CHAPTER XXI: AN ULTIMATUMHashknife, with seven stitches in his scalp, and bandaged like a turbaned Moslem, was around town, minus his hat. Questions came thick and fast, but he told everybody that it was a mystery to him. He fingered the derringer in his pocket, and wondered whether it belonged to Jack Pollock, who was around the Oasis, still wearing his arm in a sling. Pollock—if he were really Evans—had used a derringer in Redfields. The gun did not bear any identifying mark, and was small enough to conceal in the palm of a man’s hand.
Hashknife tried to remember the two voices he had heard, but the memory was too vague, the voices seemingly too far away, although he could remember what was said. But he decided that the approach of Sailor Jones had hurried them and they had thrown him o
