Title: Gambler's dollar
Author: Tuttle, W. C. (Wilbur C.)
Language: English
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                          GAMBLER’S DOLLAR


[Illustration: “I’ve still got one shell left!”]


                          GAMBLER’S DOLLAR

                          By W. C. TUTTLE


Flint Orr, sheriff of Mojave Wells, awoke slowly and painfully. A
heavy weight seemed to bear down upon his brain, as his mouth was as
dry as ashes. He tried to remember what he had drunk or ate, but his
memory was blank as to details. Painfully he rolled over on his
side, staring red-eyed at the battered alarm clock on the little
table near the bed.

“Nine o’clock,” he muttered. He was in his own bedroom, sprawled in
all his clothes. Not even his boots had been removed. He lifted a
heavy head and looked at the boots. Not for years had he been so
drunk that he forgot to undress.

But had he been drunk? He rubbed the stubble on his heavy chin. Of
course he had not been drunk. Why, he hadn’t been drunk in three
years, not since he became sheriff. He had sworn off drinking at
that time. But what was wrong with everything? Why was he in bed,
fully dressed, at nine o’clock in the morning?

He listened closely, but there was not a sound in the house except
the ticking of that confounded clock. With a sweep of his big right
hand, he knocked it off on the floor, where it ceased to tick. Funny
that there should be no noise in the house. Ann should be doing her
work.

Flint Orr licked his parched lips. Where was Ann? Damn it, he was
tired of her whining. Couldn’t she understand that a sheriff must do
his duty, even to hanging his own son for murder? Blood didn’t make
any difference. Harry Orr had killed, just like any other man might
kill, and he must pay the penalty. Women have strange ideas of duty.

He managed to swing his feet off the bed, where he sat, holding a
throbbing head between his hands. Flint Orr was a huge man, thewed
like a bull, with a huge mane of iron-gray hair on his large head,
like the roach on a grizzly. His face was heavy, his eyes small and
brown, under bushy brows, and he never seemed to laugh.

Men hated and respected him--hated him for his bull-headed, ruthless
way of serving the law, but respected him for his honesty of
purpose. Ann Orr, his wife, barely past thirty, was loved by
everyone--except, possibly, Flint Orr. Harry Orr was not her son, but
she had fought tooth and nail to save him from the gallows. Flint
Orr did not admire her for this. In fact, he resented it. There was
no question of Harry’s guilt.

Harry worked for the Circle Seven cattle outfit, ten miles north of
Mojave Wells. Harry and Ed Belt, the foreman, had quarreled over a
girl, and came to blows at the ranch. Harry had followed Belt to
Mojave Wells, where they quarreled again over a poker game, but
others intervened, stopping possible gunplay.

Later that evening Harry Orr and Ed Belt went to get their horses,
when several shots were fired. Harry, who had been drinking heavily,
staggered into the Trail Herd Saloon, babbling that Ed Belt had been
killed. His own gun was reeking of freshly-burned powder, but he
told a vague tale of shooting at the man who had shot Belt. Belt was
killed by a .45 bullet--and Harry carried a forty-five Colt.

Flint Orr lifted his head, listened again, swore painfully and got
to his feet. There was a coffee cup and saucer on the table, still
stained from coffee. Flint Orr tried to remember that Ann had fixed
a cup of coffee for him, when he was ready for bed. No, that wasn’t
it. He was always in the habit of getting up at six o’clock. Then he
remembered.

“I got up and dressed,” he told himself. “It was before six. Ann had
the coffee all made, and gave me a cup. But--what the hell!”

His eyes caught sight of a sheet of paper, braced against the lamp.
On it was written in pencil;

    Don’t look for me—ever. I have gone away, because
    I can’t stand it any longer.
                                                  Ann.

Flint Orr’s jaw sagged as he read the message.

“Gone away?” he questioned aloud. “Why, she never----”

Overtaken by a sudden rage, he tore the paper into bits, flinging
them aside, and went striding into the kitchen. There was no sign
that breakfast had been prepared.

A cigar butt was balanced on the edge of the wood stove. Flint Orr
did not smoke.

Cursing bitterly, he yanked his sombrero over his eyes and headed
for the main street, staggering just a little bit. His head still
ached, and his knees were none too strong. He found Jack Handley,
his deputy, waiting in front of the office, which was part of the
jail. In a fenced-in vacant lot beside the jail, was the roughed-in
gallows, where Harry Orr was to pay the penalty of his crime.

Jack Handley looked curiously at Flint Orr.

“I was just about to come lookin’ for yuh, Flint,” he said.
“Couldn’t feed the prisoner until yuh came with the keys.”

Flint Orr was feeling in his pockets for the keys, a scowl on his
face.

“Did Ann go away on a visit?” asked Handley.

“Eh?” grunted the sheriff. “What about Ann?”

“Billy Hart, over at the livery-stable, said that he seen her ridin’
away with a feller early this mornin’, goin’ toward Painted Rock.”

Flint Orr stared at his deputy.

“What feller?” he asked dully.

“Billy didn’t say. What’s the matter with yuh, Flint? Man, yuh look
like the breakin’ up of a hard winter.”

The sheriff shook his head, like a fighter, trying to rid his brain
of a numbing shock.

“I ain’t got no keys,” he said huskily. “I had ’em some’ers----”

“You shore look like you’ve been doped, Flint.”

Doped! That was it. That coffee. It tasted queer, too, come to think
of it. But why? Flint turned and staggered down toward the gallows,
where he stopped below a barred window.

“Harry!” he called. “Harry Orr! Come to the window!”

But Harry Orr did not come to the window, because Harry Orr was not
in that cell. With a hammer from the blacksmith shop, they broke
open the office door. A glance showed that the cells were empty.
Gray-faced, Flint Orr slumped at his desk, and cursed the woman he
had married. She had doped his coffee, stolen his keys, turned a
murderer loose, and ran away with another man. The curious crowd
silently moved away, leaving only Jack Handley, the deputy.

Finally Flint Orr jumped to his feet, facing Handley.

“Why don’t you do somethin’?” he roared. “Why in hell don’t you say
somethin’?”

“All I’ve got to say is that--mebbe she’s right, Flint.”

Flint Orr smashed the smaller man on the jaw, knocking him against
the office wall, and as Handley swayed uncertainly, Flint Orr
forcibly tore the insignia of office from Handley’s shirt and flung
him aside. Then he walked out and went straight to his little
stable, where he saddled his fastest horse, Red Shadow. He shoved a
rifle into his saddle-scabbard, belted an extra supply of cartridges
around his waist, and got heavily into the saddle.

Jack Handley staggered out onto the sidewalk as the sheriff rode
past.

“Poor fool,” muttered Handley, rubbing a swelling jaw. “Headin’ into
the old Mojave, without even a canteen of water.”

But Flint Orr knew where he was going. Twenty miles away in Jackass
Canyon, Harry Orr owned a prospect hole and a dugout shack. This was
where Harry Orr would go. He always kept food and guns there.

“I’ll get him,” swore the sheriff between clenched teeth. “No man
ever got away from me. And then I’ll find that woman and her feller,
if I have to comb the whole damn world.”

After a mile gallop Red Shadow drew down to a walk. A hundred and
twenty in the shade--and no shade--quickly takes the run out of even a
desert-raised horse. But they were many miles from Mojave Wells
before the sheriff realized that he had no water. No use going back
now. He dimly remembered something that Harry had said about there
not being any water at the mine, and that he had to pack in what he
used.

Flint Orr cursed bitterly, his eyes on the break in the distant line
of hills marking Jackass Canyon. He’d find Harry there and bring him
back, dead or alive. He’d show Mojave Wells that kinship meant
nothing in the line of duty. Then he cursed Ann, the woman who had
betrayed him. Ann was still young, still beautiful--damn her soul! He
tried to puzzle out just who the man might be. It could be one of
many men. But no matter.

He would kill that man. But first he must recapture Harry Orr. Duty
first, domestic troubles later.

                 *       *       *       *       *

Far out on the road toward Painted Rock a team and buckboard went
slowly along in the dazzling heat and sandy dust. A young man and a
young-looking woman were on the seat. In the back was a
weather-beaten trunk and some dusty-looking packages. A canteen
dangled from the back of the seat. The man said;

“I feel yuh done wrong, Ann. You ain’t got no place to go.”

“Any place is better than where I lived,” the woman replied, her
eyes fixed ahead. “I couldn’t stand it, Harry.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said gently. “But look at us, Ann. I’m a fugitive
from justice, a condemned murderer. You’ve quit my father, and you
ain’t got any place to go. No money, nothin’. Mebbe we can beat the
news to Painted Rock. I can climb on a freight train and try to get
out of the country. But what about you, Ann?”

“Don’t worry about me, Harry. I’ll get along. No job on earth, would
be as hard as living with a man who thinks so much of duty that he’d
hang his own son. Duty! My God, where does duty stop or begin?”

Harry Orr unhooked the canteen and they drank sparingly, as they
watched the road behind them.

“He’ll follow us,” she said.

Harry Orr nodded and slapped the team with the lines. Inside the
waistband of his overalls was a Colt .45, fully loaded--and Harry Orr
was a good shot.

“You won’t let him take you, Harry?” she asked.

“I’ve been thinkin’ about it, Ann,” he said slowly. “Life’s a queer
thing, when yuh put it on the balance. My life or his--and he’s my
father. He was all right until he became sheriff, Ann. You know that
as well as I do. But it changed him. Duty and power. If he comes,
with a gun in his hand, I--well, we’ll see. A man’s only got one life
to fool around with, and he might harm you--if he got me first.”

“I’m afraid, Harry,” she said.

Suddenly her eyes caught a vagrant drift of dust, far ahead.
Straining her eyes, she saw more puffs of dust, which could only
mean a traveling horse or a vehicle.

“Someone coming, Harry!” she exclaimed. “We don’t want anybody to
see you. Drop off here and hide, while I drive slowly. When they’re
past, I’ll pull up.”

Harry Orr slid out of the seat and walked in behind a clump of
Joshua palms, where he crouched. The buckboard went ahead slowly.

In spite of slow driving the buckboard was possibly a hundred and
fifty yards beyond Harry Orr when the lone rider met Ann. Harry was
unable to see who the rider was, but Ann had stopped and they were
talking.

The man was a huge, hulking, hard-faced person, bearded, his hair
long, heavily armed. His horse had been shot along the neck, and
there was another bullet slash along its left hip, raw and inflamed,
and the animal sagged weakly under the weight of the big man. Ann
did not remember ever having seen this man before, but he had called
her by name.

“Yuh don’t know me, eh?” he snarled. “Too many whiskers, eh? Well, I
know you, sister. Yo’re the sheriff’s wife. The wife of my dear
friend, Flint Orr, damn his dirty hide!”

“You--you are Dave Sells! Why, I----”

“That’s right, sister--Dave Sells. See this?” He lifted a canvas sack
from the pommel of his saddle. “That’s from the bank of Painted
Rock. Damn their souls, they shot my bronc, but I got away. Left two
of their beloved citizens in the middle of the street, studyin’
astronomy. They’re out behind me some’ers.”

“I must be going on, Mr. Sells,” said Ann. “I’m going to Painted----”

“Oh, no, yo’re not, sister. Yo’re goin’ with me. By God, this is
good! Me and the wife of my dear old friend. Hold on, now, don’t yuh
ever think yo’re goin’ any place! Set still, like a nice little
girl, or you’ll wish yuh had.”

With no lost motions, Dave Sells stripped the saddle and bridle from
his half-dead horse and flung them into the back of the buckboard.
Then he shoved Ann aside and got into the seat.

