Outside, Trip sat down in one of the three rocking chairs on the porch. He reasoned that if Hawk was set up on the wagon track up on the bluff, he might take a shot at anyone who walked out of the store. Sitting in a chair, near the front door, he figured he wouldn’t present an easy target, so he stared hard at the cottonwoods on both sides of the path down to the store. This would be the most likely spot for a sniper to hide, so he scanned the trees from one side and back to the other, straining to see any movement. After a quarter of an hour, he got up and stepped down off the porch, his whole body quivering from the anticipation of a sudden shot. There was nothing, no sign of anyone.

He turned to go to the corral when suddenly he heard a horse on the path behind him. His hand dropped at once to his Colt. He spun around as he did and fired a shot that barely missed the startled rider. To save himself from a second shot, the rider slid off his horse to keep the horse between him and his assailant. “Don’t shoot! I give up!” Mose Avery yelled. “I just wanna go to the blacksmith.”

Realizing at once the error in his judgment, Trip holstered his weapon. “You ought to know better than to slip up behind a man like that. You can damn sure get yourself killed.”

“I’m sorry, mister,” Mose explained. “I just rode down the path to the store, like I do every time I come to trade here. And it bein’ broad daylight, I wasn’t lookin’ to sneak up on nobody.”

By this time, the gunshot had summoned Bodine and the two brothers. Out on the porch by then, Bodine yelled, “Mose! What the hell’s goin’ on?”

Trip quickly answered for him. “Feller here slipped up on my blind side and I had to fire a warnin’ shot to keep him from crowdin’ me.”

“Well, business ain’t so good that I can afford to have you kill off my regular trade,” Bodine said, more than a little irritated. “Some of the boys are a little touchy right now, Mose. I’m awful sorry about that.”

“It was just a warning shot,” Trip claimed again. He looked at Booth and Jesse gaping at him in disbelief, and he decided he didn’t want to hear what they had to say about it. So, he turned and continued on his way to the barn and the corral.

While he was standing by the corral, he kept looking around him in case he might see some sign of a hidden sniper. Tom Pointer came from the barn. “What did you shoot at Mose Avery for?” Tom asked.