Page:Max Brand--The Seventh Man.djvu/97

Rh night, on hoss or on foot. Are we five goin' to lay down to him?”

“If that was Vic Gregg,” answered the sheriff, slipping over the insult with perfect calm, “I wouldn't of told you to scatter for cover; but that ain't Vic.”

“Pete, what in hell are you drivin' at?”

“I say it ain't Vic,” said the sheriff. “Vic is a good man with a hoss and a good man with a gun, but he couldn't never ride like the gent over there in the rocks, and he couldn't shoot like him.”

He pointed, in confirmation, at the body of Harry Fisher.

“You can rush that hill if you want, but speakin' personal, I ain't ready to die.”

A thoughtful silence held the others until Sliver Waldron broke it with his deep bass. “You ain't far off, Pete. I done some thinkin' along them lines when I seen him standin' up there over the arroyo wavin' his hat at the bullets. Vic didn't never have the guts for that.”

All the lower valley was gray, dark in comparison with the bright peaks above it, before the sheriff rose from his place and led the posse towards the body of Grey Molly. There they found as much confirmation of Pete's theory as they needed, for Vic's silver-mounted saddle was known to all of them, and this was a plain affair which they found on the dead horse. Waldron pushed back his hat to scratch his head.

“Look at them eyes, boys,” he suggested. “Molly