Dick Martin slowly turned, leaned his back against the bar, and languidly regarded a group of Mexicans at the other end of the room. Singly, or in combinations of two or more, each was imparting all he knew, or thought he knew about the ghost of San Miguel Canyon. Their fellow-countryman, new to the locality, seemed properly impressed. That it was the ghost of Carlos Martinez, murdered nearly one hundred years before at the big bend in the canyon, was conceded by all; but there was a dispute as to why it showed itself only on Friday nights, and why it was never seen by any but a Mexican. Never had a Gringo seen it. The Mexican stranger was appealed to: Did this not prove that the murder had been committed by a Mexican? The stranger affected to consider the question.
Martin surveyed them with outward impassiveness and inward contempt. A realist, a cynic, and an absolute genius with a Colt .45, he was well known along the border for his dare-devil exploits and reckless courage. The brainiest men in the Secret Service, Lewis, Thomas, Sayre, and even old Jim Lane, the local chief, whose fingers at El Paso felt every vibration along the Rio Grande, were not as well known—except to those who had seen the inside of Government penitentiaries—and they were quite satisfied to be so eclipsed. But the Service knew of the ghost, as it knew everything pertaining to the border, and gave it no serious thought; if it took interest in all the ghosts and superstitions peculiar to the Mexican temperament it would have no time for serious work. Martin once, in a spirit of savage denial, had wasted the better part of several successive Friday nights in the San Miguel, but to no avail. When told that the ghost showed itself only to Mexicans he had shrugged his shoulders eloquently and laughed, also eloquently.
“A Greaser,” he replied, “is one-half fear and superstition, an' the other half imagination. There ain't no ghosts, but I know theGreasershave seen 'em, all right. A Greaser can see anything scary if he makes up his mind to. IfIever see one an' he keeps on being one after I shoot, I'll either believe in ghosts, or quit drinking.” His eyes twinkled as he added: “An' of the two, I think I'dpreferto see ghosts!”
He was flushed and restless with deviltry. His fifth glass always made him so; and to-night there was an added stimulus. He believed the strange Mexican to be Juan Alvarez, who was so clever that the Government had never been able to convict him. Alvarez was fearless to recklessness and Martin, eager to test him, addressed the group with the blunt terseness for which he was famed, and hated.
“Greasers are cowards,” he asserted quietly, and with a smile which invited excitement. He took a keen delight in analyzing the expressions on the faces of those hit. It was one of his favorite pastimes when feeling coltish.
The group was shocked into silence, quickly followed by great unrest and hot, muttered words. Martin did not move a muscle, the smile was set, but between the half-closed eyelids crouched Combat, on its toes. The Mexicans knew it was there without looking for it—the tone of his voice, the caressing purr of his words, and his unnatural languor were signs well known to them. Not a criminal sneaking back from voluntary banishment in Mexico who had seen those signs ever forgot them, if he lived. Martin watched the group cat-like, keenly scrutinizing each face, reading the changing emotions in every shifting expression; he had this art down so well that he could tell when a man was debating the pull of a gun, and beat him on the draw by a fraction of a second.
“De senor ees meestak,” came the reply, as quiet and caressing as the words which provoked it. The strange Mexican was standing proudly and looking into the squinting eyes with only a grayness of face and a tigerish litheness to tell what he felt.
“None go through the canyon after dark on Fridays,” purred Martin.
“Igo tro' de canyon nex' Friday night. Eef I do, then you mak apology to me?”
“I'll limit my remark to all but one Greaser.”
The Mexican stepped forward. “I tak' thees gloove an' leave eet at de Beeg Ben', for you to fin' in daylight,” he said, tapping one of Martin's gauntlets which lay on the bar. “You geev' me eet befo' I go?”
“Yes; at nine o'clock to-morrow night,” Martin replied, hiding his elation. He was sure that he knew the man now.
The Mexican, cool and smiling, bowed and left the room, his companions hastening after him.
“Well, I'll bet twenty-five dollars he flunks!” breathed the bartender, straightening up.
Martin turned languidly and smiled at him. “I'll take that, Charley,” he replied.
Johnny Nelson was always late, and on this occasion he was later than usual. He was to have joined Hopalong and Red, if Red had arrived, at Dent's at noon the day before, and now it was after nine o'clock at night as he rode through San Felippe without pausing and struck east for the canyon. The dropping trail down the canyon was serious enough in broad daylight, but at night to attempt its passage was foolhardy, unless one knew every turn and slant by heart, which Johnny did not. He was thirty-three hours late now, and he was determined to make up what he could in the next three.
When Johnny left Hopalong at Dent's he had given his word to be back on time and not to keep his companions waiting, for Red might be on time and he would chafe if he were delayed. But, alas for Johnny's good intentions, his course took him through a small Mexican hamlet in which lived a senorita of remarkable beauty and rebellious eyes; and Johnny tarried in the town most of the day, riding up and down the streets, practising the nice things he would say if he met her. She watched him from the heavily draped window, and sighed as she wondered if her dashing Americano would storm the house and carry her off like the knights of old. Finally he had to turn away with heavy and reluctant heart, promising himself that he would return when no petulant and sarcastic companions were waiting for him. Then—ah! what dreams youth knows.
Half an hour ahead of him on another trail rode Juan, smiling with satisfaction. He had come to San Felippe to get a look at the canyon on Friday nights, and Martin had given him an excuse entirely unexpected. For this he was truly grateful, even while he knew that the American had tried to pick a quarrel with him and thus rid the border of a man entirely too clever for the good of customs receipts; and failing in that, had hoped the treacherous canyon trail would gain that end in another manner. Old Jim Lane's fingers touched wires not one whit more sensitive than those which had sent Juan Alvarez to look over the San Miguel—and Lane's wires had been slow this time. When Juan had left the saloon the night before and had seen Manuel slip away from the group and ride off into the north, he had known that the ghost would show itself the following night.
But Juan was to be disappointed. He was still some distance from the canyon when a snarling bulk landed on the haunches of his horse. He jerked loose his gun and fired twice and then knew nothing. When he opened his eyes he lay quietly, trying to figure it out with a head throbbing with pain from his fall. The cougar must have been desperate for food to attack a man. He moved his foot and struck something soft and heavy. His shots had been lucky, but they had not saved him his horse and a sprained arm and leg. There would be no gauntlet found at the Big Bend at daylight.
When Johnny Nelson reached the twin boulders marking the beginning of the sloping run where the trail pitched down, he grinned happily at sight of the moon rising over the low hills and then grabbed at his holster, while every hair in his head stood up curiously. A wild, haunting, feminine scream arose to a quavering soprano and sobbed away into silence. No words can adequately describe the unearthly wail in that cry and it took a full half-minute for Johnny to become himself again and to understand what it was. Once more it arose, nearer, and Johnny peered into the shadows along a rough backbone of rock, his Colt balanced in his half-raised hand.
“You come 'round me an' you'll get hurt,” he muttered, straining his eyes to peer into the blackness of the shadows. “Come on out, Soft-foot; the moon's yore finish. You an' me will have it out right here an' now—I don't want no cougar trailing me through that ink-black canyon on a two-foot ledge—” he thought he saw a shadow glide across a dim patch of moonlight, but when his smoke rifted he knew he had missed. “Damn it! You've got a mate 'round here somewhere,” he complained. “Well, I'll have to chance it, anyhow. Come on, bronc! Yo're shaking like a leaf—get out of this!”
When he began to descend into the canyon he allowed his horse to pick its own way without any guidance from him, and gave all of his attention to the trail behind him. The horse could get along better by itself in the dark, and it was more than possible that one or two lithe cougars might be slinking behind him on velvet paws. The horse scraped along gingerly, feeling its way step by step, and sending stones rattling and clattering down the precipice at his left to tinkle into the stream at the bottom.
“Gee, but I wish I'd not wasted so much time,” muttered the rider uneasily. “This here canyon-cougar combination is the worstIever butted up against. I'll never be late again, not never; not for all the girls in the world. Easy, bronc,” he cautioned, as he felt the animal slip and quiver. “Won't this trail ever start going up again?” he growled petulantly, taking his eyes off the black back trail, where no amount of scrutiny showed him anything, and turned in the saddle to peer ahead—and a yell of surprise and fear burst from him, while chills ran up and down his spine. An unearthly, piercing shriek suddenly rang out and filled the canyon with ear-splitting uproar and a glowing, sheeted half-figure of a man floated and danced twenty feet from him and over the chasm. He jerked his gun and fired, but only once, for his mount had its own ideas about some things and this particular one easily headed the list. The startled rider grabbed reins and pommel, his blood congealed with fear of the precipice less than a foot from his side, and he gave all his attention to the horse. But scared as he was he heard, or thought that he heard, a peculiar sound when he fired, and he would have sworn that he hit the mark—the striking of the bullet was not drowned in the uproar and he would never forget the sound of that impact. He rounded Big Bend as if he were coming up to the judge's stand, and when he struck the upslant of the emerging trail he had made a record. Cold sweat beaded his forehead and he was trembling from head to foot when he again rode into the moonlight on the level plain, where he tried to break another record.
Meanwhile Hopalong and Red quarrelled petulantly and damned the erring Johnny with enthusiastic abandon, while Dent smiled at them and joked; but his efforts at levity made little impression on the irate pair. Red, true to his word, had turned up at the time set, in fact, he was half an hour ahead of time, for which miracle he endeavored to take great and disproportionate credit. Dent was secretly glad about the delay, for he found his place lonesome. He thoroughly enjoyed the company of the two gentlemen from the Bar-20, whose actions seemed to be governed by whims and who appeared to lack all regard for consequences; and they squabbled so refreshingly, and spent their money cheerfully. Now, if they would only wind up the day by fighting! Such a finish would be joy indeed. And speaking of fights, Dent was certain that Mr. Cassidy had been in one recently, for his face bore marks that could only be acquired in that way.
After supper the two guests had relapsed into a silence which endured only as long as the pleasing fulness. Then the squabbling began again, growing worse until they fell silent from lack of adequate expression. Finally Red once again spoke of their absent friend.
“We oughtn't get peevish, Hoppy—he's only thirty-six hours late,” suggested Red. “An' he might be a week,” he added thoughtfully, as his mind ran back over a long list of Johnny's misdeeds.
“Yes, he might. An' won't he have a fine cock-an'-bull tale to explain it,” growled Hopalong, reminiscently. “His excuses are the worst part of it generally.”
“Eh, does he—make excuses?” asked Dent, mildly surprised.
“He does tous,” retorted Red savagely. “He's worse than a woman; take him all in all an' you've got the toughest proposition that ever wore pants. But he's a good feller, at that.”
“Well, you've got a lot of nerve, you have!” retorted Hopalong. “You don't want to say anything about the Kid—if there's anybody that can beat him in being late an' acting the fool generally, it's you. An' what's more, you know it!”
Red wheeled to reply, but was interrupted by a sudden uproar outside, fluent swearing coming towards the house. The door opened with a bang, admitting a white-faced, big-eyed man with one leg jammed through the box he had landed on in dismounting.
“Gimme a drink, quick!” he shouted wildly, dragging the box over to the bar with a cheerful disregard for chairs and other temporary obstructions. “Gimme a drink!” he reiterated.
“Give you six hops in the neck!” yelled Red, missing and almost sitting down because of the enthusiasm he had put into his effort. Johnny side-stepped and ducked, and as he straightened up to ask for whys and wherefores, Red's eyes opened wide and he paused in his further intentions to stare at the apparition.
“Sick?” queried Hopalong, who was frightened.
“Gimme that drink!” demanded Johnny feverishly, and when he had it he leaned against the bar and mopped his face with a trembling hand.
“What's the matter with you, anyhow?” asked Red, with deep anxiety.
“Yes; for God's sake, what's happened to you?” demanded Hopalong.
Johnny breathed deeply and threw back his shoulders as if to shake off a weight. “Fellers, I had a cougar soft-footing after me in that dark canyon, my cayuse ran away on a two-foot ledge up the wall,—an'—I—saw—a—ghost!”
There was a respectful silence. Johnny, waiting a reasonable length of time for replies and exclamations, flushed a bit and repeated his frank and candid statement, adding a few adjectives to it. “A real, screeching, flying ghost! An' I'm goinghome, an' I'm going tostaythere. I ain't never coming back no more, not for anything. Damn this border country,anyhow!”
The silence continued, whereupon Johnny grew properly indignant. “You act like I told you it was going to rain! Why don't you say something? Didn't you hear what I said, you fools!” he asked pugnaciously. “Are you in the habit of having a thing like that told you? Why don't you show some interest, you dod-blasted, thick-skulled wooden-heads?”
Red looked at Hopalong, Hopalong looked at Red, and then they both looked at Dent, whose eyes were fixed in a stare on Johnny.
“Huh!” snorted Hopalong, warily arising. “Was that all?” he asked, nodding at Red, who also arose and began to move cautiously toward their erring friend. “Didn't you see no more'n one ghost? Anybody that can see one ghost, an' no more, is wrong somewhere. Now, stop, an' think; didn't you seetwo?” He was advancing carefully while he talked, and Red was now behind the man who saw one ghost.
“Why, you—” there was a sudden flurry and Johnny's words were cut short in the melee.
“Good, Red! Ouch!” shouted Hopalong. “Look out! Got any rope, Dent? Well, hurry up: there ain't no telling what he'll do if he's loose. The mescal they sells down in this country ain't liquor—it's poison,” he panted. “An' he can't even stand whiskey!”
Finding the rope was easier than finding a place to put it, and the unequal battle raged across the room and into the next, where it sounded as if the house were falling down. Johnny's voice was shrill and full of vexation and his words were extremely impolite and lacked censoring. His feet appeared to be numerous and growing rapidly, judging from the amount of territory they covered and defended, and Red joyfully kicked Hopalong in the melee, which in this instance also stands for stomach; Red always took great pains to do more than his share in a scrimmage. Dent hovered on the flanks, his hands full of rope, and begged with great earnestness to be allowed to apply it to parts of Johnny's thrashing anatomy. But as the flanks continued to change with bewildering swiftness he begged in vain, and began to make suggestions and give advice pleasing to the three combatants. Dent knew just how it should be done, and was generous with the knowledge until Johnny zealously planted five knuckles on his one good eye, when the engagement became general.
The table skidded through the door on one leg and caromed off the bar at a graceful angle, collecting three chairs and one sand-box cuspidor on the way. The box on Johnny's leg had long since departed, as Hopalong's shin could testify. One chair dissolved unity and distributed itself lavishly over the room, while the bed shrunk silently and folded itself on top of Dent, who bucked it up and down with burning zeal and finally had sense enough to crawl from under it. He immediately celebrated his liberation by getting a strangle hold on two legs, one of which happened to be the personal property of Hopalong Cassidy; and the battle raged on a lower plane. Red raised one hand as he carefully traced a neck to its own proper head and then his steel fingers opened and swooped down and shut off the dialect. Hopalong pushed Dent off him and managed to catch Johnny's flaying arm on the third attempt, while Dent made tentative sorties against Johnny's spurred boots.
“Phew! Can he fight like that when he's sober?” reverently asked Dent, seeing how close his fingers could come to his gaudy eye without touching it. “I won't be able to see at all in an hour,” he added, gloomily.
Hopalong, seated on Johnny's chest, soberly made reply as he tenderly flirted with a raw shin. “It's the mescal. I'm going to slip some of that stuff into Pete's cayuse some of these days,” he promised, happy with a new idea. Pete Wilson had no sense of humor.
“That ghost was plumb lucky,” grunted Red, “an' so was the sea-captain,” he finished as an afterthought, limping off toward the bar, slowly and painfully followed by his disfigured companions. “One drink; then to bed.”
After Red had departed, Hopalong and Dent smoked a while and then, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, Hopalong arose. “An' yet, Dent, there are people that believe in ghosts,” he remarked, with a vast and settled contempt.
Dent gave critical scrutiny to the scratched bar for a moment. “Well, the Greasers all say thereisa ghost in the San Miguel, though I never saw it. But some of them have seen it, an' no Greasers ride that trail no more.”
“Huh!” snorted Hopalong. “Some Greasers must have filled the Kid up on ghosts while he was filling hisself up on mescal. Ghosts? R-a-t-s!”
“It shows itself only to Greasers, an' then only on Friday nights,” explained Dent, thoughtfully. This was Friday night. Others had seen that ghost, but they were all Mexicans; now that a “white” man of Johnny's undisputed calibre had been so honored Dent's skepticism wavered and he had something to think about for days to come. True, Johnny was not a Greaser; but even ghosts might make mistakes once in a while.
Hopalong laughed, dismissing the subject from his mind as being beneath further comment. “Well, we won't argue—I'm too tired. An' I'm sorry you got that eye, Dent.”
“Oh, that's all right,” hastily assured the store-keeper, smiling faintly. “I was just spoiling for a fight, an' now I've had it. Feels sort of good. Yes, first thing in the morning—breakfast'll be ready soon as you are. Good-night.”
But the proprietor couldn't sleep. Finally he arose and tiptoed into the room where Johnny lay wrapped in the sleep of the exhausted. After cautious and critical inspection, which was made hard because of his damaged eye, he tiptoed back to his bunk, shaking his head slowly. “He wasn't drunk,” he muttered. “He saw that ghost all right; an' I'll bet everything I've got on it!”
At daybreak three quarrelling punchers rode homeward and after a monotonous journey arrived at the bunk house and reported. It took them two nights adequately to describe their experiences to an envious audience. The morning after the telling of the ghost story things began to happen. Red starting it by erecting a sign.
NOTISE—NO GHOSTS ALOWED
An exuberant handful of the outfit watched him drive the last nail and step back to admire his work, and the running fire of comment covered all degrees of humor, and promised much hilarity in the future at the expense of the only man on the Bar-20 who had seen a ghost.
In a week Johnny and his acute vision had become a bye-word in that part of the country and his friends had made it a practice to stop him and gravely discuss spirit manifestations of all kinds. He had thrashed Wood Wright and been thrashed by Sandy Lucas in two beautiful and memorable fights and was only waiting to recover from the last affair before having the matter out with Rich Finn. These facts were beginning to have the effect he strove for; though Cowan still sold a new concoction of gin, brandy, and whiskey which he called “Flying Ghost,” and which he proudly guaranteed would show more ghosts per drink than any liquor south of the Rio Grande—and some of his patrons were eager to back up his claims with real money.
This was the condition of affairs when Hopalong Cassidy strolled into Cowan's and forgot his thirst in the story being told by a strange Mexican. It was Johnny's ghost, without a doubt, and when he had carelessly asked a few questions he was convinced that Johnny had really seen something. On the way home he cogitated upon it and two points challenged his intelligence with renewed insistence: the ghost showed itself only on Friday, and then only to “Greasers.” His suspicious mind would not rest until he had reviewed the question from all sides, and his opinion was that there was something more than spiritual about the ghost of the San Miguel—and a cold, practical reason for it.
When he rode into the corral at the ranch he saw that another sign had been put on the corral wall. He had destroyed the first, speaking his mind in full at the time. He swept his gloved hand upward with a rush, tore the flimsy board from its fastenings, broke it to pieces across his saddle, and tossed the fragments from him. He was angry, for he had warned the outfit that they were carrying the joke too far, that Johnny was giving way to hysterical rage more frequently, and might easily do something that they all would regret. And he felt sorry for the Kid; he knew what Johnny's feelings were and he made up his mind to start a few fights himself if the persecution did not cease. When he stepped into the bunk house and faced his friends they listened to a three-minute speech that made them squirm, and as he finished talking the deep voice of the foreman endorsed the promises he had just heard made, for Buck had entered the gallery without being noticed. The joke had come to an end.
When Johnny rode in that evening he was surprised to find Hopalong waiting for him a short distance from the corral and he replied to his friend's gesture by riding over to him. “What's up now?” he asked.
“Come along with me. I want to talk to you for a few minutes,” and Hopalong led the way toward the open, followed by Johnny, who was more or less suspicious. Finally Hopalong stopped, turned, and looked his companion squarely in the eyes. “Kid, I'm in dead earnest. This ain't no fool joke—now you tell me what that ghost looked like, how he acted, an' all about it. I mean what I say, because now I know that you sawsomething. If it wasn't a ghost it was made to look like one, anyhow. Now go ahead.”
“I've told you a dozen times already,” retorted Johnny, his face flushing. “I've begged you to believe me an' told you that I wasn't fooling. How do I know you ain't now? I'm not going to tell—”
“Hold on; yes, you are. Yo're going to tell it slow, an' just like you saw it,” Hopalong interrupted hastily. “I know I've doubted it, but who wouldn't! Wait a minute—I've done a heap of thinking in the past few days an' I know that you saw a ghost. Now, everybody knows that there ain't no such thing as ghosts; then what was it you saw? There's a game on, Kid, an' it's a dandy; an' you an' me are going to bust it up an' get the laugh on the whole blasted crowd, from Buck to Cowan.”
Johnny's suspicions left him with a rush, for his old Hoppy was one man in a thousand, and when he spoke like that, with such sharp decision, Johnny knew what it meant. Hopalong listened intently and when the short account was finished he put out his hand and smiled.
“We're the fools, Kid; not you. There's something crooked going on in that canyon, an' I know it! But keep mum about what we think.”
Johnny lost his grouch so suddenly and beamed upon his friends with such a superior air that they began to worry about what was in the wind. The suspense wore on them, for with Hopalong's assistance, Johnny might spring some game on them all that would more than pay up for the fun they had enjoyed at his expense; and the longer the suspense lasted the worse it became. They never lost sight of him while he was around and Hopalong had to endure the same surveillance; and it was no uncommon thing to see small groups of the anxious men engaged in deep discussion. When they found that Buck must have been told and noticed his smile was as fixed as Hopalong's or Johnny's, they were certain that trouble of some nature was in store for them.
Several weeks later Buck Peters drew rein and waited for a stranger to join him.
“Howdy. Is yore name Peters?” asked the newcomer, sizing him up in one trained glance.
“Well, who are you, an' what do you want?”
“I want to see Peters, Buck Peters. That yore name?”
“Yes; what of it?”
“My name's Fox. Old Jim Lane gave me a message for you,” and the stranger spoke earnestly to some length. “There; that's the situation. We've got to have shrewd men that they don't know an' won't suspect. Lane wants to pay a couple of yore men their wages for a month or two. He said he was shore he could count on you to help him out.”
“He's right; he can. I don't forget favors. I've got a couple of men that—there's one of 'em now. Hey, Hoppy! Whoop-e, Hoppy!”
Mr. Cassidy arrived quickly, listened eagerly, named Red and Johnny to accompany him, overruled his companions by insisting that if Johnny didn't go the whole thing was off, carried his point, and galloped off to find the lucky two, his eyes gleaming with anticipation and joy. Fox laughed, thanked the foreman, and rode on his way north; and that night three cow-punchers rode south, all strangely elated. And the friends who watched them go heaved signs of relief, for the reprisals evidently were to be postponed for a while.
Juan Alvarez had not been in San Felippe since Dick Martin left, which meant for over a month. Martin was down the river looking for a man who did not wish to be found; and some said that Martin cared nothing about international boundaries when he wanted any one real bad. And there was that geologist who wore blue glasses and was always puttering around in the canyon and hammering chips of rock off the steep walls; he must have slipped one noon, because his body was found on a flat boulder at the edge of the stream. Manuel had found it and wanted to be paid for his trouble in bringing it to town—but Manuel was a fool. Who, indeed, would pay good money for a dead Gringo, especially after he was dead? And there were three cow-punchers holding a herd of 6-X cattle up north, an hour or so from the town. They wanted to buy steers from Senor Rodriguez, but said that he was a robber and threatened to cut his ears off. Cannot a man name his own price? These cow-punchers liked to get drunk and gallop through San Felippe, shooting like crazy men. They got drunk one Friday night and went shouting and singing to the Big Bend in the canyon to see the flying ghost, and they called it names and fired off their pistols and sang loudly; and for a week they insulted all the Mexicans in town by calling them liars and cowards. Was it the fault of any one that the ghost would show itself only to Mexicans? Oh, these Gringos—might the good God punish them for their sins!
Thus the peons complained to the padre while they kept one eye open for the advent of the rowdy cow-punchers, who always wanted to drink, and then to fight with some one, either with fists or pistols. Why should any one fight with them, especially with such things as fists?
“Let them fight among themselves. What have you to do with heretics?” reproved the good padre, who ostracized himself from the pleasant parts of the wide world that he might make easier the life and struggles of his ignorant flock. “God is not hasty—He will punish in His own way when it best suits Him. And perhaps you will profit much if you are more regular to mass instead of wasting the cool hours of the morning in bed. Think well of what I have said, my children.”
But the cow-punchers were not punished and they swore they would not leave the vicinity until they had all the steers they wanted, and at their own price. And one night their herd stampeded and was checked only in time to save it from going over the canyon's edge. And for some reason Sanchez kept out of the padre's way and did not go to confess when he should, for the padre spoke plainly and set hard obligations for penance.
The cow-punchers swore that it had been done by some Mexican and said that they would come to town some day soon and kill three Mexicans unless the guilty one was found and brought to them. Then the padre mounted his donkey and went out to them to argue and they finally told him they would wait for two weeks. But the padre was too smart for them—he sent a messenger to find Senor Dick Martin, and in one week Senor Martin came to town. There was no fight. The Gringo rowdies were cowards at heart and Martin could not shoot them down in cold blood, and he could not arrest them, because he was not a policeman or even a sheriff, but only a revenue officer, which was a most foolish law. But he watched them all the time and wanted them to fight—there was no more shooting or drunkenness in town. Nobody wanted to fight Senor Martin, for he was a great man. He even went so far as to talk with them about it and wave his arms, but they were as frightened at him as little children might be.
