When the Sky Line riders came back from their drive they rattled into Cordova for the mail and stood on the porch.
“Still watchin’ your range?” queried Provine insolently as he swung out of his saddle and without a word the rancher leaped for him. He caught him by the neck and they both fell under Silvertip’s feet. The horse sprang away and in a second the two men were trying to kill each other with all the strength there was in them.
“You damned dirty thief!” gritted Bossick, “if the law won’t get you I’ll take a hand!”
He was a heavy man, stocky and square, with tremendous thews, but the other was the wiry type and younger, so that they were not so unevenly matched, and it bade fair to be a lively affray.
But Big Basford, temper flaming as usual, pulled his gun from the holster and flung it down in line.
“Roll over, Sud!” he shouted, “I’ll fix him!”
Provine endeavored to roll away from Bossick, but the rancher held him, pounding him the while with all the fury of outraged right, and the blue gun-muzzle in Basford’s hand traveled with their convolutions, seeking a chance to kill his man.
The huge unkempt body leaned down from its saddle, the red eyes glittered and that traveling muzzle stretched closer to the men on the ground. It looked like certain death for Bossick, when there came the sudden crack of a gun from the doorway, and the weapon dropped from Basford’s broken hand. The horse he was riding screamed and reared with a red ribbon spurting from its breast where the glancing ball had seared it.
“I’m sorry to hurt the horse,” said Smith the prospector, watching the group with narrow dark eyes above the steady barrel, “but I’m not so particular with assassins. We’ll see fair play.”
And they did see fair play, a tense and silent gathering the Sky Line men sitting their horses on the one side, McKane, Smith, the bearded man from the Upper Country who had witnessed another fight on the same spot, and several more, on the other.