“What do you mean?” she demanded hotly.

“Gawdsakes, yo’re pretty when yuh git mad! What do I mean? Sister, I
know a shack in this old Mojave where there’s mebbe water and grub.
That damn posse won’t never look for buckboard tracks. Even if they
did, the wind’ll cover ’em in a few hours. Ain’t many folks know
about that there shack. That’s why I use it. We turn off about a
mile from here, and then me and you are lost to everybody. Don’t
look at me thataway, sister. Hell, I’m kind of heart. In fact, I
feel kinder of heart right now than I have since yore husband and
that yaller-hearted Ed Belt sent me up for stealin’ horses.”

“Ed Belt?” queried Ann huskily.

“Yea-a-ah--Ed Belt. Funny thing, sister, I came back to this country
to kill Flint Orr and Ed Belt both. Well, I got Ed Belt, but I never
got a sight notched on Flint Orr yet.”

“You killed Ed Belt?”

“That’s right, sister. Plugged him right at a hitch-rack in Mojave
Wells. Some damn fool with Belt took a couple shots at me, and
almost handed me a harp. I faded out for a month or so. Well, here’s
where we roll off the main road. Our shack’s about eight, nine miles
further on.”

“They--they arrested Harry Orr for that murder,” Ann told him. “He
was the man who shot at you. The--the law didn’t believe him.”

“Well, dog my cats!” blurted Sells. “That’s why they never tried to
find me, I’ll betcha. Gawd, that was bull luck. Orr? Harry Orr? Say,
that’s Flint Orr’s own kid, ain’t he? Yea-a-ah! Well, are they goin’
to hang him?”

Ann nodded miserably.

“Well, I’ll be a sidewinder!” blurted Sells. “The sheriff’s son--and
Flint Orr will have to drop the trap. I shoot a man, and the sheriff
hangs his own son for the crime--and I’ve got the sheriff’s wife!”

                 *       *       *       *       *

Harry Orr, unable to hear what was said, and not understanding what
the man had done, saw him jump into the buckboard and drive away at
a swift pace. Running heavily in the sand, he reached the spot where
the buckboard had stopped, and there he found Dave Sells’ horse,
spent and injured. The animal stood there, head down, and let Harry
examine its bullet scrapes. His practiced eye saw that the poor
brute had been ridden to the limit of its endurance, and its death
was only a question of a few hours. Shoving the animal away from the
road, he used up one cartridge in giving it a mercy death.

It was at least fifteen miles to Painted Rock, but Harry Orr knew
that his only salvation was to reach that town and chance an escape
by train; so he started to walk, traveling slowly, trying to puzzle
out what had happened to Ann. There was no question that she had
been captured by this man, but Harry felt that she was being forced
to take him to Painted Rock, until he came to where they had turned
off on the old road.

He sprawled in the meager shade of a Joshua-palm and tried to figure
out his next move. As far as he knew that old road led to nowhere,
possibly made originally by Mexicans, hauling mesquite-root fuel,
which they sold in Mojave Wells. However, he was not going to
Painted Rock until he had found out where that buckboard had gone.

                 *       *       *       *       *

It was late in the afternoon when Flint Orr rode his jaded horse
into Jackass Canyon. The blackened rocks fairly sizzled with heat,
but it was cooler in the blue shade of the canyon. Red-eyed, partly
blinded, the sheriff searched the floor and walls for a sign of his
quarry, but to no avail. He tied his horse in the canon and went on
foot to the old dugout shack, but it had not been occupied for
months. There was some canned food, but no water.

He cut open the one can of tomatoes and slaked his thirst. The stuff
was nearly hot, but at least it was wet. That one drink would have
to suffice until he could get back to Mojave Wells, which he would
not attempt until late at night, when the desert would cool.

