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an’ if Pete an’ Billy hadn’t

afound yu when they come by Eagle Pass that night yu wouldn’t be here eatin’ beef by th’

pound,” glancing at the hardworking Hopalong. “It was plum lucky fer yu that they was

acourtin’ that time, wasn’t it, Hopalong?” suddenly asked Red.

 

Hopalong nearly strangled in his efforts to speak. He gave it up and nodded his

head.

 

“Why can’t yu git it straight, Connors? I wasn’t doin’ no courtin’, it was Pete. I

runned into him on th’ other side o’ th’ pass. I’d look fine acourtin’, wouldn’t I?” asked the

downtrodden Williams.

 

Pete Wilson skillfully flipped a potato into that worthy’s coffee, spilling the

beverage of the questionable name over a large expanse of blue flannel shirt. “Yu’s all

right, yu are. Why, when I meets yu, yu was lost in th’ arms of yore ladylove. All I could

see was yore feet. Go an’ git tangled up with a two hundred and forty pound half-breed squaw an’

then try to lay it onter me! When I proposed drownin’ yore troubles over at Cowan’s, yu

went an’ got mad over what yu called th’ insinooation. An’ yu shore didn’t look any too

blamed fine, neither.”

 

“All th’ same,” volunteered Thompson, who had taken the edge from his appetite,

“we better go over an’ pay C 80 a call. I don’t like what Shorty said about saltin’ our

cattle. He’ll shore do it, unless I camps on th’ line, which same I hain’t hankerin’ after.”

 

“Oh, he wouldn’t stop th’ cows that way, Skinny; he was only afoolin’,” exclaimed

Connors meekly.

 

“Foolin’ yore gran’mother! That there bunch’ll do anything if we wasn’t lookin’,”

hotly replied Skinny.

 

“That’s shore nuff gospel, Thomp. They’s sore fer mor’n one thing.

They got aplenty when Buck went on th’ warpath, an they’s hankerin’ to git

square,” remarked Johnny Nelson, stealing the pie, a rare treat, of his neighbor when that

unfortunate individual was not looking. He had it halfway to his mouth when its former

owner, Jimmy Price, a boy of eighteen, turned his head and saw it going.

 

“Hi-yi! Yu clay-bank coyote, drap thet pie! Did yu ever see such a son-of-a-gun

fer pie?” he plaintively asked Red Connors, as he grabbed a mighty handful of apples and

crust. “Pie’ll kill yu some day, yu bob-tailed jack! I had an uncle that died onct. He et

too much pie an’ he went an’ turned green, an so’ll yu if yu don’t let it alone.”

 

“Yu ought’r seed th’ pie Johnny had down in Eagle Flat,” murmured Lanky Smith

reminiscently. “She had feet that’d stop a stampede.

Johnny was shore loco about her. Swore she was the finest blossom that ever

growed.” Here he choked and tears of laughter coursed down his weather-beaten face as

he pictured her. “She was a dainty Mexican, about fifteen han’s high an’ about sixteen

han’s around. Johnny used to chalk off when he hugged her, usen’t yu, Johnny? One

night when he had got purty well around on th’ second lap he run inter a feller jest startin’

out on his fust. They hain’t caught that Mexican yet.”

 

Nelson was pelted with everything in sight. He slowly wiped off the pie crust and

bread and potatoes. “Anybody’d think I was a busted grub wagon,” he grumbled. When

he had fished the last piece of beef out of his ear he went out and offered to stand treat.

 

As the round-up was over, they slid into their saddles and raced for Cowan’s saloon at

Buckskin.

CHAPTER II

THE RASHNESS OF SHORTY

 

Buckskin was very hot; in fact it was never anything else.

 

Few people were on the streets and the town was quiet. Over in the

Houston hotel a crowd of cowboys was lounging in the barroom. They

were very quiet-a condition as rare as it was ominous. Their mounts,

twelve in all, were switching flies from their quivering skins in the

corral at the rear.

 

Eight of these had a large C 80 branded on their flanks; the

other four, a Double Arrow.

 

In the barroom a slim, wiry man was looking out of the dirty window up the street

at Cowan’s saloon. Shorty was complaining, “They shore oughter be here now. They

rounded up last week.” The man nearest assured him that they would come. The man at

the window turned and said, “They’s yer now.”

 

In front of Cowan’s a crowd of nine happy-go-lucky, daredevil riders were sliding

from their saddles. They threw their reins over the heads of their mounts and filed in to

the bar. Laughter issued from the open door and the clink of glasses could be heard.

 

They stood in picturesque groups, strong, self-reliant, humorous, virile. Their expensive

sombreros were pushed far back on their heads and their hairy chaps were covered with

the alkali dust from their ride.

 

Cowan, bottle in hand, pushed out several more glasses. He kicked a dog from

under his feet and looked at Buck. “Rounded up yet?” he inquired.