So the Mexicans gossiped and exulted, some of the bolder of them even swaggering out to the Gringo camp; but Martin drove them back again, saying he would not allow them to bully men who could not retaliate, which was right and fair. Then, afraid to go away and leave the mad cow-punchers so close to town, he ordered them to drive their herd farther east, nearer to Dent's store, and never to return to San Felippe unless they needed the padre; and they obeyed him after a long talk. After seeing them settled in their new camp, which was on Monday morning, Martin returned to San Felippe and told the padre where he could be found and then rode away again. San Felippe celebrated for a whole day and two Mexican babies were christened after Senor Dick Martin, which was honor all around.
Friday, when Manuel went over to spy upon the cow-punchers in their new camp, he found them so drunk that they could not stand, and before he crept away at dusk two of them were sleeping like gorged snakes and the third was firing off his revolver at random, which diversion had not a little to do with Manuel's departure.
When Manuel crept away he headed straight for a crevice near the wall of the canyon at the Big Bend and, reaching it, looked all around and then dropped into it. Not long thereafter another Mexican appeared, this one from San Felippe, and also disappeared into the crevice. As darkness fell Manuel reappeared with something under his jacket and a moment later a light gleamed at the base of a slender sapling which grew on the edge of the canyon wall and leaned out over the abyss. It was cleverly placed, for only at one spot on the Mexican side of the distant Rio Grande could it be seen—the high canyon walls farther down screened it from any one who might be riding on the north bank of the river. In a moment there came an answering twinkle and Manuel, covering the lantern with a blanket, was swallowed up in the darkness of the crevice.
Without a trace of emotion, Dick Martin, from his place of concealment, caught the answering gleam, and he watched Manuel disappear. “Cassidy was right in every point; Lewis or Sayre couldn't 'a' done this better. I hope he won't be late,” he muttered, and settled himself more comfortably to wait for the cue for action, smiling as the moon poked its rim over the low hills to his right. “This means promotion for me, or I've very much mistaken,” he chuckled.
Hopalong was not late and as soon as it was dark he and his companions stole into the canyon on foot. They felt their way down the east end of the trail, not far from Dent's, toward the Big Bend, which they gained without a mishap. Johnny was sent up to a place they had noticed and marked in their memories at the time they had rioted down to defy the ghost. He was to stop any one trying to escape up the San Felippe end of the canyon trail, and his confidence in his ability to do this was exuberant. Hopalong and Red slowly and laboriously worked their way down the perilous path leading to the bottom, forded the stream, and crept up the other side, where they found cover not far from a wide crack in the canyon wall. Upon the occasion of their hilarious visit to the Big Bend they had observed that a faint trail led to the crack and had cogitated deeply upon this fact.
Three hours passed before the watchers in and above the canyon were rewarded by anything further; and then a light flickered far down the canyon and close to the edge of the stream. Immediately strange noises were heard and suddenly the ghost swung out of the opening in the rock wall near Hopalong and Red and danced above their heads, while the shrieking which had so frightened Johnny and his horse filled the canyon with uproar and sent Martin wriggling nearer to the crevice which he had watched so closely. The noise soon ceased, but the ghost danced on, and the sound of men stumbling along the rocky ledge bordering the stream became more and more audible. Four were in the party and they all carried bulky loads on their backs and grunted with pleasure and relief as they entered the entrance in the wall. When the last man had disappeared and the noise of their passing had died out, Johnny's rope sailed up and out, and the ghost swayed violently and then began to sag in an unaccountable manner towards the trail as the owner of the rope hitched its free end around a spur of rock and made it fast. Then he feverishly scrambled down the steep path to join his friends.
Hopalong and Red, wriggling on their stomachs towards the crack in the wall, paused in amazement and stared across the canyon; and then the former chuckled and whispered something in his companion's ear. “That was why he lugged his rope along! He's just idiot enough to want a souveneer an' plaything at the risk of losing the game. Come on!—they'll tumble to what's up an' get away if we don't hustle.”
When the two punchers cautiously and noiselessly entered the crack and felt their way along its rock walls they heard fluent swearing in Spanish by the man who worked the ghost, and who could not understand its sudden ambition to take root. It was made painfully clear to him a moment later when a pair of brawny hands reached out of the darkness behind him and encircled his throat a hand's width below his gleaming cigarette. Another pair used cords with deftness and despatch and he was left by himself to browse upon the gag when all his senses returned.
Hopalong, with Red inconsiderately stepping on his heels, felt his way along the wall of the crevice, alert and silent, his Colt nestling comfortably in his right hand, while the left was pushed out ahead feeling for trouble. As they worked farther away from the canyon distant voices could be heard and they forthwith proceeded even more cautiously. When Hopalong came to the second bend in the narrow passage he peered around it and stopped so abruptly that Red's nose almost spread itself over the back of his head. Red's indignation was all the harder to bear because it must bloom unheard.
In a huge, irregular room, whose roof could not be discerned in the dim light of the few candles, five men were resting in various attitudes of ease as they discussed the events of the night and tried to compute their profits. They were secure, for Manuel, having by this time put away the ghost and megaphone, was on duty at the mouth of the crevice, and he was as sensitive to danger as a hound.
“The risk is not much and the profits are large,” remarked Pedro, in Spanish. “We must burn a candle for the repose of the soul of Carlos Martinez. It is he that made our plans safe. And a candle is not much when we—”
“Hands up!” said a quiet voice, followed by grim commands. The Mexicans jumped as if stung by a scorpion, and could just discern two of the rowdy gringo cow-punchers in the heavy shadows of the opposite wall, but the candle light glinted in rings on the muzzles of their six-shooters. Had Manuel betrayed them? But they had little time or inclination for cogitation regarding Manuel.
“Easy there!” shouted Red, and Pedro's hand stopped when half way to his chest. Pedro was a gambler by nature, but the odds were too heavy and he sullenly obeyed the command.
“Stick 'em up! Stick 'em up! Higher yet, an' hold 'em there,” purred a soft voice from the other end of the room, where Dick Martin smiled pleasantly upon them and wondered if there was anything on earth harder to pound good common sense into than a “Greaser's” head. His gun was blue, but it was, nevertheless, the most prominent part of his make-up, even if the light was poor.
One of the Mexicans reached involuntarily for his gun, for he was a gun-man by training; while his companions felt for their knives, deadly weapons in a melee. Martin, crying, “Watch 'em, Cassidy!” side-stepped and lunged forward with the speed and skill of a boxer, and his hard left hand landed on the point of Juan Alvarez' jaw with a force and precision not to be withstood. But to make more certain that the Mexican would not take part in any possible demonstration of resistance, Martin's right circled up in a short half-hook and stopped against Juan's short ribs. Martin weighed one hundred and eighty pounds and packed no fat on his well-knit frame.
