Bar-20 by Clarence E. Mulford (black books to read .TXT) 📖
- Author: Clarence E. Mulford
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Book online «Bar-20 by Clarence E. Mulford (black books to read .TXT) 📖». Author Clarence E. Mulford
“Not in this case, I’m afraid. You see, it’s for manslaughter.”
“Well, don’t that beat th’ devil, now?” said Hopalong. He felt sorry that a citizen
of the glorious United States should be prey for troublesome sheriffs, but he was sure that
his duty to Texas called upon him never to submit to arrest at the hands of a Mexican.
Remembering the Alamo, and still behind his Colt, he reached over and took up
the shining weapon from the table and snapped it open on his knee. After placing the
cartridges in his pocket he tossed the gun over on the bed and, reaching inside his shirt,
drew out another and threw it after the first.
“That’s yore gun; I forgot to leave it,” he said, apologetically.
“Anyhow yu needs two,” he added.
Then he glanced around the room, noticed the poster and walked over and read it.
A full swift sweep of his gloved hand tore it from its fastenings and crammed it under his
belt. The glimmer of anger in his eyes gave way as he realized that his head was worth a
definite price, and he smiled at what the boys would say when he showed it to them.
Planting his feet far apart and placing his arms akimbo he faced his host in grim
defiance.
“Got any more of these?” he inquired, placing his hand on the poster under his
belt.
“Several,” replied the sheriff.
“Trot `em out,” ordered Hopalong shortly.
The sheriff sighed, stretched and went over to a shelf, from which he took a
bundle of the articles in question. Turning slowly he looked at the puncher and handed
them to him.
“I reckons they’s all over this here town,” remarked Hopalong.
“They are, and you may never see Texas again.”
“So? Well, yu tell yore most particular friends that the job is worth five thousand,
and that it will take so many to do it that when th’ mazuma is divided up it won’t buy a
meal. There’s only one man in this country tonight that can earn that money, an’ that’s
me,” said the puncher.
“An’ I don’t need it,” he added, smiling.
“But you are my prisoner-you are under arrest,” enlightened the sheriff, rolling
another cigarette. The sheriff spoke as if asking a question. Never before had five
hundred dollars been so close at hand and yet so unobtainable. It was like having a
check-book but no bank account.
“I’m shore sorry to treat yu mean,” remarked Hopalong, “but I was paid a month in
advance an’ I’ll have to go back an’ earn it.”
“You can-if you say that you will return,” replied the sheriff tentatively.
The sheriff meant what he said and for the moment had forgotten that he was
powerless and was not the one to make terms.
Hopalong was amazed and for a time his ideas of Mexicans staggered under the
blow. Then he smiled sympathetically as he realized that he faced a white man.
“Never like to promise nothin’,” he replied. “I might get plugged, or something
might happen that wouldn’t let me.” Then his face lighted up as a thought came to him.
“Say, I’ll cut di’ cards with yu to see if I comes back or not.”
The sheriff leaned back and gazed at the cool youngster before him.
A smile of satisfaction, partly at the self-reliance of his guest and partly at the
novelty of his situation, spread over his face. He reached for a pack of Mexican cards and
laughed.
“Man! You’re a cool one-I’ll do it. What do you call ?”
“Red,” answered Hopalong.
The sheriff slowly raised his hand and revealed the ace of hearts.
Hopalong leaned back and laughed, at the same time taking from his pocket the
six extracted cartridges. Arising and going over to the bed he slipped them in the
chambers of the new gun and then placed the loaded weapon at the sheriff’s elbow.
“Well, I reckon I’ll amble, sheriff,” he said as he opened the door.
“If yu ever sifts up my way drop in an’ see me-th’ boys’lI give yu a good time.”
“Thanks; I will be glad to,” replied the sheriff. “You’ll take your pitcher to the
well once too often some day, my friend. This courtesy,” glancing at the restored
revolver, “might have cost you dearly.”
“Shoo! I did that once an’ th’ feller tried to use it,” replied the cowboy as he
backed through the door. “Some people are awfully careless,” he added. “So long-”
“So long,” replied the sheriff, wondering what sort of a man he had been
entertaining.
The door closed softly and soon after a joyous whoop floated in from the Street.
The sheriff toyed with the new gun and listened to the low caress of a distant guitar.
“Well, don’t that beat all?” he ejaculated.
THE ADVENT OF MCALLISTER
The blazing sun shone pitilessly on an arid plain which was
spotted with dust-gray clumps of mesquite and thorny chaparral.
Basking in the burning sand and alkali lay several Gila monsters, which
raised their heads and hissed with wide-open jaws as several faint,
whip-like reports echoed flatly over the desolate plain, showing that
even they had learned that danger was associated with such sounds.
Off to the north there became visible a cloud of dust and at
intervals something swayed in it, something that rose and fell and then became hidden
again. Out of that cloud came sharp, splitting sounds, which were faintly responded to by
another and larger cloud in its rear. As it came nearer and finally swept past, the Gilas, to
their terror, saw a madly pounding horse, and it carried a man. The latter turned in his
saddle and raised a gun to his shoulder and the thunder that issued from it caused the
creeping audience to throw up their tails in sudden panic and bury themselves out of sight
in the sand.
