The keen black eyes veered from Racey to the girl. The man removed his hat and bowed with, it must be said, not a little grace. Miss Dale nodded coldly. The stranger smiled. It was marvellous how the magic of that smile augmented the attractive good looks of the stranger's full face. It was equally singular how that self-same smile rendered more hawk-like than ever the hard and Roman profile of the fellow. It was precisely as though he were two different men at one and the same time.
"Does Mr. Dale live here?" inquired the stranger.
"He does." A breath from the Boreal Pole was in the two words uttered by Miss Dale.
The stranger's smile widened. The keen black eyes began to twinkle. He made as if to enter, but went no farther than the placing of one foot on the doorsill.
"Is he home?"
"He isn't." Clear and colder.
"I'm shore sorry," grieved the stranger, the smile waning a trifle. "I wanted to see him."
"I supposed as much," sniffed Miss Dale, uncordially.
"Yes, Miss," said the stranger, undisturbed. "When will he be back, ifI might ask?"
"To-night—to-morrow. I'm not sure."
"So I see," nodded the stranger. "Would it be worth while my waitin'?"
"That depends on what you call worth while."
"You're right. It does. Standards ain't always alike, are they." He laughed silently, and pulled on his hat. "And it's a good thing standards ain't all alike," he resumed, chattily. "Wouldn't it be a funny old world if they were?"
The smile of him recognized Racey briefly, but it rested upon and caressed the girl. She shook her shoulders as if she were ridding herself of the touch of hands.
The stranger continued to smile—and to look as if he expected a reply. But he did not get it. Miss Dale stared calmly at him, through him.
Slowly the stranger slid his foot from the doorsill to the doorstep; slowly, very slowly, his keenly twinkling black gaze travelled over the girl from her face to her feet and up again to finally fasten upon and hold as with a tangible grip her angry blue eyes.
"I'm sorry yore pa ain't here," he resumed in a drawl. "I had some business. It can wait. I'll be back. So long."
The stranger turned and left them.
From the kitchen window they watched him mount his horse and ford the creek and ride away westward.
"I don't like that man," declared Miss Dale, and caught her lower lip between her white teeth. "I wonder what he wanted?"
"You'll find out when he comes back." Dryly.
"I hope he never comes back. I never want to see him again. Do you know him?"
"Not me. First time I ever saw him was this morning in Farewell. He was with Lanpher. When I was coming out here he and Lanpher caught up with me and passed me."
"He didn't bring Lanpher here with him anyhow."
"He didn't for a fact," assented Racey Dawson, his eyes following the dwindling figures of the rider and his horse. "I wonder why?"
"I wonder, too." Thus Miss Dale with a gurgling chuckle.
Both laughed. For Racey's sole visit to the Dale place had been made in company with Lanpher. The cause of said visit had been the rustling and butchering of an 88 cow, which Lanpher had ill-advisedly essayed to fasten upon Mr. Dale. But, due to the interference of Chuck Morgan, a Bar S rider, who later married Jane Dale, Lanpher's attempt had been unavailing. It may be said in passing that Lanpher had suffered both physically and mentally because of that visit. Of course he had neither forgiven Chuck Morgan nor the Bar S for backing up its puncher, which it had done to the limit.
"I quit the 88 that day," Racey Dawson told the girl.
"I know you did. Chuck told me. Look at the time, will you? Get your hat. We mustn't keep Jane waiting."
"No," he said, thoughtfully, his brows puckered, "we mustn't keep Jane waitin'. Lookit, Miss Dale, as I remember yore pa he had a moustache. Has he still got it?"
Miss Dale puzzled, paused in the doorway. "Why, no," she told him. "He wears a horrid chin whisker now."
"He does, huh? A chin whisker. Let's be movin' right along. I thinkI've got something interesting to tell you and yore sister and Chuck."
But they did not move along. They halted in the doorway. Or, rather, the girl halted in the doorway, and Racey looked over her shoulder. What stopped them short in their tracks was a spectacle—the spectacle of an elderly chin-whiskered man, very drunk and disorderly, riding in on a paint pony.
"Father!" breathed Miss Dale in a horror-stricken whisper.
And as she spoke Father uttered a string of cheerful whoops and topped off with a long pull at a bottle he had been brandishing in his right hand.
"Please go," said Miss Dale to Racey Dawson.
He hesitated. He was in a quandary. He did not relish leaving her with—At that instant Mr. Dale decided Racey's course for him. Mr. Dale pulled a gun and, still whooping cheerily, shook five shots into the atmosphere. Then Mr. Dale fumblingly threw out his cylinder and began to reload.
"I'd better get his gun away from him," Racey said, apologetically, over his shoulder, as he ran forward.
But the old man would have none of him. He cunningly discerned an enemy in Racey and tried to shoot him. It was lucky for Racey that the old fellow was as drunk as a fiddler, or certainly Racey would have been buried the next day. As it was, the first bullet went wide by a yard. The second went straight up into the blue, for by then Racey had the old man's wrist.
"There, there," soothed Racey, "you don't want that gun, Nawsir. Not you. Le's have it, that's a good feller now."
So speaking he twisted the sixshooter from the old man's grasp and jammed it into the waistband of his own trousers. The old man burst into frank tears. Incontinently he slid sidewise from the saddle and clasped Racey round the neck.
"I'm wild an' woolly an' full o' fleas I'm hard to curry below the knees—"
Thus he carolled loudly two lines of the justly popular song.
"Luke," he bawled, switching from verse to prose, "why didja leave me,Luke?"
Strangely enough, he did not stutter. Without the slightest difficulty he leaped that pitfall of the drunken, the letter L.
"Luke," repeated Racey Dawson, struck by a sudden thought. "What's this about Luke? You mean Luke Tweezy?"
The old man rubbed his shaving-brush adown Racey's neck-muscles. "I mean Luke Tweezy," he said. "Lots o' folks don't like Luke. They say he's mean. But they ain't nothin' mean about Luke. He's frien' o' mine, Luke is."
"Mr. Dawson," said Molly Dale at Racey's elbow, "please go, I can get him into the house. You can do no good here."
"I can do lots o' good here," declared Racey, who felt sure that he was on the verge of a discovery. "Somebody is a-trying to jump yore ranch, and if you'll lemme talk to him I can find out who it is."
"Who—how?" said Miss Dale, stupidly, for, what with the fright and embarrassment engendered by her father's condition the true significance of Racey's remark was not immediately apparent.
"Yore ranch," repeated Racey, sharply. "They're a-tryin' to steal it from you. You lemme talk to him, ma'am. Look out! Grab his bridle!"
Miss Dale seized the bridle of her father's horse in time to prevent a runaway. She was not aware that the horse's attempt to run away had been inspired by Racey surreptitiously and severely kicking it on the fetlock. This he had done that Miss Dale's thoughts might be temporarily diverted from her father. Anything to keep her from shooing him away as she so plainly wished to do.
Racey began to assist the now-crumpling Mr. Dale toward the house. "What's this about Luke Tweezy?" prodded Racey. "Did you see him to-day?"
"Shore I seen him to-day," burbled the drunken one. "He left me at McFluke's after buyin' me the bottle and asked me to stay there till he got back. But I got tired waitin'. So I come along. I—hic—come along."
Limply the man's whole weight sagged down against Racey's supporting arm, and he began to snore.
"Shucks," muttered Racey, then stooping he picked up the limp body in his arms and carried it to the house.
"He's asleep," he called to Miss Dale. "Where'll I put him?"
"I'll show you," she said, with a break in her voice.
She hastily tied the now-quiet pony to a young cottonwood growing at the corner of the house and preceded Racey into the kitchen.
"Here," she said, her eyes meeting his a fleeting instant as she threw open a door giving into an inner room. "On the bed."
She turned back the counterpane and Racey laid her snoring parent on the blanket. Expertly he pulled off the man's boots and stood them side by side against the wall.
"Had to take 'em off now, or his feet would swell so after you'd never get 'em off," he said in justification of his conduct.
She held the door open for him to leave the room. She did not look at him. Nor did she speak.
"I'm going now," he said, standing in the middle of the kitchen. "ButI wish you wouldn't shut that door just yet."
"I—Oh, can't you see you're not wanted here?" Her voice was shaking.The door was open but a crack. He could not see her.
"I know," he said, gently. "But you don't understand how serious this business is. I had good reason for believing that somebody is trying to steal yore ranch. From several things yore dad said I'm shorer than ever. If I could only talk to you a li'l while."
At this she came forth. Her eyes were downcast. Her cheeks were red with shamed blood. She leaned against the table. One closed fist rested on the top of the table. The knuckles showed white. She was trembling a little.
"Where and what is McFluke's?" he asked.
"Oh, that's where he got it!" she exclaimed, bitterly.
"I guess. If you wouldn't mind telling me where McFluke's is, ma'am—"
"It's a little saloon and store on the Marysville road at the LazyRiver ford."
"It's new since my time then."
"It's been in operation maybe a year and a half. What makes you think someone is trying to steal our ranch?"
"Lots o' things," he told her, briskly. "But they ain't gonna do it if I can help it. Don't you fret. It will all come out right. Shore it will. Can't help it."
"But tell me how—what you know," she demanded.
"I haven't time now, unless you're coming with me to see Chuck."
"I can't—now."
"Then you ask Chuck later. I'll tell him all about it. You ask him. So long."
Racey hurried out and caught up his own horse. He swung into the saddle and spurred away down stream.
McFLUKE'S
"They been after him to sell a long time," said Chuck Morgan, rolling a cigarette as he and Racey Dawson jogged along toward McFluke's at the ford of the Lazy.
"Who?" asked Racey.
"I dunno. Can't find out. Luke Tweezy is the agent and he won't give the party's name."
"Has Old Salt tried to buy him out?"
"Not as I know of. Why should he? He knows he won't sell to anybody."
"Have they been after you, too?"
"Not yet. Dad Dale's the lad they want special. My ranch would be a good thing, but it ain't noways necessary like Dale's is to anybody startin' a big brand. Lookit the way Dale's lays right across the valley between them two ridges like a cork in a bottle. A mile wide here, twenty mile away between Funeral Slue and Cabin Hill she's a good thirty mile wide—one cracking big triangle of the best grass in the territory. All free range, but without Dale's section and his water rights to begin with what good is it?"
"Not much," conceded Racey.
"And nobody would dast to start a brand between Funeral Slue and CabinHill," pursued Chuck. "Free range or not, it as good as belongs to theBar S."
"Old Salt used to run quite a bunch round Cabin Hill and another north near the Slue."
"He does yet—one or two thousand head in all, maybe. Oh, these fellers ain't foolish enough to crowd Old Salt that close. They know Dale's is their best chance."
Racey's eyes travelled, from one ridge to the other. "How come they allowed Dale to take up a six-forty?" he inquired.
"They didn't," was the answer. "The section is made up of four claims, his'n, Jane's, Molly's, an' Mis' Dale's. But they're proved up now, and made over to him all regular. That's how come."
"Haven't Silvertip Ransom and Long Oscar got a claim some'ers over yonder on Dale's land?" inquired Racey, looking toward the northerly ridge.
"They had, but they got discouraged and sold out to Dale the same time Slippery Wilson and his wife traded in their claims on the other side of the ridge to Old Salt and Tom Loudon. None of 'em's worth anything, though."
Racey nodded. "Dale ever drink much?" was his next question.
"He used to before he come here. But he took the cure and quit.To-day's the first bust-up he's had since he hit this country."
"That's it, then. Luke gave him the redeye so's he'd be easy meat for the butcher. Does he ever gamble any?"
"Shore—before he came West. Jane done told me how back East in McPherson, Kansas, he used to go the limit forty ways—liquor, cards, the whole layout o' hellraising. But his habits rode him to a frazzle final and he knuckled under to tooberclosis, and they only saved his life by fetchin' him West. All of us thought he was cured for good."
"Now Luke Tweezy has started him off so's Nebraska—Peaches Austin, I mean, can get in his fine work. It's plain enough."
"Shore," assented Chuck Morgan. "Yonder's McFluke's," he added, nodding toward two gray-brown log and shake shacks and a stockaded corral roosting on the high ground beyond the belt of cottonwoods and willows marking the course of the Lazy. "Them's his stables and corral," went on Chuck. "The house she's down near the river. Can't see her on account of the cottonwoods."
"And they can't see us count of the cottonwoods. So—"
"Unless he's at the corral."
"I'll take the chance, Chuck. You stay here—down that draw is a good place. I'll go on alone. McFluke don't know me. Maybe I can find out something, see. Bimeby you come along—half-hour, maybe. You don't know me, either. I'll get into conversation with you. You follow my lead. We'll pull McFluke in if we can. Between the two of us—Well, anyhow, we'll see what he says."
Chuck Morgan nodded, and turned his horse aside toward the draw.
Ten minutes later the water of the Lazy River was sluicing the dust from the legs and belly of Racey Dawson's horse. Racey spurred up the bank and rode toward the long, low building that was McFluke's store and saloon.
There were no ponies standing at the hitching-rail in front of the place. For this Racey was devoutly thankful. If he could only catch McFluke by himself.
As Racey dismounted at the rail a man came to the open doorway of the house and looked at him. He was a heavy-set man, dewlapped like a bloodhound, and his hard blue eyes were close-coupled. The reptilian forehead did not signify a superior mentality, even as the slack, retreating chin denoted a minimum of courage. It was a most contradictory face. The features did not balance. Racey Dawson was not a student of physiognomy, but he recognized a weak chin when he saw it. If this man were indeed McFluke, then he, Racey Dawson, was in luck.
Without a word the man turned from the doorway. Racey heard him walking across the floor. And for so heavy a man his step was amazingly light. Racey went into the house. The room he entered was a large one. In front of a side wall tiered to the low ceiling with shelves bearing a sorry assortment of ranch supplies was the store counter. Across the back of the room ran the long bar. Behind the bar, flanking the door giving into another room, were two shelves heavily stocked with rows of bottles.
The man that had come to the door was behind the bar. His hands were resting on top of it, and he was staring fixedly and fishily at Racey Dawson. There was no welcome in his face. Nor was there any unfriendliness. It was simply exceedingly expressionless.
Racey draped himself against the bar. "Liquor," said he.
Having absorbed a short one, he poured himself a second. "Have one with me," he nodded to the man.
"All right." The man's tone was as expressionless as his face. "Here's hell." He filled and drank.
Racey looked about the room.
"Where's Old Man Dale?" he asked, casually.
"He got away on me," replied the man. "He—Say!"—with sudden suspicion—"who are you?"
"Are you McFluke?" shot back Racey.
The man nodded slowly, suspicion continuing to brighten his hard blue eyes.
"Then what didja let him get away for?" persisted Racey. "Luke Tweezy said he left him here, and he said he'd stay here. That was yore job—to see hestayedhere."
"Who are—" began the suspicious McFluke.
"Nemmine who I am," rapped out Racey, who believed he had formed a correct estimate of McFluke. "I'm somebody who knows more about this deal than you do, and that's enough for you to know. Why didn't you hold Old Man Dale?"
"I—He got away on me," knuckled down McFluke. "I was in the kitchen gettin' me some coffee, and when I come back he had dragged it."
"Luke Tweezy will be tickled to death with you," said Racey Dawson."What do you s'pose he went to all that trouble for?"
"I couldn't help it, could I? I ain't got eyes in the back of my head so's I can see round corners an' through doors. How'd I know Old Man Dale was gonna slide off? When I left him he was all so happy with his bottle you'd 'a' thought he'd took root for life. Anyway, Peaches Austin oughta come before the old man left. He was supposed to come, and he didn't. If anything slips up account o' this it's gotta be blamed on Peaches."
"Yeah, I guess so. And Peaches ain't been here yet?"
"Not yet, and I wish to Gawd he was never comin'."
The man's tone was so earnest that Racey looked at him, startled.
"Why not?" he asked, coldly.
"Because I don't wanna get my head blowed off, that's why."
"Aw, maybe it won't come to that. Maybe Luke will win out."
"It ain't only Luke Tweezy who's gotta win out, and you know it. And they's an 'if' the size of Pike's Peak between us and winning out. I tell you, I don't like it. It's too damn dangerous."
"Shore, it's dangerous," assented Racey, slowly revolving his glass between his thumb and fingers, and wondering how far he dared go with this McFluke person. "But a gent has to live."
"He don't have to get himself killed doin' it," snarled McFluke, swabbing down the bar. "Who's that a-comin'?"
He went to the doorway to see for himself who it was that rode so briskly on the Marysville trail. "Peaches Austin!" he sneered. "He's only about three hours late."
It was now or never. Racey risked all on a single cast.
"What did the boss say when him and Lanpher got here and found oldDale gone?" he asked, carelessly.
"He raised hell," replied McFluke. "But Lanpher wasn't with him. Yuh know old Dale hates Lanpher like poison. Well, I told Jack, like I tell you, that if anything slips up account o' this, Peaches Austin can take the blame."
Racey nodded indifferently and slouched sidewise so that he could watch the doorway without dislocating his neck. McFluke, his back turned, still stood in the doorway. Racey lowered a cautious hand and loosened his sixshooter in its holster. He wished that he had taken the precaution to tie it down. It was impossible to foresee what the next few minutes might bring forth. Certainly the coming of Peaches Austin was most inopportune.
Peaches Austin galloped up. He dismounted. He tied his horse. He greeted cheerily the glowering McFluke. The latter did not reply in kind.
"This is a fine time for you to get here," he growled. "A fi-ine time."
"Shut up, you fool!" cautioned Peaches in a low voice. "Ain't you got no better sense, with the old man—"
"Don't let the old man worry you," yapped McFluke. "The old man has done flitted. And Jack's been here andhe'sdone flitted."
"Whose hoss is that?" demanded Peaches, evidently referring to Racey's mount.
"One of the boys," replied McFluke. "One o' Jack's friends. C'mon in."
Entered then Peaches Austin, a lithe, muscular person with pale eyes and a face the colour of a dead fish's belly. He stared non-committally at Racey Dawson. It was evident that Peaches Austin was taking no one on trust. He nodded briefly to Racey, and strode to the bar. McFluke went behind the bar.
"Ain't I seen you in Farewell, stranger?" Peaches Austin asked, shortly.
"You might have," returned Racey. "I'm mighty careless where I travel."
"Known Jack long?" Peaches was becoming nothing if not personal.
"Long enough," smiled Racey.
"Lookit here, who are you?"
"That's what's worryin' McFluke," dodged Racey, wishing that he could see just what it was McFluke was doing with his hands.
But McFluke was employing his hands in nothing more dangerous than the fetching of a bottle from some recess under and behind the bar. Now he laughed.
"He ain't tellin' all he knows," he said to Peaches Austin. "Don't be so damn suspiciony, Peaches. He's a friend of Jack's, I tell you. He knows all about the deal."
"That don't make him no friend of Jack's," declared Peaches, stubbornly. "I—"
At which juncture Peaches' flow of language was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Chuck Morgan. Chuck, after a sweeping glance round the room, headed straight for the bar.
"McFluke," said Chuck, halting a yard from the bar, "did you sell any redeye to Old Man Dale to-day?"
"What's that to you?" demanded McFluke, truculently.
"Why, this," replied Chuck, producing a sixshooter so swiftly that McFluke blinked. "You listen to me," he resumed, harshly. "It don't matter whether you sold it to him or not. Hegotit here, and that's the main thing. I'm telling you if he gets any more I'm gonna make you hard to find."
"Is that a threat or a promise?" inquired McFluke.
"Don't do that," Racey said, suddenly, as his hand shot out and pinned fast the right wrist of Peaches Austin. "C'mon outside now, where we can talk. Right through the door. To yore left. Aw right, now they can't hear us. Lookit, they ain't any call for a gunplay, none whatever. This gent is only laying down the law to Mac. And here you have to get serious right away. See how easy Mac takes it. He ain't doing a thing, not a thing. Good as gold, Mac is. Can't you see how a killing thisaway, and a fellah like Morgan, too, would maybe put a crimp in this place for good? Have some sense, man. We need McFluke's."
"He hadn't oughta drawed on Mac," said Peaches, his pale eyes, shifty as a cat's, darting incessantly between Racey and the doorway.
"He didn't shoot him. And he ain't. You lemme attend to this, will you? I'll get him away quiet and peaceable—if I can. But you keep out of it. Y'understand?"
Peaches Austin gnawed his lower lip. "I never did like Chuck Morgan," he grumbled. "It was a good chance."
"A good chance to get yoreself lynched. Shore. It was all that."
"Say, I'd like to know where you come in, stranger. Jack never said anything to me about any feller yore size."
"Jack is like me. He ain't tellin' all he knows. And while we're talking about Jack, I'll tell you something. And that's to keep away from Farewell for three-four days."
"Why for?"
"So's to give Jack a chance to cool off. He's hotter than a wet wolf 'cause you didn't turn up here on time."
"I ain't afraid of Jack."
"'Course you ain't. But you know how Jack is. Even if it don't come to a showdown, there'll be words passed. And I don't wanna run any risk of you quitting the outfit. Every man is needed. You be sensible and stick here with McFluke three-four days like I say, and after that c'mon in to Farewell. In the meantime, I'll see Jack and tell him how it happened you didn't get here on time. And how did it happen, anyway?"
Peaches Austin looked this way and that before replying.
"I shore don't like to tell how it happened," he said. "Sounds so babyish like. But my hat blowed off over this side of Injun Ridge a ways and when I leaned down to pick her up, my hoss started, my hand slipped, and I went off on my head kerblam. And do you know, I'll bet I was three hours a-running from hell to breakfast before I caught that hoss where he was feedin' in a narrow draw. I'm all tired out yet. They ain't no strength in my legs."
"I'll fix it up with Jack," Racey lied with a wonderfully straight face. "Don't you worry."
"I ain't worryin'," Peaches denied, irritably. "I ain't afraid ofJack, I tell you."
"Shore," soothed Racey, who, having formed an estimate of Peaches, ranked him scarcely higher than McFluke and treated him accordingly. "Shore, I know you ain't. But alla same you need considerable of a coolin' off yoreself. Just you stay out here now and watch me get Morgan away."
Racey nodded blithely to Peaches Austin, and turned to go into the house. He saw that Chuck Morgan had come outside, that he had brought McFluke with him, and was observing events with a cold and calculating eye.
"I tell you I couldn't help his getting the whiskey," McFluke was whining. "It ain't my fault if somebody gives it to him, is it?"
"Of course not," chimed in Racey, briskly. "Mac means all right. He didn't know there was any law against providing old Dale with whiskey."
"They is a law," insisted Chuck Morgan, belligerently, his gun trained unswervingly on McFluke's broad stomach. "They is a law. I made it. And it goes. Peaches," he added, raising his voice, "don't you slide round the house now. If you move so much as a yard from where yo're standing I ventilate McFluke immediate."
"I wouldn't do that," said Racey, mildly.
"I got my eye on you, too," declared Chuck. "What I said to Peaches goes for you, and don't you forget it."
"I ain't likely to, not me. All I want you to do is go some'ers else peaceful. You ain't figuring on living here, are you?"
Chuck uttered a short, hard laugh. McFluke's back was toward Racey. Peaches Austin was behind him, thirty feet away. Racey's left eyelid drooped. His head moved almost imperceptibly toward his horse.
"I'm going now," said Chuck.
"I'll go with you just to see you on yore way sort of," said Racey.
"You was going with me anyway sort of," Chuck told him. "Yo're the onlymanround here so far's I can see, and I ain't taking any chances on you, not a chance. Yo're going down the trail a spell with me. Later you can come back. Keep yore hands where they are."
Quickly Chuck shoved McFluke to one side, rushed forward, and possessed himself of Racey's gun. "Crawl yore hoss," he commanded.
Racey obeyed without a word. Chuck climbed into his own saddle without losing the magic of the drop and without losing sight for an instant of McFluke and Peaches Austin.
"Take the trail south," said Chuck Morgan, and backed his horse in a wide half-circle.
Racey did as he was ordered. Three minutes later he was joined by his friend. Until the trail took them down into a draw grown up in spruce Chuck's gun remained very much in evidence. Any unbiased spectator without a knowledge of the facts would have said that he was keeping a close watch on Racey Dawson.
Once out of sight of the house of McFluke, Chuck sheathed his sixshooter with a jerk and returned Racey's gun.
"You did fine at the last," Racey said, admiringly, as he bolstered his weapon. "But what did you jump McFluke for thataway at first? That come almighty near kicking the kettle over, that play did."
"I know," said Chuck, shamefacedly, "and when I rode up to the shack I hadn't intended anything like that. But when I saw that slickery juniper McFluke standing there behind the bar so fat and sassy, it come over me all of a sudden what he'd done to the Dale family by letting old Dale have whiskey, that I couldn't help myself. Gawd, I wanted to knock him down and tromp his face flat as a floor. It ain't as if McFluke ain't been told about old Dale's failing. I warned him when he first came here last year not to let old Dale have redeye on any account."
"I know," nodded Racey, soberly, "but you want to remember his giving old Dale whiskey ain't the particular cow we're after. There's more to it than that, a whole lot more. We've got to be a li'l careful, Chuck, and go a li'l slow. If we go having a fraycas now they'll get suspicious and go fussbudgettin' round like a hound-dog after quail."
"Just as if they won't suspicion something's up soon as Peaches Austin gets back to Farewell."
"Peaches Austin ain't going back to Farewell right away. I've fixed Peaches for a few days. And a few days is all I need to find out what I want to. And even after Peaches does float in will he know me after I've changed my shirt, dirtied my hat, and got me a clean shave twice over? He ain't got no idea what I look like under the whiskers. He wasn't living in Farewell before I went north, so all he knows about me is my voice and my hoss. It will shore be the worst kind of luck if I can't keep Peaches from hearing the one and seeing the other until after I'm ready. You leave it to yore uncle, Chuck. He knows."
"He's a great man, my uncle," assented Chuck, and struck a derisive tongue in his cheek. "What did you find out from McFluke—anything?"
"Anything? Gimme a match and I'll tell you."
"It's a long way to Arizona," offered Racey Dawson, casually—too casually.
Swing Tunstall's bristle-haired head jerked round. Swing bent two suspicious eyes upon his friend. "You just find it out?" he queried.
"No, oh, no," denied Racey. "I've been thinking about it some time."
"Thinking!" sneered Swing. "That's a new one—for you."
"Nemmine," countered Racey. "It ain't catchin'—toyou."
"Isthat so?" yammered Swing, now over his head as far as repartee was concerned. "Isthatso? What you gassing about Arizona for thisaway? You gonna renig on the trip?"
"I'll bet there's plenty of good jobs we can find right here in Farewell," dodged Racey. "Andvicinity," he amended. "Yep, Swing, old-timer, I'll bet the Bar S or the Cross-in-a-box would hire us just too quick. Shore they would. It ain't every day they get a chance at a jo-darter of a buster like—"
"Like the damndest liar in four states meaning you," cut in Swing.
"You're right," admitted Racey, promptly. "When I was speaking of a jo-darter I meant you, so I was a liar. I admit it. I might 'a' known you wouldn't appreciate my kind words. Besides being several other things, you're an ungrateful cuss. Gimme the makin's."
"Smoke yore own, you hunk of misery. You had four extra sacks in yore warbags this morning."
"Had? So you been skirmishin' round my warbags, have you? How many of those sacks did you rustle?"
"I left two."
"Two! Two! Say, I bought that tobacco myself for my own personal use, and not for a lazy, loafing, cow-faced lump of slumgullion to glom and smoke. Why don't you spend something besides the evening now and then? Gawda-mighty, you sit on yore coin closer than a hen with one egg! I'll gamble that Robinson Crusoe spent more money in a week than you spend in four years. Two sacks of my smoking. You got a gall like a hoss. There was my extra undershirt under those sacks. It's a wonder you didn't smouch that, too."
"It didn't fit," replied Swing Tunstall, placidly constructing a cigarette. "Too big. Besides, all the buttons was off, and if they's anything I despise it's a undershirt without any buttons. Sort of wandering off the main trail though, ain't we, Racey? We was talking about Arizona, wasn't we?"
"We was not," Racey contradicted, quickly. "We was talking about a job here in Fort Creek County. T'ell with Arizona."
"T'ell with Arizona, huh? You're serious? You mean it?"
"I'm serious as lead in yore inwards. 'Course I mean it. Ain't I been saying so plain as can be the last half-hour?"
"You're saying so is plain enough. And so is the whyfor."
"The whyfor?"
"Shore, the whyfor. Say, do you take me for a damfool? Here you use up the best part of two days on a trip I could make in ten hours going slow and eating regular. Who is she, cowboy, who is she?"
"What you talking about?"
"What am I talking about, huh? I'd ask that, I would. Yeah, I would so. Is she pretty?"
"Poor feller's got a hangover," Racey murmured in pity. "I kind o' thought it must be something like that when he began to talk so funny. Now I'm shore of it. You tie a wet towel round yore head, Swing, and take a good pull of cold water. You'll feel better in the morning."
"So'll I feel better in the morning if you jiggers will close yore traps and lemme sleep," growled a peevish voice in the next room—on the Main Street side.
"As I live," said Racey in a tone of vast surprise, "there's somebody in the next room."
"Sounds like the owner of the Starlight," hazarded Swing Tunstall.
"It is the owner of the Starlight," corroborated the voice, "and I wanna sleep, and I wanna sleepnow."
"We ain't got any objections," Racey told him. "She's a fine, free country. And every gent is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, three things no home should be without."
"Shut up, will you?" squalled the goaded proprietor of the Starlight Saloon. "If you wanna make a speech go out to the corral and don't bother regular folks."
"Hear that, Swing?" grinned Racey, and twiddled his bare toes delightedly. "Gentleman says you gotta shut up. Says he's regular folks, too. You be good boy now and go by-by."
"Shut up!"
"Here, here, Swing!" cried Racey, struck by a brilliant idea. "What you doing with that gun?"
"I—" began the bewildered Swing who had not even thought of his gun but was peacefully sitting on his cot pulling off his boots.
"Leave it alone!" Racey interrupted in a hearty bawl. "Don't you go holding it at the wall even in fun. It might go off. You can't tell. You're so all-fired careless with a sixshooter, Swing. Like enough you're aiming right where the feller's bed is, too," he added, craftily.
Ensued then sounds of rapid departure from the bed next door. A door flew open and slammed. The parting guest padded down the stairs in his socks, invoking his Maker as he went.
"And that's the last of him," chuckled Racey.
"Oh, you needn't think I'm forgetting," grumbled Swing Tunstall, sliding out of his trousers and folding them tidily beside his boots. "You soft-headed yap, have you gotta let a woman spoil everything?"
"Spoil everything?"
"You don't think I'm going alla way to Arizona by myself, nobody to talk to nor nothing, do you? Well, I ain't. You can stick a pin in that."
Racey immediately sprang up, seized his friend's limp hand, and pumped it vigorously. "Bless you for them kind words," he said. "I knew you'd stick by me. I knew I could depend on old Swing to do the right thing. To-morrow you and I will traipse out and locate us a couple of jobs."
Swing doubled a leg, flattened one bare foot against Racey's chest, straightened the leg, and deposited Racey upon his own proper cot with force and precision.
"Don't you come honey-fuglin' round me," warned Swing. "And I didn't say anything about sticking by you, neither. And when it comes to the right thing you and me don't think alike a-tall. I—"
"I wish you'd pull yore kicks a few," interrupted Racey, rubbing his chest. "You like to busted a rib."
"Not the way you landed," countered the unfeeling Swing. "You're tryin' to get off the trail again. Here you and me plan her all out to go to—"
"You bet," burst in Racey, enthusiastically. "We planned to go to either the Bar S or the Cross-in-a-box and get that job. Shore we did. You got a memory like all outdoors. Swing. It plumb amazes me how clear and straight you keep everything in that head of yores. Yep, it shore does."
Hereupon, in the most unconcerned manner, Racey Dawson began to blow smoke rings toward the ceiling.
Swing Tunstall sank sulkily down upon an elbow. "Whatsa use?" saidSwing Tunstall. "Whatsa use?"
It was then that someone knocked upon their chamber door.
"Come in," said Racey Dawson.
The door opened and Lanpher's comrade of the attractive smile and the ruthless profile walked into the room. He closed the door without noise, spread his legs, and looked upon the two friends silently.
"I heard you talking through the wall," he said in a studiedly low tone, a tone that, heard through a partition, would have been but an indistinguishable murmur.
"Hearing us talk through walls seems to be a habit in this hotel," commented Racey, tactfully following the other's lead in lowness of tone.
"I couldn't help hearing," apologized the stranger—he was vestless and bootless. Evidently he had been on the point of retiring when the spirit moved him to visit his fellow-guests. "I'd like to talk to you."
"You're welcome," said Racey, hospitably yanking his trousers from the only chair the room possessed. "Sit down."