As long as Harry did not come to Jackass Canyon; the sheriff was
sure now that Harry had gone to Painted Rock. He cursed himself for
acting too quickly, realizing now that the man with Ann must have
been Harry, and that both of them had gone to Painted Rock. And here
he was, twenty-five miles from Mojave Wells, and at least
thirty-five miles from Painted Rock.

As the sun dropped below the rim of the cobalt mountains in the
west, the sheriff crawled to a ridge where he could look across the
desert. The rocks were hot now, but within a couple of hours there
would be a cooling breeze. He wondered if his horse could stand a
thirty-five mile trip across the sand without water or food.

                 *       *       *       *       *

Dave Sells and Ann Orr reached the old shack in a thicket of cactus,
mesquite and Joshua-palms. It was only one room, with adobe floor,
window holes, but no windows. There was a door, swung on raw-hide
hinges, but with no lock or fastening. Sells unhitched the team.

“We’ve got a couple ridin’ horses now,” he chuckled, as he noted
saddle marks on the backs of both horses. “Hell, sister, we ain’t
over thirty miles from Mexico. I got friends down there, south of
the old Border. We’ll head for there _mañana_--what do yuh say?”

Ann shook her head. She was in a desperate situation. Sells had
little brains and absolutely no morals.

“No?” he queried with a wolfish smile. “Well, sister, you’ll either
go or you won’t go no place. C’mon.”

“You’d kill me?” she asked wearily.

“Just like I would a bug. You bein’ young and pretty don’t make a
damn bit of difference to me, sister. Git into the shack!”

It was hot in there, but cooler than it was outside. Ann sank down
on an old stool, while Sells sprawled on a bed-roll, between her and
the open doorway.

“We’ll have better than this in Mexico,” he told her. “I know a
place down there on the Yaqui River where nobody ever comes, except
Yaqui. They’re my friends. Mebbe, in a year or two, I’ll come back
here and make another good haul.”

Sells rolled a cigarette. Ann’s eyes opened wider, as he took a
pinch of stuff from his vest pocket and sifted it on top of the
tobacco before sealing his cigarette. He glanced up at her and
grinned.

“Marajuana,” he admitted. “Good for yore nerves, when yo’re kinda
fagged. Better’n whiskey.”

Ann knew what that stuff would do to the smoker.

“I don’t go crazy on it,” he told her. “I jist take enough to make
me forgit the hell I’ve been through. Yuh better let me roll yuh
one, sister. You’ll have plenty to forgit.” Sells laughed heartily.
“I only hope that the sheriff knows what happened to yuh.”

                 *       *       *       *       *

Harry Orr, ready to drop from exhaustion, stumbled onto the shack,
and pitched headlong behind a patch of cactus, when a bullet tugged
at his sleeve. Dave Sells had seen him from the doorway, just as the
sun was nearly down. Marajuana had jangled Sells’ nerves to the
extent that he had jerked the trigger, instead of squeezing it.

Sells thought for a moment that he had scored a hit, and that
mistake almost finished him, because Harry Orr’s first shot struck
the buckle of Sells’ ornate belt a glancing shot, and nearly knocked
the big outlaw back into the shack. Then Harry Orr crawled in behind
some heavier cover and took stock of the situation. He had four
shells left in his gun. His tongue was swollen and his lips cracked,
but he knew he was a long ways from any available water.

In the shack, Dave Sells, swearing bitterly, proceeded to tie Ann’s
feet and wrists. He had no idea who the attacker might be, and in
his present state of mind, he did not care much. He peered from a
corner of one of the window holes, turned back and picked up the
canteen, shook it, a scowl on his face. There was a wet spot on the
adobe floor. Then he whirled on Ann.

“Damn you, yuh opened that canteen on me!” he rasped. “Not a damn
drop left! No water!”

“The top came off when you threw it down there,” she said. “When you
drank that last time, you didn’t screw it tight.”

“Sister, I think yo’re a liar. All right, we’ll go to Mexico anyway.
You’ll go until yuh drop, and I’ll leave yuh there. Thirst never
beat me. I’ll show yuh. By God, we’ll head for Mexico tonight--now!”

