Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/213

Rh Jim's Ford looked on with mighty indifference. The sheriff took up the bundle without a word, returned to his horse, and unbuckling the “throat latch” of his bridle, strapped the bundle to the horn of his saddle. Then he placed his right foot in the stirrup and turned to the mountaineer.

“Spitler,” he drawled, “we found a dead man in Tug the other day. I think this is his coat.”

The mountaineer looked up from the muzzle of his Winchester. “Were there lead in him?” he asked.

The sheriff flung his leg over the saddle and gathered up his bridle from the horse's neck.

“No bullet holes,” he answered.

“Then,” said the giant Hamrick, “he were not killed in the hills.”