At this moment a two-legged cyclone burst upon the scene in the person of Johnny Nelson, whose rage had been worked up almost to the weeping point because he had lost so much time hunting for the crevice where it was not. Seeing Juan fall, and the glint of knives, he started in to clean things up, yelling, “I'm a ghost! I'm a ghost! Take 'em alive! Take 'em alive!”
Hopalong and Red felt that they were in his way, and taking care of one Mexican between them, while Martin knocked out another, they watched the exits,—for anything was possible in such a chaotic mix-up,—and gave Johnny plenty of room. The latter paused, triumphant, looked around to see if he had missed any, and then advanced upon his friends and shoved his jaw up close to Hopalong's face. “Tried to lose me, didn't you! Wouldn't wait for me! For seven cents an' a toothbrush I'd give you what's left!”
Red grabbed him by trousers and collar and heaved him into the passageway. “Go out an' play with yore souveneer or we'll step on you!”
Johnny sat up, rubbed certain portions of his anatomy, and grinned. “Oh, I've got it, all right! I'm shore going to take that ghost home an' make some of them foolseatit!”
Martin smiled as he finished tying the last prisoner. “That's right, Nelson; you've got it on 'em this time. Make 'em chew it.”
For a month after their return from the San Miguel, Hopalong and his companions worked with renewed zest, and told and retold the other members of the outfit of their unusual experiences near the Mexican border. Word had come up to them that Martin had secured the conviction of the smugglers and was in line for immediate advancement. No one on the range had the heart to meet Johnny Nelson, for Johnny carried with him a piece of the ghost, and became pugnacious if his once-jeering friends and acquaintances refused to nibble on it. Cowan still sold his remarkable drink, but he had yielded to Johnny's persuasive methods and now called it “Nelson's Pet.”
One bright day the outfit started rounding up a small herd of three-year-olds, which Buck had sold, and by the end of the week the herd was complete and ready for the drive. This took two weeks and when Hopalong led his drive outfit through Hoyt's Corners on its homeward journey he felt the pull of the town of Grant, some miles distant, and it was too strong to be resisted. Flinging a word of explanation to the nearest puncher, he turned to lope away, when Red's voice checked him. Red wanted to delay his home-coming for a day or two and attend to a purely personal matter at a ranch lying to the west. Hopalong, knowing the reason for Red's wish, grinned and told him to go, and not to propose until he had thought the matter over very carefully. Red's reply was characteristic, and after arranging a rendezvous and naming the time, the two separated and rode toward their destinations, while the rest of the outfit kept on towards their ranch.
“A man owes something toallhis friends,” Hopalong mused. In this case he owed a return game of draw poker to certain of Grant's leading citizens, and he liked to pay his obligations when opportunity offered.
It was mid-afternoon when he topped a rise and saw below him the handful of shacks making up the town. A look of pleased interest flickered across his face as he noticed a patched and dirty tent pitched close up to the nearest shack. “Show!” he exclaimed. “Now, ain't that luck! I'll shore take it in. If it's a circus, mebby it has a trick mule to ride—I'll never forget that one up in Kansas City,” he grinned. But almost instantly a doubt arose and tempered the grin. “Huh! Mebby it's the branding chute of some gospel sharp.” As he drew near he focussed his eyes on the canvas and found that his fears were justified.
“All Are Welcome,” he spelled out slowly. “Shore they are!” he muttered. “I never nowhere saw such hard-working, all-embracing rustlers as them fellers. They'll stick their iron on anything from a wobbly calf or dying dogie to a staggering-with-age mosshead, an' shout 'tally one' with the same joy. Well, not for mine,thistrip. I'm going to graze loose an' buck-jump all I wants. Anyhow, if I did let him brand me I'd only backslide in a week,” and Hopalong pressed his pony to a more rapid gait as two men emerged from the tent. “There's the sky-pilot now,” he muttered—“an' there's Dave!” he shouted, waving his arm. “Oh, Dave! Dave!”
Dave Wilkes looked up, and his grin of delight threatened to engulf his ears. “Hullo, Cassidy! Glad to see you! Keep right on for the store—I'll be with you in a minute.” When David told his companion the visitor's name the evangelist held up his hand eloquently and spoke.
“I know all about him!” he exclaimed sorrowfully. “If I can lead him out of his wickedness I will rest content though I save no more souls this fortnight. Is it all true?”
“Huh! What true?”
“All that I have heard about him.”
“Well, I dunno what you've heard,” replied Dave, with grave caution, “but I reckon it might be if it didn't cover lying, stealing, cowardice, an' such coyote traits. He's shore a holy terror with a short gun, all right, but lemme tell you something mebby youain'theard: There ain't a square man in this part of the country that won't feel some honored an' proud to be called a friend of Hopalong Cassidy. Them's the sentiments rampaging hereabouts. I ain't denying that he's gone an' killed off a lot of men first an' last—but the only trouble there is that he didn't get 'em soon enough. They all had lived too blamed long when they went an' stacked up agin him an' that lightning short gun of hissn. But, say, if yo're calculating to tackle him at yore game, lead him gentle—don't push none. He comes to life real sudden when he's shoved. So long; see you later, mebby.”
The revivalist looked after him and mused, “I hope I was informed wrong, but this much I have to be thankful for: The wickedness of most of these men, these over-grown children, is manly, stalwart, and open; few of them are vicious or contemptible. Their one great curse is drink.”
When Hopalong entered the store he was vociferously welcomed by two men, and the proprietor joining them, the circle was complete. When the conversation threatened to repeat itself cards were brought and the next two hours passed very rapidly. They were expensive hours to the Bar-20 puncher, who finally arose with an apologetic grin and slapped his thigh significantly.
“Well, you've got it all; I'm busted wide open, except for a measly dollar, an' I shore hopes you don't want that,” he laughed. “You play a whole lot better than you did the last time I was here. I've got to move along. I'm going east an' see Wallace an' from there I've got to meet Red an' ride home with him. But you come an' see us when you can—it'smethat wants revenge this time.”
“Huh; you'll be wanting it worse than ever if we do,” smiled Dave.
“Say, Hoppy,” advised Tom Lawrence, “better drop in an' hear the sky-pilot's palaver before you go. It'll do you a whole lot of good, an' it can't do you no harm, anyhow.”
“You going?” asked Hopalong suspiciously.
“Can't—got too much work to do,” quickly responded Tom, his brother Art nodding happy confirmation.