The stranger sat. Racey Dawson, sitting on the bed, his knees on a level with his chin, clasped his hands round his bare ankles and accorded the stranger his closest attention. To the casual observer, however, Racey looked uncommonly dull and sleepy, even stupid. But not too stupid. Racey possessed too much native finesse to overdo it.
It was apparent that the stranger did not recognize him. Which was not surprising. For, at the Dale ranch, Racey had been wearing all his clothes and a beard of weeks. Now he was clean-shaven and attired in nothing but a flannel shirt. True, the stranger must have heard him singing to Miss Dale. But a singing voice is far different from a speaking voice, and Racey had not uttered a single conversational word in the stranger's presence. Now he had occasion to bless this happy chance.
Swing Tunstall, slow to take a cue, and still suffering with the sulks, continued to lie quietly, his head supported on a bent arm, and smoke. But he watched the stranger narrowly.
The stranger tilted back his chair, and levering with his toes, teetered to and fro in silence.
"I heard you say you were looking for a job in the morning," the stranger said suddenly to Racey.
"You heard right," nodded Racey.
"Are you dead set on working for the Bar S or the Cross-in-a-box?"
"I ain't dead set on working for anybody. Work ain't a habit with either of us, but so long as we got to work the ranches with good cooks have the call, and the Bar S and Richie's outfit have special good cooks."
The stranger nodded and began to smooth down, hand over hand, his tousled hair. It was very thick hair, oily and coarse. When sufficiently smoothed it presented that shiny, slick appearance so much admired in the copper-toed, black walnut era.
Not till each and every lock lay in perfect adjustment with its neighbour did the stranger speak.
"Cooks mean a whole lot," was his opening remark. "A good one can come mighty nigh holding a outfit together. Money ain't to be sneezed at, neither. Good wages paid on the nail run the cook a close second. How would you boys like to work for me?"
The stranger, as he asked the question, fixed Racey with his black eyes. The puncher felt as if a steel drill were boring into his brain. But he returned the stare without appreciable effort. Racey Dawson was not of those that lower their eyes to any man.
"I take it," drawled Racey, "that you're fixing to install all the comforts of home you were just now talking about—a good cook and better wages for the honest working-man?"
"Naturally I am." The stranger's eyes shifted to Swing Tunstall's face.
"Yeah—naturally." Thus Racey Dawson. The stranger's eyes returned quickly to Racey. There had been a barely perceptible pause between the two words uttered by Racey Dawson. Pauses signify a great deal at times. This might be one of those times and it might not. The stranger couldn't be sure. From that moment the stranger watched Racey Dawson even as the proverbial cat watches the mouse hole.
Racey knew that the stranger was watching him. And he knew why. So he smiled with bland stupidity and nodded a foolish head.
"What wages?" he inquired.
"Fifty per," was the reply.
"Where?"
"Southeast of Dogville—the Rafter H ranch."
"The Rafter H, huh? I thought that was Haley's outfit."
"I expect to buy out Haley," explained the stranger, smoothly. "My name's Harpe, Jack Harpe. What may I call you gents?… DawsonandTunstall, eh? I—"
"Haley ain't much better than a nester," interrupted Racey. "He don't own more'n forty cows. What you want with two punchers for a small bunch like that—and at fifty per?"
"I know she ain't much of a ranch now," admitted Jack Harpe. "But everything has to have a beginning. I'm figuring on a right smart growth for the Rafter H within the next year or two."
"Figuring on opposition maybe?" probed Racey Dawson.
"You never can tell."
"You can if you go to cutting any of Baldy Barbee's corners. Haley's little bunch never bothers Baldy none, but a man-size outfit so close to the south thataway would shore give him something to think about. Then there's the Anvil ranch east of the B bar B. They'll begin to scratch their heads, you bet. Hall, too, maybe, although he is a good ways to the east."
"She's all free range," said Jack Harpe. "I guess I got as good a right here as the next gent."
"Providing you can make the next gent see yore side of the case," suggested Racey.
"Most folks are willing to listen to reason," stated Jack Harpe.
"I ain't so shore," doubted Racey. "You ain't looked at the whole of the layout yet. How about the 88 ranch?"
"'The 88?'" repeated Jack Harpe in a tone of surprise. "What'll I have to do with the 88, I'd like to know?"
"I dunno," said Racey, his eyes more stupid than ever. "I was just a-wonderin'."
Jack Harpe laughed without a sound. It seemed to be a habit of his to laugh silently.
"You saw me with Lanpher, didn't you? Well, Lanpher and I are just friends, thassall. My cattle won't graze far enough south to overlap on the 88 anywheres."
"Nor the Bar S?" suggested Racey.
"Nor the Bar S."
"That's sensible." Thus Racey, watching closely Jack Harpe from under lowered lids.
Did his last remark strike a glint from the other man's eyes? He thought it did. Certainly Jack Harpe's eyes had narrowed suddenly and slightly.
"Yeah," Jack Harpe said, "I ain't counting on having any fussing with either the 88 or the Bar S. Of course Baldy Barbee and the Anvil are different. Dunno how they'll take it. Dunno that I care—much."
"Which is why you're payin' fifty per."
Jack Harpe nodded. "Yep. Gotta be prepared for them fellers—BaldyBarbee and the Anvil outfit."
"You're right," assented Racey Dawson. "Mustn't let 'em catch you napping. You would look foolish then, wouldn't you?" He broke off with a sounding laugh and slapped a silly leg.
"How about it, gents?" inquired Jack Harpe. "Are you riding for me or not?"
"You wanting to know right now this minute?"
"I don't have to know right now, because I won't be ready for you to begin for two or three weeks, but knowing would help my plans a few. I gotta figure things out ahead."
"Shore, shore. Let you know day after to-morrow, or sooner, maybe.How's that?"
"Good enough. Remember yore wages start the day you say when, even if you don't begin work for a month yet. All I'd ask is for you to stay round town where I can get hold of you easy. G'night."
With this the stranger slid from the chair, opened the door part way, and oozed into the hall. He closed the door without a sound. He regained his own room in equal silence. Racey did not hear the shutting of the other's door, but he heard the springs of the cot squeak under Jack Harpe's weight as he lay down.
Swing Tunstall framed a remark with his lips only. Racey Dawson shook his head. The partition was too thin and Jack Harpe's ears were too long and sharp for him to risk even the tiniest of whispers. With his hand he made the Indian sign for "to-morrow," stretched out his long legs, yawned—and fell almost instantly asleep.
"We'd oughta closed with Jack Harpe last night," said Swing Tunstall, easing his muscular body down on a broken packing-case that sat drunkenly beside the posts of the hotel corral. "What's the sense of putting things off thataway, Racey? Now we'll lose two days' wages for nothing."
"I had a reason," declared Racey Dawson, threading a new rawhide string through one of the silver conchas on his split-ear bridle. "I wanted to talk it over good with you first."
"Why for? What's there to talk over, I'd like to know? Why—"
"Because," interrupted Racey, "there's something up, if you ask me."
"What for a reason is that?" demanded the irritated Swing. "That ain't a reason, no good reason, anyway. I'm telling you flat, y' understand, that so long as we gotta take root here instead of going to Arizona like we'd planned it out—so long's yo're gonna renig on the play like I say, the best thing we can do is string our chips with Jack Harpe's."
"That yore idea of a bright thing to do, huh?" questioned Racey, his nimble fingers busy with the rawhide.
"I done told you," said Swing with dignity.
"Poor, poor Swing," murmured Racey as though to the bridle's address. "The Gawd-forsaken young feller. It must be the devil and all to go through life in such shape as he's in. All right in lots of ways, too. He eats like a hawg, drinks like a fish, and snores like a ripsaw, so you can see there's something almost human about him. But he hasn't any brains, not a brain. He never has anything on his mind but his hair and a hat. Yep, she's a sad, sad case. Lordy, Swing, old-timer, I feel sorry for you. You got my sympathy. I'll always stick up for you though. I won't let—"
"This here," cut in Swing, "has gone far enough. If you got anything to say, say it."
"I been saying it. Ain't it sunk in yet? Hand me that axe, and I'll make another try."
"Stop yore fool lallygaggin'," Swing exclaimed, impatiently. "Let'shave the whole sermon. Gawd, yo're worse'n a woman. Gab, gab, gab!Nothing but. C'mon, tie the string to the latch, and slam the door.This tooth has been aching a long, long while."
"It's thisaway, Swing," Racey said, soberly. "There ain't any manner of use going into something we ain't got the whole straight of."
"What you talking about—the straight of?"
"Yep, the straight of. Don't you see anything funny about this jigger's offer?"
"Looks like a fair proposition to me. Fifty per shore listens well."
"As if that's all of it."
"Well, what's a li'l fussin' round with Baldy Barbee and the Anvil folks?"
"Nothin a-tall,thatain't. But the li'l green pea ain't underthatshell. Listen here, Swing, old-timer, I got a long and gashly tale of wickedness to pour into those lily-white mule ears of yores. Yep, if it wasn't me a-telling it I'll bet you'd think it was a fairy tale."
"I might even so," said the sceptical Swing. "But I don't mind. I'm good-natured to-day. I feel just like being lied to. Turn yore wolf loose."
* * * * *
"What do you feed it on?" inquired solemn-faced Swing when he had heard Racey to the bitter end.
"Feed which on what?" demanded the unsuspicious Racey.
"Yore imagination."
"Say, lookit here—"
"Yeah, I know. Oh, aw right, aw right, I didn't go for to make you mad. I believe it. Every word. You're getting so dam touchy nowadays, Racey, they's no living with you. I swear they ain't. Why, if a feller so much as doubts one of yore reg'lar fish stories you gotta crawl his hump. Aw right, I believe you. How big was he again? Ugh-h-h! Uncle! Uncle! Get off my stummick! I said 'Uncle,' didn't I? Damitall, that left ear of mine will never be the same again. You rammed it into a rock with more points than a barb-wire fence. Nemmine no more foolin' now. Are you shore you got Peaches fixed for three-four days? 'Cause if you ain't—pop goes the weasel."
"This weasel ain't gonna pop. Not this trip. Peaches will stay put. Don't you fret. By the time he does drift in we'll know all we need to know, I guess."
"We," sniffed Swing. "Did I hear you say 'we'? Ain't you taking a awful lot for granted?"
"Shut up. I couldn't keep you out of this with a ten-foot pole. Yo're like Tom Kane thataway—always wantin' in where it's warm. Aw right, that's settled. Lookit, we know there's some crooked work on the towpath going on, and that Lanpher and Harpe are in it up to their hocks. We know that Nebraska is one of Harpe's friends, and we know thataftermy fuss with Nebraska, Harpe comes to you and me and offers us jobs—jobs at fifty per, wages to start when we say when, and no work for a while, yet we're to stay round town till he wants us to start in. And he talks of maybe a li'l trouble in the future with Baldy Barbee and the Anvil boys, and he mentions Baldy and the Anvil several times, and the last time wasn't necessary. And, furthermore, he don't say anything a-tall about this Chin Whisker gent, who's old Dale or I'm Dutch. So there y'are, and plain enough," added Racey, holding up the bridle and turning it about. "From what Harpe said to Lanpher, we know he's bound to get old Dale's ranch come hell or high water. But he don't say anything about that to us. No, not him. It's all Barbee and the Anvil, and he's as friendly as a dog with fleas. His actions don't fit with the facts, and when a man's actions don't do that they'll stand watchin', him and them both."
"Fifty per ain't to be sneezed at." Swing, whose heart had been set on Arizona, was not prepared to give in without an argument. Besides, he invariably objected on principle to anything Racey might see fit to propose. Which was humanly natural, but more than maddening—to Racey.
"Shore not—unless it sets us against our friends."
"What you talkin' about?" persisted the wilfully blinded Swing. "Neither Baldy Barbee nor the Anvil outfit are any friends of mine. I don't even know 'em to speak to."
"But I tell you it ain't Baldy Barbee and the Anvil, you wooden-headed floop. If it was them, why would Lanpher be in it? And Nebraska? And Thompson? And Peaches Austin? I dunno exactly what it all means. But whatever it is, it's gotta do with the country round Farewell—with the ranches on the Lazy. Aw right. Besides Dale's and Morgan's there's three ranches, ain't they, on the Lazy near Farewell?"
Racey Dawson held up three fingers, doubling a thumb and forefinger behind them.
"Three ranches," he continued, "and the manager of one is in cahoots with this Harpe of many strings." Here he doubled down his pinky and waved the remaining two fingers in the face of his friend. "Two ranches are left, the Cross-in-a-box and the Bar S. Jack Richie is manager of the Cross-in-a-box. I used to ride for Jack, and he's my friend. You dunno him, but you can take my word he's the pure quill forty ways. Then there's the Bar S. Who's foreman of that? Tom Loudon. You worked with him up at Scotty MacKenzie's Flyin' M ranch on the Dogsoldier, and I've knowed him ever since I come to this country. I ain't doing anything to make me bad friends with Tom Loudon. Then there's Dale, this Chin Whisker party. He's a good feller, and had a heap of hard luck, too. I ain't working against him, you betcha. Nawsir. And if I don't miss my guess you don't, either."
