Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/247

 Blood was streaming from his shattered hand, blood was creeping over his boot out of the fold of his trouserleg at the knee. Men came running up with beefsteak gravy and egg on their chins, some of them chewing the bite they had put into their mouths the moment before starting. They pushed up, silent, staring, to look at this desperate Bill Dunham who was loose again with his fateful gun.

"They said I stole their horse, they crowded it on me," Dunham turned to MacKinnon to explain.

"It's a terrible job you've done among 'em, Will-ium!" MacKinnon said, shuddering at the sight.

"Did your pardner ever own that horse?" Dunham pressed the question, twisting his gun-barrel into the bleeding rascal's bowels.

"He said he did; that's all I know about it," the man replied.

"Everybody in this town knows I bought that horse from the liveryman," Dunham said, glowering around on the crowd that seemed to side with this chipped scoundrel. He kicked the fellow's gun out of the way, and slipped his own into the scabbard. "Somebody take this man to a doctor before he bleeds to death," he said, shoving him roughly toward the crowd.

The doctor was on hand, ready for such business as the wreckage might yield, as well as Schubert, who was craning his neck to see, stroking his whiskers with eager hand. When Schubert saw that it was an even split between him and the doctor, he went off to fetch his board.

Dunham drew MacKinnon into the barn, where he