“He pushed open the door an’ shoots Johnny twice through the body. In the back.” Hardin spat. “He fired a third shot but that missed Johnny and busted a bottle of whisky.”

There was a moment’s silence while they digested this, and then Neill looked up.

“We lynchin’ him for the killin’ or bustin’ the whisky?”

It was a good question, but drew no reply. The dignity of the five other riders was not to be touched by humor. They were riders on a mission. Neill let his eyes drift over the dusty copper of the desert. He had no liking for the idea of lynching any man, and he did not know the squatter from the Sorenson place. Living there should be punishment enough for any man. Besides—

“Who saw the shooting?” he asked.

“Nobody seen it, actually. Only he never gave Johnny a fair shake. Sam was behind the bar, but he was down to the other end and it happened too fast.”

“What’s his name? Somebody call him Lock?” Neill asked. There was something incongruous in lynching a man whose name you did not know. He shifted in the saddle, squinting his eyes toward the distant lakes dancing in the mirage of heat waves.

“What’s it matter? Lock, his name is. Chat Lock.”

“Funny name.”

The comment drew no response. The dust was thicker now and Neill pulled his bandanna over his nose and mouth. His eyes were drawn back to the distant blue of the lakes. They were enticingly cool and beautiful, lying across the way ahead and in the basin off to the right. This was the mirage that lured many a man from his trail to pursue the always retreating shoreline of the lake. It looked like water, it really did.

Maybe there was water in the heat waves. Maybe if a man knew how he could extract it and drink. The thought drew his hand to his canteen, but he took it away without drinking. The slosh water in the canteen was no longer enticing, for it was warm, brackish, and unsatisfying.

“You know him, Kimmel?” Kesney asked. He was a wiry little man, hard as a whipstock, with bits of sharp steel for eyes and brown muscle-corded hands. “I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”

“Sure, I know him. Big feller, strong made, rusty-like hair an’ maybe forty year old. Looks plumb salty, too, an’ from what I hear he’s no friendly sort of man. Squattin’ on that Sorenson place looks plumb suspicious, for no man came make him a livin’ on that dry-as-a-bone place. No fit place for man nor beast. Ever’body figures no honest man would squat on such a place.”

It seemed a strange thing, to be searching out a man whom none of them knew. Of course, they had all known Johnny Webb. He was a handsome, popular young man, a daredevil and a hellion, but a very attractive one, and a top hand to boot. They had all known him and had all liked him. Then, one of the things that made them so sure that this had been a wrong killing, even aside from the shots in the back, was the fact that Johnny Webb had been the fastest man in the Spring Valley country. Fast, and a dead shot.

Johnny had worked with all these men, and they were good men, hard men, but good. Kimmel, Hardin and Kesney had all made something of their ranches, as had the others, only somewhat less so. They had come West when the going was rough, fought Indians and rustlers, then battled drought, dust and hot, hard winds. It took a strong man to survive in this country, and they had survived. He, Neill, was the youngest of them all, and the newest in the country. He was still looked upon with some reserve. He had been here only five years.

Neill could see the tracks of the buckskin and it gave him a strange feeling to realize that the man who rode that horse would soon be dead, hanging from a noose in one of those ropes attached to a saddle horn of Hardin or Kimmel. Neill had never killed a man, nor seen one killed by another man, and the thought made him uncomfortable.

Yet Johnny was gone, and his laughter and his jokes were a thing passed. They had brightened more than one roundup, more than one bitter day of heart-breaking labor on the range. Not that he had been an angel. He had been a proper hand with a gun, and could throw one. And in his time he had had his troubles.

“He’s walkin’ his horse,” Kesney said, “leadin’ him.”

“He’s a heavy man,” Hardin agreed, “an’ he figures to give us a long chase.”

“Gone lame on him maybe,” Kimmel suggested.

“No, that horse isn’t limpin’. This Lock is a smart one.”

They had walked out of the ankle deep dust now and were crossing a parched, dry plain of crusted earth. Hardin reined in suddenly and pointed.

“Look there.” He indicated a couple of flecks on the face of the earth crust where something had spilled. “Water splashed.” “Careless,” Neill said. “He’ll need that water.”

“No,” Kesney said. “He was pourin’ water in a cloth to wipe out his horse’s nostrils. Bet you a dollar.”

“Sure,” Hardin agreed, “that’s it. Horse breathes a lot better. A man runnin’ could kill a good horse on this Flat. He knows that.” They rode on, and for almost a half hour, no one spoke. Neill frowned at the sun. It had been on his left a few minutes ago, and now they rode straight into it.

“What’s he doin’?” Kesney said wonderingly. “This ain’t the way to his place!” The trail had turned again, and now the sun was on their right. Then it turned again, and was at their backs. Hardin was in the lead and he drew up and swore wickedly.

They ranged alongside him, and stared down into a draw that cracked the face of the desert alongside the trail they had followed. Below them was a place where a horse had stood, and across the bank something white fluttered from the parched clump of greasewood.

Kesney slid from the saddle and crossed the wash. When he had the slip of white, he stared at it, and then they heard him swear. He walked back and handed it to Hardin. They crowded near.

Neill took the slip from Hardin’s fingers after he had read it. It was torn from some sort of book and the words were plain enough, scrawled with a flat rock for a rest.

 That was a fair shutin anyways six aint nowhars enuf, go fetch more men. Man on the gray better titen his girth or heel have him a sorebacked hoss.

“Why, that . . . !” Short swore softly. “He was lyin’ within fifty yards of us when he come by. Had him a rifle, too, I see it in a saddle scabbard on that buckskin in town. He could have got one of us, anyway!”

“Two or three most likely,” Kimmel commented. The men stared at the paper then looked back into the wash. The sand showed a trail, but cattle had walked here, too. It would make the going a little slower.

Neill, his face flushed and his ears red, was tightening his saddle girth. The others avoided his eyes. The insult to him, even if the advice was good, was an insult to them all. Their jaws tightened. The squatter was playing Indian with them, and none of them liked it.

“Fair shootin’, yeah!” Sutter exploded. “Right in the back!”

The trail led down the wash now, and it was slower going. The occasional puffs of wind they had left on the desert above were gone and the heat in the bottom of the wash was ovenlike. They rode into it, almost seeming to push their way through flames that seared. Sweat dripped into their eyes until they smarted, and trickled in tiny rivulets through their dust-caked beards, making their faces itch maddeningly.

The wash spilled out into a wide, flat bed of sand left by the rains of bygone years, and the tracks were plainer now. Neill tightened his bandanna and rode on, sodden with heat and weariness. The trail seemed deliberately to lead them into the worst regions, for now he was riding straight toward an alkali lake that loomed ahead.

At the edge of the water, the trail vanished. Lock had ridden right into the lake. They drew up and stared at it, unbelieving.

“He can’t cross,” Hardin stated flatly. “That’s deep out to the middle. Durned treacherous, too. A horse could get bogged down mighty easy.”