“What about the man outside?” she asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah--the man outside. Well, he can’t stop us. No one man
ever stopped Dave Sells, sister. I’ll go out there and saddle the
horses.”

Sells stepped into the doorway and a bullet clipped a lock of hair
from just above his left ear. He staggered back and slammed the
door. Then he ran to a window hole and emptied his sixshooter,
scattering his shots in every direction, hoping to score a hit.

Then he leaned against the wall and reloaded his gun. Slowly he
counted the cartridges in his belt, a scowl on his face. Nine,
besides the six in his gun. He had the rifle, with plenty of
ammunition, but little good that was. He had dropped the rifle in
the sand, with the action open that morning, and it was clogged with
sand. It would require a screwdriver and some cleaning fluid to make
it function again. Fifteen shots left--and he had no idea where the
posse was that followed him from Painted Rock.

It was growing dark now. Ann could barely see Sells’ face, as he sat
there. Then she heard a voice calling softly;

“Ann! Ann!”

Sells sprang to his feet, and with a curse on his lips, he ran to
the window and began firing out into the gloom, until his gun was
empty.

“Who was that?” he demanded, drawing back from the window. “Who was
that, damn yuh?”

“I didn’t hear anybody,” Ann protested.

“The hell, yuh didn’t! What’s yore first name?”

“Mary,” lied Ann.

“Oh!” Sells sat down on the bed-roll and began loading his gun
again.

“Got to be careful,” he muttered aloud. “Nine shells left.”

He flung the door open and looked out. Fifty yards away, in a tangle
of mesquite, cat-claw and sage, all as dry as tinder, flames were
licking high. There were acres of it. As he looked a heavy clump
fairly exploded, throwing a ball of fire high into the air. The
shack was in no danger, because the breeze was taking the fire away.

Dave Sells cursed and slammed the door shut.

“Somebody fired the damn desert!” he roared at Ann. “Yuh can see the
flames for fifty miles, damn his soul! We’ve got to git out of here!
I’m goin’ to git them horses--and I’ll kill any man who tries to stop
me!”

Sells flung the door open, gripped his gun and made a dash for the
corner. Ann heard two bullets strike the side of the shack, and one
of them only missed her by a few inches. Then she heard a fusillade
of shots, as Dave Sells blasted back at Harry Orr. A few moments
later Sells crashed through the doorway again, cursing bitterly.

“Got me through the left arm, damn him!” he gritted. “I think I got
him, too.”

“The horses?” Ann queried weakly.

“They’re gone,” Sells snarled. “We’re walkin’ to Mexico, sister.”

Sells tore a strip from his shirt and bandaged his injured forearm,
standing against the wall at a window hole.

“Only three shells left,” gritted Sells, as he turned away from the
window. “Mebbe one for that jasper outside, one for you--and mebbe
one for me. Dave Sells never quits, sister, so don’t worry.”

                 *       *       *       *       *

Far out on those rocks on the rim of Jackass Canyon, Flint Orr saw
the flicker of that brush fire. It was little more than a twinkle of
light, like a campfire a mile away, but it interested Flint Orr. Was
it the campfire of the man he was seeking? Just a little west of the
North Star. Swiftly he crawled off the rocks and headed back for his
horse. There was a breeze now, but that did not slake his thirst.

The jaded horse nickered softly, but Flint Orr climbed stiffly into
his saddle and headed back down the canyon. The bad men of the Old
Mojave and the desert heat had never whipped Flint Orr, not even
with the help of his faithless wife. On the flat of the desert he
could no longer see that flicker of light, but he knew it was
somewhere out there, and he was going to find it.

In a dim sort of way he realized that he was east of Mojave Wells,
but well out on that angle between Jackass Canyon and Painted Rock.
He remembered the flicker of light he had seen, but that was years
ago. He wasn’t going any place now. His face and arms were cut from
mesquite thorns and he could taste the salt of the blood on his
lips.

