02508cam a22003733u 4500 78088 UtSlPG 20260610134817.0 m cr n 260607r20261930utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d UtSlPG en iso639-1 PS Leinster, Murray, 1896-1975 The hand of God Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2026 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Produced from the July 25, 1930 issue of Short Stories magazine. Release date is 2026-03-02 Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net) The hand of God by Murray Leinster is a crime-mystery short story written in the early 20th century. It centers on a small-town sheriff confronting a lynch mob while sifting clues to uncover the true killer, probing the tension between mob justice, lawful procedure, and what people call “the hand of God.” On a sweltering night, a mob gathers to hang Sam Blake for shooting Kittinger outside a country store, where “open-and-shut” evidence seems to damn him: he’s found unconscious in a nearby blacksmith shop with a recently fired rifle and a clear motive. Determined to uphold the law, the sheriff stalls the crowd and notices a crucial inconsistency—there are two spent shells tied to a single heard shot. Inviting only two men inside, he catches Pete Brown, Kittinger’s nephew, in a lie about seeing the victim from a blocked vantage point, proving Pete watched from the actual murder site and had framed the drunken Sam earlier by firing Sam’s gun and planting him. After a brief struggle the sheriff arrests Pete, faces down the mob by laying out the facts, and disperses it, with the supposed “hand of God” revealed as a small human oversight exposed by stubborn, level-headed policing. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1930 Short stories Western stories Murder -- Fiction Sheriffs -- Fiction Produced from the July 25, 1930 issue of Short Stories magazine. https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/PU/SHST_1930_07_25.pdf https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78088 118808 118808