"I had to do it," he muttered, bitterly. "I didn't want to down him. But I had to. They were gonna down me if they could. And he--they--they asked for it." CHAPTER XXVI THE QUARREL "Lo, Peaches, ain't you afraid of gettin' sunburnt?" Peaches Austin, gambler though he was, flickered his eyelashes. He was startled. He had not had the slightest warning of Racey Dawson's approach. "Didn't hear me, did you?" Racey continued, conversationally. "I didn't want you to. That's why I kept my spurs off and sifted round from the back of the blacksmith shop. And you were expecting me to come scampering down the trail over Injun Ridge, weren't you? Joke's on you, Peaches, sort of." Still Peaches said nothing. He sat and gazed at Racey Dawson. "Don't be a hawg," resumed Racey. "Move over and lemme sit down, too. That's the boy. Now we're both comfortable, Peaches, you mean to sit there and tell me you didn't hear any shooting up at the Starlight a while back?" Peaches Austin wetted his lips with the tip of a careful tongue. "I heard shootin'," he admitted, stiff-lipped. "And what did you think it was?" "I didn't know." "Didn't you see Thompson ride away?" "Shore." "And didn't you think anything about that, either?" "Oh, I thought, but--" "But you had yore orders to sit here and wait for li'l Willie. And you always obey orders. That it, Peaches?" "What are you drivin' at?" "Yo're always asking me that, Peaches. Try something new for a change. Look." Racey extended a long arm past Peaches' nose and pointed up the street toward the Starlight Saloon. A man was backing out through the doorway. Another followed, walking forward. Between them they were carrying a third man. The hat of the third man was over his face. His arms, which hung down, jerked like the arms of a doll. Even at that distance Peaches could see that there was no life in the third man. "That's Doc Coffin," Racey murmured without rancour. "I wonder where they're taking him? He used to bach with Nebraska Jones, didn't he? I guess that's where they're taking him to. Yep, they've gone round the corner of the stage company's corral." "Where's Honey?" queried Peaches in a still, small voice. "In the Starlight. He ain't hurt bad. Foot and arm. Lucky, huh?" Peaches Austin considered these things a moment. "Doc Coffin was reckoned a fast man," he said in the tone of one who, after adding up a column of figures, has found the correct total, "and Honey Hoke wasn't none slow himself. And you got 'em both." "I didn't get 'em both," corrected Racey. "Honey is only wounded."