Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/243

227 "We could whang away like this all night," he muttered to himself, "and nobody get hurt. If the luck ran that way."

But luck ran otherwise. The rifle spoke, the automatic answered it and there came a sharp cry of pain and the sound of the rifle clattering down among the stones. His gun clubbed in his uplifted hand Steele sprang forward.

"Damn you, Embry," he cried out as his body hurtled into that other body and the two went down together, struggling. "I've got you, got you dead to right. Lie still or, so help me, I'll kill you now!"

And, so sure was he that this was Joe Embry, the sharp retort coming from another man angered him and disappointed him so that of the two emotions he did not know which was the keener:

"Embry, hell! I'm Banks, the sheriff, coming to stop this monkey business. And you're got to answer, Bill Steele, for shooting an officer of the law. Get off my arm, can't you?"

Steele rolled free but his hand maintained a relentless grip on Banks' unwounded arm.

"So it's you, Jim Banks, is it?" he grunted. "And you've gone clean bad, have you?"

"Bad?" snapped the sheriff. "I tell you …" "You do the natural thing and try to lie out of it," cut in Steele coolly. "You are nothing but Joe Embry's yellow dog and I know it."

"I'll run you in for this, Steele," cursed Banks, sitting up and nursing a bleeding arm. "You can do all the guessing you want to to the judge."