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Colt’s hammer was the only thing holding it back, and he knew Trace could see that.
    So could Whitfield. “For God’s sake, pouch that iron, Trace. That lunatic will kill me.”
    Trace hesitated for a second before lowering his gun. “You’re the boss, Mr. Whitfield,” he said, but Conrad heard the obvious reluctance in the man’s voice and saw it in his eyes as well. Trace was the sort of man who didn’t like to put his gun back in its holster until he had killed somebody.
    He did now, though, and Conrad lowered his gun.
    “Ye came for Dumont,” Hamish said. “His body’s in the barn. Take it, and welcome to it. Why don’t ye drag his horse away while you’re at it and save us the trouble?”
    Whitfield flipped a hand, motioning for his men to take care of retrieving Dumont’s body from the barn. “For what it’s worth, MacTavish,” he said, “I didn’t send those men over here last night with that dynamite. That was their idea.”
    James glanced over at Conrad with a smirk, as if to say, See? I told you so.
    “What about that business yesterday evenin’, just before dusk as the storm was movin’ in?” Hamish asked.
    Whitfield snorted in contempt. “Your boy caused that ruckus by opening fire with a shotgun. I’ve still got cows going missing, and I sent my men over to ask you if you’d seen anything unusual lately.”
    “Sent them over to accuse us of bein’ thieves, you mean!”
    Whitfield shrugged and said, “Seems to me that you reacted just like guilty men would have.”
    Conrad still held his gun at his side. He stepped out of the doorway as he said, “We’re not getting anywhere here. The MacTavishes have told you that they’re not guilty, Whitfield, and in the absence of proof, I think you’d be wise to accept their assurances.”
    Whitfield sneered at him. “What are you, some sort of lawyer? You talk like one.”
    “No, I’m not a lawyer. But I’ve been around plenty of them, and I know something about the law. What you’re doing amounts to nothing more than a campaign of terror against these people, and you’d be well-advised to stop it, otherwise the authorities will have to step in.”
    Trace chuckled. “I’d like to see that.”
    Whitfield shot him a narrow-eyed glance. “I’m a law-abiding man,” he told Conrad, “but I won’t be stolen from, and I won’t allow my men to be shot from ambush without doing something about it.”
    “I don’t blame you, but you’re on the wrong track here.”
    “We’ll see,” Whitfield said as a couple of his men came out of the barn, leading a horse with Dumont’s body draped over the saddle and lashed into place. The two men would have to ride double on the way back to the Circle D.
    Two more of the men tied ropes to the legs of the dead horse and lashed them around their saddle-horns. They began to drag it off, following the men who had taken charge of Dumont’s body.
    That left Whitfield and Trace sitting there for a moment, glaring at the MacTavishes and Browning. Whitfield turned away first with an angry mutter. Trace lingered a couple of seconds longer, his eyes intent on Conrad.
    They had taken each other’s measure with those draws, Conrad thought. Each of them now knew that the other was fast. They couldn’t be sure how fast, though, unless they actually faced each other in a showdown. Conrad could see in Trace’s eyes that the little gunman believed that day was coming.
    All Conrad could do was bite back a disgusted curse. The disgust was directed against himself. Against all his better judgment, he had just involved himself hip-deep in the troubles of the MacTavishes. He had made enemies out of Whitfield and Trace, and they weren’t the sort of men to forget a confrontation like that. Sooner or later, he’d be forced to deal with them. The added complication wasn’t what he needed right then.
    On the other hand, he realized suddenly, news spread fast, even in sparsely settled country like this. It wouldn’t