"Aw, hell! They ain't no rat in that hole. Yo're seem' a heap o' smoke where they ain't even a lighted match. I don't wanna do anything against either Richie's outfit nor the Bar S, nor old Dale, but I ain't satisfied—"
"You ain't! Good Gawdamighty! Ain't I been tellin' you? Ain't I been explaining of it all in words of one syllable? Can't you see Harpe's trying to pull us in with him is just a trick to get us shot by our friends? Because his jumping old Dale's ranch will shore start a war and you can gamble it's just as dangerous to be shot by yore friends as it is by the enemy. Here I'm telling you over and over and you ain't satisfied yet! I've heard of fellers like you, but I never believed it was possible. Like the whiffle-tit, they were just a damn lie. But it's all true. Swing, old settler, if you had a quarter-ounce more sense you'd be half-witted."
"If I had a quarter-ounce more sense I'd quit you cold like that." So saying Swing Tunstall rose to his feet and shuffled a guileful step or two closer to Racey. The movement of his right arm passed unnoticed by Racey. But the lighted cigarette that, following his movement, slipped down Racey's back between his shirt collar and his neck did not pass unnoticed.
Racey hopped up with a sharp exclamation and shucked himself out of his shirt with the utmost despatch. He did not stop at the shirt, but tore off his undershirt likewise.
"Better luck than I hoped for," Swing remarked from a safe distance. "I didn't think it would slide down inside yore undershirt, too. Burn you much, Racey, dear? You look awful cute standin' there with nothing on but yore pants. All you need now is a pair of wings and a bow n'arrer and you'd be a dead ringer for Cupid growed up. And there's Mis' Lainey and Mis' Galloway looking at you from their kitchen windows. They can hear what yo're saying, too. Fie, for shame."
But Racey Dawson had gathered up his clothing and fled to the back of the corral. Muttering to himself he was pulling on his shirt when Swing joined him—at a safe distance.
"Helluva trick to play on a feller," grumbled Racey.
"Served you right," was the return. "You hadn't oughta called me half-witted. Do you know you look just like a turtle in his shell with yore shirt half on half off thataway?"
"Aw, go sit on yoreself!"
At this juncture fat Bill Lainey wheezed round the corner of the corral.
"What you been doin', Racey?" inquired the hotel-keeper. "Taking a bath?"
"Naw, I ain't been taking a bath!" Racey denied ungraciously. "I do this for fun and my health twice a day—once on Sundays."
"Well, it must 'a' been a heap funny whatever it was, or Swing wouldn't be laughin' so hard. Yeah. Lookit, Racey—I meant to catch you at breakfast, but you was through before I got back from Mike Flynn's—lookit, I wish you'd go a li'l slow when yo're roughhousin' round in my place. Rack Slimson, my most payin' customer, hadda sleep on the dinin' room table all night because you druv him out of his room."
"Bill, that was a joke," Racey intoned, solemnly. "I didn't like the way the feller snored. Likewise he had too much to say. So naturally I had to make him take it on the run. What else could I do? I ask you, what else could I do?"
"Don't you believe him, Bill," cut in Swing, fearful that Racey would get credit for an effort at humour where, in his own estimation, none was due. "Racey hasn't got the guts to pick a fuss with a pack rat. It was me that chased Rack Slimson downstairs."
"That's right," Racey assented, smoothly, suddenly mindful both of a peculiar gleam in Bill Lainey's eye and a chance sentence uttered by the hasher in his hearing at breakfast. "That's right. It was Swing Tunstall what made so free and outrageous with Rack Slimson. You go and crawl Swing's hump, Bill. Lord knows he needs it. He's been getting awful brash and uppity lately. No living with him. Give him hell, Bill."
"I don't wanna give nobody hell. Live at peace is my motto. All I wanna know is who's gonna settle for six cups, eleven sassers, ten plates, and a middle-size pitcher Rack Slimson busted when he rolled off the table with 'em durin' the night. I don't think Rack oughta hafta pay, because he wouldn't 'a' had to sleep there on the table only bein' druv out thataway he couldn't help it like."
"Huh—how much, Bill?" inquired Swing in a still small voice, and thrust his hand within his pocket.
"Well, seein' as it's you, Swing," was the prompt reply, "I'll only say ten dollars and six bits. And that's dirt cheap. Honest, I'll bet it'll cost me fifteen dollars and a half to replace 'em, what with the scandalous prices we got now."
"And I hope that'll make you a better boy, Swing," said Racey, observing with relish the transfer of real money from Swing's hand to the landlord's palm. "There's such a thing, Swing, old settler, as being too quick, as whirling too wide a loop as the man said when he roped the locomotive. And it all costs money. Yep, sometimes as much as ten dollars and six bits."
"… and one and one and two makes ten and six bits makes ten-seventy-five," totalled Swing Tunstall, "and that makes all square."
"Correct," said Bill Lainey, stuffing the money into a wide trousers pocket. "'Bliged to you, Swing. I wish all the gents paid up as prompt as you do."
"Oh, you needn't be surprised," chipped in the ready Racey. "Swing's a fair-minded boy. He'll do what's right every time, once you show him where he's wrong. Yeah. Say, Bill, has Nebraska Jones many friends in this town?"
"More than enough," was the enigmatic reply.
"'Enough,' huh? Enough for what?"
"For whatever's necessary, Racey. But I ain't talking about Nebraska and his friends. Not me. I got a wife and family to support, and they's enough trouble running a hotel without picking up any more by letting yore tongue waggle too much."
"Yo're right, Bill. Yore views do you credit. Is it against the law to tell a feller where Nebraska's friends hang out when they're in town?"
"The dance hall and the Starlight," replied Bill Lainey, promptly.
"Might you happen to know any of their names, Bill?"
"What you wanna do, Racey, is look out for a jigger named Coffin," declared Lainey, coming flatly to the point. "Doc Coffin. Yop. Then they's Punch-the-Breeze Thompson, Honey Hoke, and Peaches Austin. They's a few more, but they ain't the kind to take the lead in anything. They always follow. But Coffin, Thompson, Hoke, and Austin are the gents to keep yore eye peeled for. I ain't talking about 'em, y' understand. I ain't got a word to say against 'em, not a word. If I was you, though, and I wanted to live longer and healthier Doc Coffin is the one you wanna watch special—a heap special."
"Thanks, Bill, I—"
"No thanks needed," fended off the hotel-keeper, hastily. "I ain't said nothin', and don't you forget it."
"I won't. Is the Starlight's owner, Rack Slimson, any friend ofNebraska's, too?"
"We-ell, I dunno as he's a boom companion exactly, but Nebraska and his bunch spend a pile of money in the Starlight, a pile of money. A feller would be safe in saying that Rack Slimson's sympathy is with Nebraska."