THE KILLING OF "SWEETWATER"
His voice died away into a mutter, and we knew that the hours of one man were numbered, unless he were favoured of fate or unless someone warned him.
And Hale came into town that night, and not a soul of all who knew told him that Smith was in Painted Rock, and that he was mad. I did not, for I did not know him and could not interfere, and Gedge did not because he preferred a mad Smith to a sane Hale, and the others did not for many reasons. And no one told the City Marshal, Ginger Gillett, because it would have been Gillett's duty to interfere and lock up Smith there and then. For those are the ways of the West, without any doubt. And the end of the story of Smith and Hale came that very night, not two hours after sundown, when the gambling saloons were filling up and the streets of Painted Rock were alive with talk and laughter. I did not see the end, but I heard it; and Gedge saw it, and I came in time to see the dead man before he was dead. For Smith and Hale met face to face outside the American Saloon, in which Gedge and Pillsbury had
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