Range Ghost by Bradford Scott

eh?”
    “Not necessarily,” Slade replied. “A bullet can be deflected, say by a concha on a pair of chaps, or a holstered gun, and its course changed.”
    “Dadblast it!” wailed the sheriff, “you’ve got me all mixed up. “First you make it look like Ditmar and his bunch are in the clear, then you make it look like maybe they ain’t. Come clean, now, do you suspect Ditmar?”
    “Brian,” Slade answered, “circumstances being what they are in this section, everybody is suspect. In a court of law, a person is adjudged innocent until proven guilty. With a Ranger trying to solve a case, the reverse obtains. I have formed no conclusion relative to Neale Ditmar or anybody else, and I can’t until I have what I consider conclusive evidence of somebody’s guilt. Yes, right now everybody is suspect, even you and Doc.”
    “I can speak for myself, but I’d rather not say about him,” Doc said cheerfully, regarding the sheriff with a disapproving eye. “Oh, I reckon you can rule him out; he’s too spavined and weighted down with years to pull a widelooping. Chances are he’d go to sleep and fall out of the hull.”
    “I’ll watch a goose walk across your grave, you darned old decrepit fossil,” retorted the sheriff.
    Having mutually affronted each other, they had a drink from a bottle Doc produced, while Slade settledfor a cup of coffee—Doc always having a pot steaming on his stove.
    “Well, it ’pears we didn’t learn much,” Carter remarked as they headed back to the office.
    “Nothing definite,” Slade agreed, “but no angle should be overlooked, nor anything that might possibly provide a lead.”
    “That’s right,” said the sheriff. “So I guess we’d better open up for a while in case some more folks want to take a look at those carcasses. Just a waste of time, the chances are, but as you say, we mustn’t miss any bets.”
    “Yes, it’s just possible that somebody might recall seeing them and with whom they were associating,” Slade agreed.
    A few people wandered in after Carter opened the office, not many, and he was about ready to close up shop and call it a night when a man entered who Slade thought had a vaguely familiar look. He studied the bodies on the floor, then turned to El Halcon.
    “Do you remember me, Mr. Slade?” he asked. “I served you a drink the other night in the Deuces Up, down by the lake.”
    “Yes, now I do,” Slade replied.
    “It was the night you had the ruckus with those three hellions who, I figure, came in with a killing in mind. Well, the big one there was one of ’em, the one you punched in the jaw.”
    “Yes, I recognized him,” Slade admitted. “Do you know him?”
    The bartender shook his head. “Nope, didn’t know either of them,” he said. “Well, they were in the place a while before you came in. I remembered them because somehow I didn’t like their looks. Behaved themselves, all right, stood drinking and talkingtogether and sorta watching the door. Another feller came in and had a drink with them and talked to them for a minute or so.”
    “Did you know him?” Slade asked abruptly, much interested.
    The barkeep again shook his head. “Didn’t remember ever seeing him before,” he answered.
    “Remember what he looked like?” the Ranger asked.
    “Didn’t pay much attention to him, was real busy at the time,” said the drink juggler. “Just remember he was a tall feller and sort of wide in the shoulders. He was better dressed than the other three; I figured him to be a ranch owner. Didn’t pay him much mind for, as I said, I was busy. He had one drink, said something or other to those fellers and went out. When I happened to look that way again, the other three were gone. A little later you came in and you know what happened next.”
    “Remember anything more about them?” Slade queried.
    “Nothing much,” the bartender said. “The boss had a swamper throw some water over them and they got their senses back—don’t