As he made a move to put May’s arms aside, distantly, as if muffled, faintly through the open door two shots sounded so close together that an untrained ear might have heard but one. Then another single report. After that dead silence, in which Robin, already on the top step, halted to listen. “I wonder?” he said to May at his elbow. He had no definite reason for wondering. When cowboys were in Big Sandy revolver shots were a commonplace. The cow-puncher in his exuberance used a six-shooter in much the same spirit a small boy sets off fire-crackers. His Colt was at once a weapon and a toy. But there was no sound of hilarity, no light-hearted whooping. Neither of the J7 men had been in long enough to get drunk. All the Block S riders were on Little Eagle. There might be stray stock hands in town. Yet Robin was troubled by those shots, that uncommon stillness which followed. It was a scant two hundred yards to the hotel, the Silver Dollar, the other saloons. Not a sound, not a voice, was uplifted in that hush. “That’s funny. I’m going over.” “Robin--please!” “I got to,” he said desperately. He pressed a kiss on her lips, shook off her clutching hands, and ran. He glanced back once. May stood where he left her looking after him, the raking sun rays striking golden gleams on her head. Through Robin’s mind flashed the thought that it might be his last sight of her. But he went on quickly. If he met Shining Mark and luck was against him at any rate her kiss was sweet on his lips. The corpulent host of the hotel stood outside his bar-room door. “What was the shootin’?” Robin asked. “Somet’ing happen ober dere, yes,” the man said placidly. “Everybody go to see. Vot iss, I do not know, already yet.” Robin crossed the street, walked in through the open door of Monty’s Place, alert, nerves tense, looking first of all for sight of a lean, dark face with gray eyes that held malice whenever they rested on him. And Shining Mark was almost the first man he saw. But there was no malice in his eyes now. He was stretched full-length on the floor, a white-handled Colt three feet from his outspread fingers. A shaft from the sinking sun played on his face through a window and a fly buzzed over him in the yellow beam. Adam Sutherland sat in a chair. Men stood about him in a circle. A professional looking person in a white shirt, with his sleeves rolled up, was swathing a bandage about Sutherland’s naked middle. The old man looked up at Robin and smiled. “I beat you to him,” he said a little hoarsely. “He was on the warpath an’ I settled his hash.” Robin said nothing. There was nothing to say. Death is sobering. No one talked much. When a man did speak he lowered his voice. Some one appeared with a canvas and spread it over Shining Mark. Even old Mayne, bearing all the marks of drunkenness which made his tongue wag always beyond all restraint, looked silently at Sutherland and kept still. The man who owned the saloon said to Robin: