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Brand, Max, 1892-1944

"The Seventh Man"


The sheriff had not looked up from the study of the card, for reading was
more difficult to him than man-killing, and Joe Cumber had an opportunity
to examine the room. It was hung with a score of pictures. Some large, some
small, but most of them enlargements, it was apparent of kodak snapshots,
for the eyes had that bleary look which comes in photographs spread over
ten times their intended space. The faces had little more than bleary eyes
in common, for there were bearded men, and smooth-shaven faces, and lean
and fat men; there were round, cherubic countenances, and lean, hungry
heads; there were squared, protruding chins, and there were chins which
sloped away awkwardly toward the neck; in fact it seemed that the sheriff
had collected twenty specimens to represent every phase of weakness and
strength in the human physiognomy. But beneath the pictures, almost without
exception, there hung weapons: rifles, revolvers, knives, placed
criss-cross in a decorative manner, and it came to "Joe Cumber" that he was
looking at the galaxy of the dead who had fallen by the hand of Sheriff
Pete Glass.


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