But the eye of Andy, then and thereafter, whenever he was near the five, kept steadily upon the scar-faced man. Henry had tilted his chair back against the wall. The night had come on chill, with a rising wind that hummed through the cracks of the ill-built wall and tossed the flame in the throat of the chimney; Henry draped a coat like a cloak around his shoulders and buried his chin in his hands, separated from the others by a vast gulf. Presently Scottie was sitting at the table. The others were gathered around him in expectant attitudes. "What's new?" they exclaimed in one voice. "Oh, about a million things. Let me get some of this ham into my face, and then I'll talk. I've got a batch of newspapers yonder. There's a gold rush on up to Tolliver's Creek." Andy blinked, for that news was at least four weeks old. But now came a tide of other news, and almost all of it was stale stuff to him. But the men drank it in--all except Henry, silent in his corner. He was relaxed, as if he slept. "But the most news is about the killing of Bill Dozier." CHAPTER 13 "Ol' Bill!" grunted red-headed Jeff. "Well, I'll be hung! There's one good deed done. He was overdue, anyways." Andy, waiting breathlessly, watched lest the eye of the narrator should swing toward him for the least part of a second. But Scottie seemed utterly oblivious of the fact that he sat in the same room with the murderer. "Well, he got it," said Scottie. "And he didn't get it from behind. Seems there was a young gent in Martindale--all you boys know old Jasper Lanning?" There was an answering chorus. "Well, he's got a nephew, Andrew Lanning. This kid was sort of a bashful kind, they say. But yesterday he up and bashed a fellow in the jaw, and the man went down. Whacked his head on a rock, and young Lanning thought his man was dead. So he holds off the crowd with a gun, hops a horse, and beats it." "Pretty, pretty!" murmured Larry. "But what's that got to do with that hyena, Bill Dozier?" "I don't get it all hitched up straight. Most of the news come from Martindale to town by telephone. Seems this young Lanning was follered by Bill Dozier. He was always a hound for a job like that, eh?" There was a growl of assent. "He hand-picked five rough ones and went after Lanning. Chased him all night. Landed at John Merchant's place. The kid had dropped in there to call on a girl. Can you beat that for cold nerve, him figuring that he'd killed a man, and Bill Dozier and five more on his trail to bring him back to wait and see whether the buck he dropped lived or died--and then to slide over and call on a lady? No, you can't raise that!" But the tidings were gradually breaking in upon the mind of Andrew Lanning. Buck Heath had not been dead; the pursuit was simply to bring him back on some charge of assault; and now--Bill Dozier--the head of Andrew swam.