Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/277

Rh the burden the Indian had carried. "Why have you brought that?"

"It's just Neal's gun that we found in his hand, Steve," Chapin replied sympathetically, "and his cartridge-belt that was in the bunk."

The Indian unstrapped the case and took out the gun. Then he took from another pocket a single empty shell, this time, and four full ones, three of which he put into the magazine of the rifle, and extended it to Chapin.

"Neal had time to try twice for Ji—for the other fellow, Steve," Chapin explained, "for he wasn't killed till the fourth shot. But Neal's first shell," he pointed to the pierced primer of the cartridge he had taken from the Indian, "missed fire, you see; and he was hit so hard before he could shoot the other," he handed over the shell, "that it must have gone wild. Its recoil threw the next cartridge in place all right, as McLain has it now," he handed over the gun, "but Neal couldn't ever pull the trigger on it then."

"I see." Sheppard's teeth clenched tight again, as he examined the faulty cartridge his brother had tried to shoot, the empty shell, and the three cartridges left intact in the rifle. He handed them after the others to Trant. And for an instant more his green-gray eyes, growing steadily colder and more merciless, watched the silent young psychologist as he weighed again and again and sorted over, without comment, the shells that had slain Neal Sheppard; and weighed again in his fingers the one the murderer had not needed to use. Then Trant turned suddenly to the