“Huh; I reckoned so!” snorted Hopalong sarcastically, as he shook hands all around. “You all know where to find us—drop in an' see us when you get down our way,” he invited.
“Sorry you can't stay longer, Cassidy,” remarked Dave, as his friend mounted. “But come up again soon—an' be shore to tell all the boys we was asking for 'em,” he called.
Considering the speed with which Hopalong started for Wallace's, he might have been expecting a relay of “quarter” horses to keep it going, but he pulled up short at the tent. Such inconsistency is trying to the temper of the best-mannered horse, and this particular animal was not in the least good-mannered, wherefore its rider was obliged to soothe its resentment in his own peculiar way, listening meanwhile to the loud and impassioned voice of the evangelist haranguing his small audience.
“I wonder,” said Hopalong, glancing through the door, “if them friends of mine reckon I'm any ascared to go in that tent? Huh, I'll just show 'em anyhow!” whereupon he dismounted, flung the reins over his horse's head, and strode through the doorway.
The nearest seat, a bench made by placing a bottom board of the evangelist's wagon across two up-ended boxes, was close enough to the exhorter and he dropped into it and glanced carelessly at his nearest neighbor. The carelessness went out of his bearing as his eyes fastened themselves in a stare on the man's neck-kerchief. Hopalong was hardened to awful sights and at his best was not an artistic soul, but the villainous riot of fiery crimson, gaudy yellow, and pugnacious and domineering green which flaunted defiance and insolence from the stranger's neck caused his breath to hang over one count and then come double strong at the next exhalation. “Gee whiz!” he whispered.
The stranger slowly turned his head and looked coldly upon the impudent disturber of his reverent reflections. “Meaning?” he questioned, with an upward slant in his voice. The neck-kerchief seemed to grow suddenly malignant and about to spring. “Meaning?” repeated the other with great insolence, while his eyes looked a challenge.
While Hopalong's eyes left the scrambled color-insult and tried to banish the horrible after-image, his mind groped for the rules of etiquette governing free fist fights in gospel tents, and while he hesitated as to whether he should dent the classic profile of the color-bearer or just twist his nose as a sign of displeasure, the voice of the evangelist arose to a roar and thundered out. Hopalong ducked instinctively.
“—Stop! Stop before it is too late, before death takes you in the wallow of your sins! Repent and gain salvation—”
Hopalong felt relieved, but his face retained its expression of childlike innocence even after he realized that he was not being personally addressed; and he glanced around. It took him ninety-seven seconds to see everything there was to be seen, and his eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the stranger's kerchief. “Awful! Awful thing for a drinking man to wear, or run up against unexpectedly!” he muttered, blinking. “Worse than snakes,” he added thoughtfully.
“Look ahere, you—” began the owner of the offensive decoration, if it might be called such, but the evangelist drowned his voice in another flight of eloquence.
“—Peace!Peaceis the message of the Lord to His children,” roared the voice from the upturned soap box, and when the speaker turned and looked in the direction of the two men-with-a-difference he found them sitting up very straight and apparently drinking in his words with great relish; whereupon he felt that he was making gratifying progress toward the salvation of their spotted souls. He was very glad, indeed, that he had been so grievously misinformed about the personal attributes of one Hopalong Cassidy,—glad and thankful.
“Death cometh as a thief in the night,” the voice went on. “Think of the friends who have gone before; who were well one minute and gone the next! And it must come to all of us, to all of us, to me and to you—”
The man with the afflicted neck started rocking the bench.
“Something is coming to somebody purty soon,” murmured Hopalong. He began to sidle over towards his neighbor, his near hand doubled up into a huge knot of protuberant knuckles and white-streaked fingers; but as he was about to deliver his hint that he was greatly displeased at the antics of the bench, a sob came to his ears. Turning his head swiftly, he caught sight of the stranger's face, and sorrow was marked so strongly upon it that the sight made Hopalong gape. His hand opened slowly and he cautiously sidled back again, disgruntled, puzzled, and vexed at himself for having strayed into a game where he was so hopelessly at sea. He thought it all over carefully and then gave it up as being too deep for him to solve. But he determined one thing: He was not going to leave before the other man did, anyhow.
“An' if I catch that howling kerchief outside,” he muttered, smacking his lips with satisfaction at what was in store for it. His visit to Wallace was not very important, anyway, and it could wait on more important events.
“There sits a sinner!” thundered out the exhorter, and Hopalong looked stealthily around for a sight of a villain. “God only has the right to punish. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, and whosoever takes the law into his own hands, whosoever takes human life, defies the Creator. There sits a man who has killed his fellow-men, his brothers! Are you not a sinner,Cassidy?”
Cassidy jumped clear of the bench as he jerked his head around and stared over the suddenly outstretched arm and pointing finger of the speaker and into his accusing eyes.
“Answer me! Are you not a sinner?”
Hopalong stood up, confused, bewildered, and then his suspended thoughts stirred and formed. “Guilty, I reckon, an' in the first degree. But they didn't get no more'n what was coming to 'em, no more'n they earned. An' that's straight!”
“How do you know they didn't? How do you know they earned it? How do youknow?” demanded the evangelist, who was delighted with the chance to argue with a sinner. He had great faith in “personal contact,” and his was the assurance of training, of the man well rehearsed and fully prepared. And he knew that if he should be pinned into a corner by logic and asked forhisproofs, that he could squirm out easily and take the offensive again by appealing to faith, the last word in sophistry, and a greater and more powerful weapon than intelligence.Thiswas his game, and it was fixed; he could not lose if he could arouse enough interest in a man to hold him to the end of the argument. He continued to drive, to crowd. “What right have you to think so? What right have you to judge them? Have you divine insight? Are you inspired? 'Judge not lest ye be judged,' saith the Lord, and youdareto fly in the face of that great command!”
“You've got me picking the pea inthisgame, all right,” responded Hopalong, dropping back on the bench. “But lemme tell you one thing; Command or no command, devine or not devine, I know when a man has lived too long, an' when he's going to try to get me. An' all the gospel sharps south of heaven can't stop me from handing a thief what he's earned. Go on with the show, but count me out.”
While the evangelist warmed to the attack, vaguely realizing that he had made a mistake in not heeding Dave Wilkes' tip, Hopalong became conscious of a sense of relief stealing over him and he looked around wonderingly for the cause. The man with the kerchief had “folded his tents” and departed; and Hopalong, heaving a sigh of satisfaction, settled himself more comfortably and gave real attention to the discourse, although he did not reply to the warm and eloquent man on the soap box. Suddenly he sat up with a start as he remembered that he had a long and hard ride before him if he wished to see Wallace, and arising, strode towards the exit, his chest up and his chin thrust out. The only reply he made to the excited and personal remarks of the revivalist was to stop at the door and drop his last dollar into the yeast box before passing out.