Suddenly his horse faltered, stumbled and went down, throwing Orr
heavily in the sand. The fall aroused him to a memory of what he was
doing out there, and where he was going. The horse was finished, but
Flint Orr was going on. After a few rods he threw away his heavy
rifle. The double belt of cartridges galled him. With fumbling
fingers he unbuckled a belt and let it fall in the sand. That
relieved him some. Then he went stumbling on in the moonlight, his
burning eyes keeping a course by the North Star, which seemed to
have a bad habit of moving around from place to place. Flint Orr
laughed soundlessly.

“Playin’ a game, eh?” he whispered hoarsely. “Tryin’ to fool Flint
Orr, are yuh? Go ahead. I’ll play with yuh--fer keeps!”

                 *       *       *       *       *

Harry Orr sprawled behind a clump of cactus a few yards from the
closed door of the shack, as daylight came swiftly across the
desert. Behind him and to the right was a blackened expanse of
burned land, from which wisps of smoke still curled. Harry had a
welt across one shoulder, where one of Sells’ bullets had scored
him. He had just one cartridge left in his gun, having used one to
drive Sells back into the shack, when he attempted to go away and
take Ann with him.

Harry had no idea how may cartridges Sells had left, but supposed
that the bandit had a fair supply. A chilly wind swept across the
desert, but the flare of sun behind the mountains beyond Jackass
Canyon indicated that it would be plenty hot before long. He had
heard voices inside the shack, so he decided that Ann was still all
right.

The sun topped the mountains, striking squarely against the front of
the shack. Harry saw a bearded face at a window hole, but he was not
going to waste his last cartridge on an indefinite target. He would
wait for the man to come outside. Harry had lost his hat, and the
sun was beating down on the back of his unprotected head. His thirst
had abated somewhat during the cold night, but right now he would
almost have traded his last cartridge for a sip of water.

Harry did not know that Dave Sells and Ann were also suffering from
thirst. He knew that the canteen on the buckboard was nearly full,
when he and Ann took their last drink, before meeting Dave Sells.

There was no movement inside the shack, and that sun on the back of
his head was becoming unbearable. He had just started to try and
snake back to a more comfortable spot, when he heard a noise.
Lifting his head a trifle and looking toward the still smoking burn,
he saw a man a hundred feet away, head down, heading for the shack.

A second glance told him that this man was Flint Orr, bare-headed,
his face grimy with blood and dirt. There was little left of his
shirt. Harry tried to cry out to him, but his throat merely emitted
a croak.

Dave Sells had seen him, too, and stepped outside. Sells called to
the sheriff, who stopped short. Instinct caused him to reach for his
gun. Sells fired, but missed. The sheriff stumbled to his knees, but
lifted his gun and began firing. Evidently his bullets were going so
far wide that Dave Sells laughed mockingly. Then he fired
deliberately at the sheriff, but missed again.

Then Harry Orr, staking his last cartridge, smashed a bullet into
Dave Sells. It spun Sells around, but did not knock him down. The
sheriff was staggering, trying to reload his gun. The three men were
not over twenty feet apart now. Everything was quiet, when the
sheriff lifted his head and croaked;

“My God, I throwed away the wrong belt!”

Dave Sells laughed, as the sheriff came staggering, an empty gun in
his hand. The sheriff’s eyes were swollen to mere slits, as he tried
to focus them on Dave Sells. Harry came up to them, empty-handed.
Sells paid no attention to him, nor did the sheriff. Sells was badly
hurt and was only keeping up on sheer nerve.

“What’s goin’ on?” croaked the sheriff. “Damn it, I can’t see.”

“Keep back, both of yuh,” warned Sells. “I’ve still got one shell
left.”

“Who are you?” asked the sheriff in a husky whisper.

“Don’t know me, eh? Well, I’m Dave Sells, damn yore hide!”

