “It’s got to be tied up with the Freeman killing,” said Pat harshly. “Somebody is plumb dead-set that the Wilcox girl ain’t going to be able to prove her claim to the Four-V’s. Winters was the only man in the Valley that could prove her claim after Bill was murdered, an’ now Winters can’t do it.”

  “Who?” demanded Ezra angrily. “Dick Freeman’s the only one that’ll profit by keepin’ her claim unproved. An’ Dick Freeman has been locked up in jail for two days. He couldn’t of done this job.”

  “Lucky for him he was locked up,” Pat agreed. “He’d sure hang for this if he wasn’t.”

  “Who does that leave you?” Sam demanded.

  “I don’t know. I sure don’t know.” Pat took a final drag on his cigarette and spun the butt away. “I hanker to have a little talk with that stranger that near killed his hawse bringin’ in the news. Either one of you know who he is?”

  Both men shook their heads. Both were certain they had never seen the rider before.

  “I’d say he’s up from Texas not too long ago,” Ezra rumbled. “Talks like a Longhorned jasper, an’ he’s ridin’ a double-rig saddle.”

  Pat nodded. “I noticed that, too. An’ I can’t help but remember that Bill Freeman hailed from Texas too.”

  “Would he of rode in with news of the stage if he was mixed up in it?” Sam asked doubtfully. “Seems like the guy that did it would of rode the other way an’ tried tuh claim he wasn’t nowhere near around.”

  “Maybe. And maybe not,” Pat argued. “Feller like that gets too smart for his britches sometimes. Figures that’s the best way of actin’ innocent. And if anybody knew he was out on this road about the time it happened, he’d be afraid there’d be questions asked if he didn’t report it.”

  “You got any other reason to pick him?” Sam asked.

  “We know he rode down to the stage,” Pat reminded him. “And we know the killer rode down there to finish off Winters.”

  “But we don’t know whether one or two men was down there after it happened,” Ezra put in. “I told you there mighta bin two hawses before us. But only one man got off to make foot-tracks.”