"On foot," answered Bull with equal brevity, and he led the way straight across the street. There was no danger of being seen. All the life of the town was drawn to a center about the hotel. Lights were flashing behind its windows, men were constantly pounding across the veranda, running in and out. Bull led the way past the building and cut for the cottonwoods. "And now?" demanded Pete Reeve. "Now, partner?" That word stung Bull. It had not been applied to him more than a half a dozen times in his life, together with its implications of free and equal brotherhood. To be called partner by the great man who had conquered terrible Uncle Bill Campbell! "They's a mess in the hotel," said Bull, explaining as shortly as he could. "Seems that Sheriff Anderson was the gent that done the killing of Armstrong. It got found out and the sheriff tried to get away. Lots of noise and trouble." "Ah," said Reeve, "it was him, then--the old hound! I might have knowed! But I kep' on figuring that they was two of 'em! Well, the sheriff was a handy boy with his gun. Did he drop anybody before they got him? I heard two guns go off like one. Them must of been the sheriff's cannons." "They was," said Bull, "but them bullets didn't hit nothing but wood." "Wild, eh? Shot into the wall?" "Nope. Into a chair." The little man was struggling and panting sometimes breaking into a trot to keep up with the immense strides of his companion. "A chair? You don't say so!" Bull was silent. "How come he shot at a chair? Drunk?" "The chair was sailing through the air at him." "H'm!" returned Pete Reeve. "Somebody throwed a chair at him, and the sheriff got rattled and shot at it instead of dodging? Well, I've seen a pile of funnier things than that happen in gun play, off and on. Who threw the chair?" "I did." "You?" He squinted up at the lofty form of Bull Hunter. "What name did you say?" he asked gently. "Hunter is my name. Mostly they call me Bull." "You got the size for that name, partner. So you cleaned up the sheriff with a chair?" he sighed. "I wish I'd been there to see it. But who got the inside on the sheriff?" "I dunno what you mean?" Pete Reeve looked closely at his companion. Plainly he was bewildered, somewhere between a smile and a frown. "I mean who found out that the sheriff done it?" "He told it himself," said Bull. "Drunk, en?" "Nope. Not drunk. He was asked if he didn't do the murder." "Great guns! Who asked him?" "I done it," said Bull as simply as ever. Reeve bit his lip. He had just put Bull down as a simple-minded hulk. He was forced to revise his opinion. "You done that? You follered him up, eh?" "I just done a little thinking. So I asked him." Reeve shook his head. "Maybe you hypnotized him," he suggested. "Nope. I just asked him. I got a lot of folks sitting around, and then I began telling the sheriff how he done the shooting." "And he admitted it?" "Nope. He jumped for a gun."