Black Jack, page 69 by Max Brand
<< Return to Title Details & Download70
ou see how well it has turned out? Terry has taken the acid test, and now you can trust him under any--"
The words were literally blown off ragged at his lips. Two revolver shots exploded at them. No one gun could have fired them. And there was a terrible significance in the angry speed with which one had followed the other, blending, so that the echo from the lofty side of Sleep Mountain was but a single booming sound. In that clear air it was impossible to tell the direction of the noise.
Everyone in the room seemed to listen stupidly for a repetition of the noises. But there was no repetition.
"Vance," whispered Elizabeth in such a tone that the coward dared not look into her face. "It's happened!"
"What?" He knew, but he wanted the joy of hearing it from her own lips.
"It has happened," she whispered in the same ghostly voice. "But which one?"
That was it. Who had fallen--Terry, or the sheriff? A long, heavy step crossed the little porch. Either man might walk like that.
The door was flung open. Terence Hollis stood before them.
"I think that I've killed the sheriff," he said simply. "I'm going up to my room to put some things together; and I'll go into town with any man who wishes to arrest me. Decide that between yourselves."
With that he turned and walked away with a step as deliberately unhurried as his approach had been. The manner of the boy was more terrible than the thing he had done. Twice he had shocked them on the same afternoon. And they were just beginning to realize that the shell of boyhood was being ripped away from Terence Colby. Terry Hollis, son of Black Jack, was being revealed to them.
The men received the news with utter bewilderment. The sheriff was as formidable in the opinion of the mountains as some Achilles. It was incredible that he should have fallen. And naturally a stern murmur rose: "Foul play!"
Since the first vigilante days there has been no sound in all the West so dreaded as that deep-throated murm