“Dave Sells? No! Sells is still in the pen.”

“Where you and that lyin’ Belt sent him, eh? Well, he’s not. He’s
right here, and he’s got you where he wants yuh. I told yuh I’d come
back and get yuh, Orr. I got Belt, and I’ve been waitin’ for you.”

“You--you killed Belt?” whispered the sheriff. “You?”

“I killed him at that hitch-rack in Mojave Wells. Oh, I know yore
son was arrested and convicted. Yore wife told me all about that
part of it. You was goin’ to have to hang him. Too damn bad I didn’t
wait until he was hung.”

“My wife?” croaked the sheriff. “Where’s my wife?”

“Settin’ right in that shack, Orr. When I settle with you two, me
and her are headin’ for Mexico. Git in that shack, both of yuh.”

“You’ll never get to Mexico, Sells,” said Harry. “That last bullet
stopped that move. Yo’re dyin’ on yore feet.”

“Dyin’, eh? Not Dave Sells. Git in there. Keep yore distance, you
poor fool.”

They entered the shack ahead of him. Ann, frightened and sick from
her experience, her wrists and ankles roped, was seated against the
wall. Dave Sells, still cautious, stood beside her, the heavy Colt
in his right hand. He was bleeding heavily.

“Yo’re all through,” said Harry. “You can’t get away. Throw down
that gun, and we’ll take yuh to Mojave Wells. We can get yuh to a
doctor.”

“Doctor?” croaked Sells. “What for? To save me for the rope? This
suits me better.”

A spasm of pain wracked his body and he clawed against the wall with
his left hand.

“Think I’m goin’ to die?” he snarled. “Well, I won’t die until I do
what I came here to do. I killed Belt. I paid him back. Now, I’m
goin’ to pay you, Orr. I wish I’d let yuh hang yore own son. You’d
do that, Orr. They say that blood is thicker’n water--but not with
you. One shell left, Orr. One--wait! Damn it, we’ll gamble on this’n.
Gimme a piece of money. Hurry, damn yuh!”

With fumbling fingers the sheriff took a silver dollar from his
sagging vest pocket. Sells laughed insanely.

“One to go,” he choked. “Call it, Orr. It’s you or the kid. Heads
for one, tails for the other. Call it.”

“Heads, I take it,” whispered Flint Orr.

“All right. Heads, you die, tails, the kid dies. Throw it! No--wait!
I’ll call it. Throw it--now!”

Flint Orr, with a weak motion of his hand, tossed the dollar and it
fell to the dirt floor, square in the shaft of sunlight from the
partly-open door. Even Ann tried to lean forward to see that shining
bit of metal. It was Flint Orr who said;

“It’s heads, Sells. Shoot!”

“You lie!” gritted Sells. “It’s tails! The kid gets it!”

Sells lifted his gun swiftly, but as his finger tightened on the
trigger, Flint Orr flung himself in front of his son, just as the
flimsy shack shuddered from the concussion of the forty-five. Harry
Orr flung himself into Sells, but the dying outlaw made no
resistance.

There was a pounding of hoofs outside the shack and a moment later
men were coming in. It was the posse, which had been trailing Dave
Sells for twenty-four hours. They quickly cut Ann loose, and there
were plenty of canteens on the saddles. Sells lived long enough to
confess that he had murdered Ed Belt.

They found the team where Harry Orr had hidden it, and hitched it to
the buckboard. Harry went back into the shack. The high heel of a
cowboy had shoved that silver dollar deep into the dirt, but Harry
dug it out. For a long time he looked at it, before going back to
the buckboard, where Ann waited for him.

Silently he handed her the silver dollar. Ann looked at it, a
puzzled expression in her eyes. Then she said:

“It was his lucky pocket-piece, Harry. He took it away from a
tinhorn gambler. It has tails on both sides.”

After all, blood had proved stronger than water.

                              THE END


[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October, 1940
issue of _Adventure_ magazine.]





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