For a moment he stood still and pondered, his head too full of what he had heard to notice that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Although the evangelist had adopted the wrong method he had gained more than he knew and Hopalong had something to take home with him and wrestle out for himself in spare moments; that is, he would have had but for one thing: As he slowly looked around for his horse he came to himself with a sharp jerk, and hot profanity routed the germ of religion incubating in his soul. His horse was missing! Here was a pretty mess, he thought savagely; and then his expression of anger and perplexity gave way to a flickering grin as the probable solution came to his mind.
“By the Lord, I never saw such a bunch to play jokes,” he laughed. “Won't they never grow up? They was watching me when I went inside an' sneaked up and rustled my cayuse. Well, I'll get back again without much trouble, all right. They ought to know me better by this time.”
“Hey, stranger!” he called to a man who was riding past, “have you seen anything of a skinny roan cayuse fifteen han's high, white stocking on the near foreleg, an' a bandage on the off fetlock, Bar-20 being the brand?”
The stranger, knowing the grinning inquisitor by sight, suspected that a joke was being played: he also knew Dave Wilkes and that gentleman's friends. He chuckled and determined to help it along a little. “Shore did, pardner; saw a man leading him real cautious. Was he yourn?”
“Oh, no; not at all. He belonged to my great-great-grandfather, who left him to my second cousin. You see, I borrowed it,” he grinned, making his way leisurely towards the general store, kept by his friend Dave, the joker. “Funny how everybody likes a joke,” he muttered, opening the door of the store. “Hey, Dave,” he called.
Mr. Wilkes wheeled suddenly and stared. “Why, I thought you was half-way to Wallace's by now!” he exclaimed. “Did you come back to lose that lone dollar?”
“Oh, I lost that too. But yo're a real smart cuss, now ain't you?” queried Hopalong, his eyes twinkling and his face wreathed with good humor. “An' how innocent you act, too. Thought you could scare me, didn't you? Thought I'd go tearing 'round this fool town like a house afire, hey? Well, I reckon you can guess again. Now, I'm owning up that the joke's on me, so you hand over my cayuse, an' I'll make up for lost time.”
Dave Wilkes' face expressed several things, but surprise was dominant. “Why, I ain't even seen yore ol' cayuse, you chump! Last time I saw it you was on him, going like the devil. Did somebody pull you off it an' take it away from you?” he demanded with great sarcasm. “Is somebody abusing you?”
Hopalong bit into a generous handful of dried apricots, chewed complacently for a moment, and replied: “'At's aw right; I want my cayuse.” Swallowing hastily, he continued: “I want it, an' I've come to the right place for it, too. Hand it over, David.”
“Dod blast it, I tell you I ain't got it!” retorted Dave, beginning to suspect that something was radically wrong. “I ain't seen it, an' I don't know nothing about it.”
Hopalong wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Well, then, Tom or Art does, all right.”
“No, they don't, neither; I watched 'em leave an' they rode straight out of town, an' went the other way, same as they allus do.” Dave was getting irritated. “Look here, you; are you joking or drunk, or both, or is that animule of yourn really missing?”
“Huh!” snorted Hopalong, trying some new prunes. “'Ese prunes er purty good,” he mumbled, in grave congratulation. “I don' get prunes like 'ese very of'n.”
“I reckon you don't! They ought to be good! Cost me thirty cents a half-pound,” Dave retorted with asperity, anxiously shifting his feet. It didn't take much of a loss to wipe out a day's profits with him.
“An' I don't reckon you paid none too much for 'em, at that,” Mr. Cassidy responded, nodding his head in comprehension. “Ain't no worms in 'em, is there?”
“Shore there is!” exploded Dave. “Plumb full of 'em!”
“You don't say! Hardly know whether to take a chance with the worms or try the apricots. Ain't no worms in them, anyhow. But when am I going to get my cayuse? I've got a long way to go, an' delay is costly—how much did you say these yaller fellers cost?” he asked significantly, trying another handful of apricots.
“On the dead level, cross my heart an' hope to die, but I ain't seen yore cayuse since you left here,” earnestly replied Dave. “If you don't know where it is, then somebody went an' lifted it. It looks like it's up to you to do some hunting, 'stead of cultivating a belly-ache atmyexpense.Iain't trying to keep you, God knows!”
Hopalong glanced out of the window as he considered, and saw, entering the saloon, the same puncher who had confessed to seeing his horse. “Hey Dave; wait a minute!” and he dashed out of the store and made good time towards the liquid refreshment parlor. Dave promptly nailed the covers on the boxes of prunes and apricots and leaned innocently against the cracker box to await results, thinking hard all the while. It looked like a plain case of horse-stealing to him.
“Stranger,” cried Hopalong, bouncing into the bar-room, “where did you see that cayuse of mine?”
“The ancient relic of yore family was aheading towards Hoyt's Corners,” the stranger replied, grinning broadly. “It's a long walk. Have something before you starts?”
“Damn the walk! Who was riding him?”
“Nobody at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wasn't being rid when I saw him.”
“Hang it, man; that cayuse was stole from me!”
“Somewhat in the nature of a calamity, now ain't it?” smiled the stranger, enjoying his contributions to the success of the joke.
“You bet yore life it is!” shouted Hopalong, growing red and then pale. “You tell me who was leading him, understand?”
“Well, I couldn't see his face, honest I couldn't,” replied the stranger. “Every time I tried it I was shore blinded by the most awful an' horrible neck-kerchief I've ever had the hard luck to lay my eyes on. Of all the drunks I ever met, them there colors was—Hey! Wait a minute!” he shouted at Hopalong's back.
“Dave, gimme yore cayuse an' a rifle—quick!” cried Hopalong from the middle of the street as he ran towards the store. “Hypocrite son-of-a-hoss-thief went an' run mine off. Might 'a' knowed nobody but a thief could wear such a kerchief!”
“I'm with you!” shouted Dave, leading the way on the run towards the corral in the rear of his store.
“No, you ain't with me, neither!” replied Hopalong, deftly saddling. “This ain't no plain hoss-thief case—it's a private grudge. See you later, mebby,” and he was pacing a cloud of dust towards the outskirts of the town.
Dave looked after him. “Well, that feller has shore got a big start on you, but he can't keep ahead of that Doll of mine for very long. She can out-run anything in these parts. 'Sides, Cassidy's cayuse looked sort of done up, while mine's as fresh as a bird. That thief will get what's coming to him, all right.”