Ride the Man Down by Luke; Short

crashing it shut. He caromed off it into Schultz, and they both went down. Will fell into the woodpile away from Schultz, who scrambled to his feet. Will slipped once getting up and shot again at Schultz, who was running blindly along the rear of the faintly lighted store building.
    And then Will, running again now, heard a crash and the shriek of rending boards, and above that the wild cursing of Schultz. He hauled up, seeing Schultz on the ground Bide’s foreman, in his panic, had run full tilt into the shed forming the L at the rear of the store.
    Schultz velled wildly, “Don’t, Will!”
    He staggered heavily to his feet now and moved into the dim light cast through the rear window of the store. Beyond them, out in the street, the shooting continued with the same senseless vehemence.
    Schultz had his hands shoulders high, and one leg of his overalls was ripped almost off and was dragging. A jagged gash in his leg was bleeding, and his heavy face now was distorted with his deep, heavy breathing.
    Will, breathing heavily, too, said, “Where’s my horse, Russ?”
    â€œIn the blacksmith shop,” Schultz panted.
    Will waited until his breath eased, and then he said, “Russ, you tell Bide I’m through waiting. Tell him that.”
    He left Schultz and went back to the blacksmith shop and pulled open the doors. The shooting in the street was muffled in here, and Will led his hone out into the night and mounted.
    He put him behind the old boiler and then, reining up in the street, he called, “Red! Red Courteen!”
    The shooting slacked off and Will yelled, “I’ll be back and pay you, Red!”
    Almost at once the shooting was resumed, and this time in his direction. He rode off down the road, listening, and above the hammering din of the shooting he heard Red Courteen’s wild cursing.

Chapter 7
    Ike Adams was not in a loving mood as he rode toward Hatchet this afternoon. This morning his last two real cow hands had quit. They were certain that the disappearance of John Evarts was the start of a bitter fight, and they didn’t want any of it. They refused to wait for Will even, directing that their pay be mailed them. That left Hatchet with Ike, the cook, and the two rawhiders. Ike was bitter about the Young brothers. Hatchet’s reputation was something dear to Ike, and he did not like to see it placed in the care of a couple of broke, thieving saddle bums who were rawhiders in the bargain. Proof of their shiftlessness, if further proof were needed, had been presented to Ike this morning.
    On leaving Hatchet he had directed them to ride a piece of the west boundary and meet him at a spot on the north range, where Ike expected another of the Indian Ridge trash would have run in some cattle. The cattle hadn’t been there, and no trouble occurred, but the defections of the Young boys galled him. On the way back he had occupied his time with framing a blistering report on them to Will.
    He came into Hatchet through the low hills to the north and skirted the house, and only when he was in the clear did he see the knot of horses and men down by the corral.
    He put spurs to his horse and, approaching closer, saw Harve Garretson from up in the Indigos. He was dismounted and he was talking vehemently to the two rawhiders. They were lounging lazily against the corral gate, listening idly, while a mounted man, a hand of Garretson’s, watched.
    As Ike rode up the Young boys glanced over at him, and Garretson, seeing them look, turned in Ike’s direction. Garretson was a colorless, nondescript man of middle age who had a reputation of being a shrewd trader and minding his own business. He was dressed in a black suit, and his roan mustaches were so full they gave him a lugubrious air.
    When he saw Ike he gestured wildly, pointing to the horse pasture, and said angrily, “Ike, I’ve got a hundred head of cattle in there and I want ’em back!”
    Ike