The horse was only a bronco, its sides covered with hideous yellow spots, and on
its near flank was a peculiar scar, the brand. Foam flecked from its crimsoned jaws and
found a resting place on its sides and on the hairy chaps of its rider. Sweat rolled and
streamed from its heaving flanks and was greedily sucked up by the drought-cursed
alkali. Close to the rider’s knee a bloody furrow ran forward and one of the bronco’s ears
was torn and limp. The bronco was doing its best-it could run at that pace until it
dropped dead. Every ounce of strength it possessed was put forth to bring those hind
hoofs well in front of the forward ones and to send them pushing the sand behind in
streaming clouds. The horse had done this same thing many times-when would its master
learn sense?
The man was typical in appearance with many of that broad land.
Lithe, sinewy and bronzed by hard riding and hot suns, he sat in his Cheyenne
saddle like a centaur, all his weight on the heavy, leather-guarded stirrups, his body rising
in one magnificent straight line. A bleached moustache hid the thin lips, and a gray
sombrero threw a heavy shadow across his eyes. Around his neck and over his open, blue
flannel shirt lay loosely a knotted silk kerchief, and on his thighs a pair of open-flapped
holsters swung uneasily with their ivory handled burdens. He turned abruptly, raised his
gun to his shoulder and fired, then he laughed recklessly and patted his mount, which
responded to the confident caress by lying flatter to the earth in a spurt of heart-breaking
speed.
“I’ll show `em who they’re trailin’. This is th’ second time I’ve started for Muddy
Wells, an’ I’m goin’ to git there, too, for all th’ Apaches out of Hades!”
To the south another cloud of dust rapidly approached and the rider scanned it
closely, for it was directly in his path. As he watched it he saw something wave and it
was a sombrero! Shortly afterward a real cowboy yell reached his ears. He grinned and
slid another cartridge in the greasy, smoking barrel of the Sharp’s and fired again at the
cloud in his rear. Some few minutes later a whooping, bunched crowd of madly riding
cowboys thundered past him and he was recognized.
“Hullo, Frenchy!” yelled the nearest one. “Comin’ back?”
“Come on, McAllister!” shouted another; “we’ll give `em blazes!”
In response the straining bronco suddenly stiffened, bunched and slid on its
haunches, wheeled and retraced its course. The rear cloud suddenly scattered into many
smaller ones and all swept off to the east. The rescuing band overtook them and, several
hours later, when seated around a table in Tom Lee’s saloon, Muddy Wells, a count was
taken of them, which was pleasing in its facts.
“We was huntin’ coyotes when we saw yu,” said a smiling puncher who was
known as Salvation Carroll chiefly because he wasn’t.
“Yep! They’ve been stalkin’ Tom’s chickens,” supplied Waffles, the champion
poker player of the outfit.
Tom Lee’s chickens could whip anything of their kind for miles around and were
reverenced accordingly.
“Sho! Is that so?” Asked Frenchy with mild incredulity, such a state of affairs
being deplorable.
“She shore is!” answered Tex Le Blanc, and then, as an afterthought, he added,
“Where’d yu hit th’ War-whoops?”
“`Bout four hours back. This here’s th’ second time I’ve headed for this place-last
time they chased me to Las Cruces.”
“That so?” Asked Bigfoot Baker, a giant. “Ain’t they allus interferin’, now?
Anyhow, they’re better’n coyotes.”
“They was purty well heeled,” suggested Tex, glancing at a bunch of repeating
Winchesters of late model which lay stacked in a corner.
“Charley here said he thought they was from th’ way yore cayuse looked, didn’t yu,
Charley?” Charley nodded and filled his pipe.
“`Pears like a feller can’t amble around much nowadays without havin’ to fight,”
grumbled Lefty Allen, who usually went out of his way hunting up trouble.
“We’re goin’ to th’ Hills as soon as our cookie turns up,” volunteered Tenspot
Davis, looking inquiringly at Frenchy. “Heard any more news?”
“Nope. Same old story-lots of gold. Shucks, I’ve bit on so many of them rumors
that they don’t feaze me no more. One man who don’t know nothin’ about prospectin’
goes an’ stumbles over a fortune an’ those who know it from A to Izzard goes `round
pullin’ in their belts.”
“We don’t pull in no belts-We knows just where to look, don’t we, Tenspot?”
Remarked Tex, looking very wise.
“Ya-as we do,” answered Tenspot, “if yu hasn’t dreamed about it, we do.”
“Yu wait; I wasn’t dreamin’, none whatever,” assured Tex.
“I saw it!”
“Ya-as, I saw it too onct,” replied Frenchy with sarcasm. “Went and lugged fifty
pound of it all th’ way to th’ assay office-took me two days! an’ that there four-eyed cuss
looks at it and snickers. Then he takes me by di’ arm an’ leads me to th’ window. ‘See
that pile, my friend? That’s all like yourn,’ sez he. `It’s worth about one simoleon a ton at
th’ coast. They use it for ballast.’”
“Aw! But this what I saw was gold!” exploded Tex.
“So was mine, for a while!” laughed Frenchy, nodding to the bartender for another
round.
“Well, we’re tired of punchin’ cows! Ride sixteen hours a day, year in an’ year out,
an’ what do we get? Fifty a month an’ no chance to spend it, an’ grub that’d make a coyote
sniffle! I’m for a vacation,
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