“I was still trying to get Snake Hips’ attention,” the bartender admitted. “But he was scared blind. He was just standing there with his arms straight up and his hands shaking like leaves. He was trembling all over and his coat was open, and I knew he must have been cold. I think he was saying—begging rather—for them not to shoot him—”

“Leave Snake Hips,” Coffin Ed said brutally. “What about the other two?”

“Well, they must have begun shooting when the man in the car finished. Maybe they took advantage to get out their guns. When the shooting from the car stopped more shooting was still going on, and I looked over and saw flashes coming from both of their guns. Their pistols looked like the same kind of snub-nosed pistol the man had on the ground. One of them was shooting from his right hand and the other from his left—”

“The white man the lefty?”

“No, sir, it was the colored man. He had his sap in his right hand and was shooting from his hip—”

“From his hip?” Grave Digger said.

“Yes sir, like a real Western gunman—”

“Hollywood style,” Coffin Ed said scornfully.

“Let him go on,” Grave Digger snapped.

“The white man had the brief case in his left hand, and he was shooting with his right hand held straight out in front of him like the man on the ground had done—”

“He’s the son,” Coffin Ed muttered.

“Was either of them hit?” Grave Digger asked.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think the man on the ground ever got a chance to shoot at them. After the man in the car had finished shooting they opened up; or they might have even opened up before he finished shooting. Anyway, the man on the ground never had a chance.”

“And you were standing there watching all the time?” Grave Digger asked.

“Yes, sir, like a fool. I saw when Snake Hips was hit. At least I knew he was hit because he went straight down. He didn’t fall like they do in the motion pictures; he just collapsed. I don’t know who shot him, of course; but it was one of them up there beside Mr. Holmes, because the man in the car had quit shooting by then. I figure it was the white man who shot him, because he was the one who was holding his pistol so high.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Coffin Ed said. “That son wasn’t throwing bullets that wide apart.”

“His number came up, and that’s that,” Grave Digger said. “And you didn’t see the man on the ground catch his.”

“Next time I noticed him he was just lying there like he had gone to sleep on his stomach, but to tell you the truth, sir, I wasn’t paying him no attention especially. I was waiting for the three cops—heistmen I mean—to leave so I could go out and get Snake Hips. Then when they did leave I thought what was the use—he was dead; I knew he was dead when he went down; then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to move a dead body. So I just stood there.”