Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/273

 fully pretended to make light of the whole affair in order to stir up the buyer to more details.

"I reckon maybe Meldrum was just bluffing. Maybe—"

"Bluffing!" The Coloradoan swelled. "Bluffing! I tell you there was murder in the fellow's eye. He had come there primed for a killing. If Beaudry had weakened by a hair's breadth, that forty-four would have pumped lead into his brain. Ask the train crew. Ask the station agent. Ask any one who was there."

"Maybeso," assented Dave dubiously. "But if he was so game, why did n't Beaudry go back and take Meldrum's gun from him?"

The buyer was on the spot with an eager, triumphant answer. "That just proves what I claim. He just brushed the fellow's gun aside and acted like he'd forgot the killer had a gun. 'Course, he could 'a' gone back and taken the gun. After what he'd already pulled off, that would have been like stealing apples from a blind Dutchman. But Beaudry was n't going to give him that much consideration. Don't you see? Meldrum, or whatever his name is, was welcome to keep the revolver to play with. Your friend did n't care how many guns he was toting."