"Put 'em up--quick!" came from the shadows.
Pete's hand dropped to his holster, but before he could jerk out his
gun, Brevoort had fired at the sound--once, twice, three times . . .
Pete heard the trampling of a frightened horse somewhere in the brush.
"I got him," Brevoort was saying.
Pete's face was cold with sweat. "Are you hit, Ed?" he said.
"No, he missed me. He was right quick, but I had him lined against
that openin' there before he said a word. If he'd 'a' stood back and
kept still he could have plugged us when we rode past. He was too sure
of his game."
"Who was it, Ed?"
"I got one guess. We got the money. And he got what was comin' to
him." Brevoort swung down and struck a match. "I owed you that,
Brent," he said as the match flared up and went out.
"Brent!" exclaimed Pete.
Brevoort mounted and they rode on past the sinister place, in the chill
silence of reaction from the tense and sudden moment when death had
spoken to them from the shadows where now was silence and that
voiceless thing that had once been a man. "Got to kill to live!" Pete
shivered as they swung from the shadows and rode out across the open,
and on down the dim, meandering road that led toward the faint,
greenish light glimmering above the desert station of Sanborn.
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