 

“Shore, day afore yisterday,” came the reply. The rest were busy removing the

dust from their throats, and gradually drifted into groups of two or three. One of these

groups strolled over to the solitary card table, and found Jimmy Price resting in a cheap

chair, his legs on the table.

 

“I wisht yu’d extricate yore delicate feet from off’n this hyar table, James,” humbly

requested Lanky Smith, morally backed up by those with him.

 

“Ya-as, they shore is delicate, Mr. Smith,” responded Jimmy without moving.

 

“We wants to play draw, Jimmy,” explained Pete.

 

“Yore shore welcome to play if yu wants to. Didn’t I tell yu when yu growed that

mustache that yu didn’t have to ask me any more?” queried the placid James, paternally.

 

“Call `em off, sonny. Pete sez he kin clean me out. Anyhow, yu kin have the fust

deal,” compromised Lanky.

 

“I’m shore sorry fer Pete if he cayn’t. Yu don’t reckon I has to have fust deal to

beat yu fellers, do yu? Go way an’ lemme alone; I never seed such a bunch fer buttin’ in

as yu fellers.”

 

Billy Williams returned to the bar. Then he walked along it until he was behind

the recalcitrant possessor of the table. While his aggrieved friends shuffled their feet

uneasily to cover his approach, he tiptoed up behind Jimmy and, with a nod, grasped that

indignant individual firmly by the neck while the others grabbed his feet. They carried

him, twisting and bucking, to the middle of the street and deposited him in the dust,

returning to the now vacant table.

 

Jimmy rested quietly for a few seconds and then slowly arose, dusting the alkali

from him.

 

“Th’ wall-eyed piruts,” he muttered, and then scratched his head for a way to “play

hunk.” As he gazed sorrowfully at the saloon he heard a snicker from behind him. He,

thinking it was one of his late tormentors, paid no attention to it. Then a cynical, biting

laugh stung him. He wheeled, to see Shorty leaning against a tree, a sneering leer on his

flushed face. Shorty’s right hand was suspended above his holster, hooked to his belt by

the thumb—a favorite position of his when expecting trouble.

 

“One of yore reg’lar habits?” he drawled.

 

Jimmy began to dust himself in silence, but his lips were compressed to a thin

white line.

 

“Does they hurt yu?” pursued the onlooker.

 

Jimmy looked up. “I heard tell that they make glue outen cayuses, sometimes,” he

remarked.

 

Shorty’s eyes flashed. The loss of the horse had been rankling in his heart all day.

 

“Does they git yu frequent?” he asked. His voice sounded hard.

 

“Oh, `bout as frequent as yu lose a cayuse, I reckon,” replied Jimmy hotly.

 

Shorty’s hand streaked to his holster and Jimmy followed his lead.

 

Jimmy’s Colt was caught. He had bucked too much. As he fell Shorty ran for the

Houston House.

 

Pistol shots were common, for they were the universal method of expressing

emotions. The poker players grinned, thinking their victim was letting off his

indignation. Lanky sized up his hand and remarked half audibly, “He’s a shore good kid.”

 

The bartender, fearing for his new beveled, gilt-framed mirror, gave a hasty glance

out the window. He turned around, made change and remarked to Buck, “Yore kid,

Jimmy, is plugged.” Several of the more credulous craned their necks to see, Buck being

the first. “Judas!” he shouted, and ran out to where Jimmy lay coughing, his toes

twitching.

 

The saloon was deserted and a crowd of angry cowboys surrounded their chum-aboy. Buck had seen Shorty enter the door of the Houston House and he swore. “Chase

them C 80 and Arrow cayuses behind the saloon, Pete, an’ git under cover.

 

Jimmy was choking and he coughed up blood. “He’s shore—got me. My gun

stuck,” he added apologetically. He tried to sit up, but was not able and he looked

surprised. “It’s purty—damn hot—out here,” he suggested. Johnny and Billy carried him in

the saloon and placed him by the table, in the chair he had previously vacated. As they

stood up he fell across the table and died.

 

Billy placed the dead boy’s sombrero on his head and laid the refractory six-shooter on the table. “I wonder who th’ dirty killer was.” He looked at the slim figure and

started to go out, followed by Johnny. As he reached the threshold a bullet zipped past

him and thudded into the frame of the door. He backed away and looked surprised.

 

“That’s Shorty’s shootin’—he allus misses `bout that much.”

He looked out and saw Buck standing behind the live oak that Shorty had leaned

against, firing at the hotel. Turning around he made for the rear, remarking to Johnny that

“they’s in th’ Houston.” Johnny looked at the quiet figure in the chair and swore softly.

 

He followed Billy. Cowan, closing the door and taking a buffalo gun from under the bar,

went out also and slammed the rear door forcibly.

CHAPTER III

THE ARGUMENT

 

Up the street two hundred yards from the Houston

House Skinny and Pete lay hidden behind a boulder. Three

hundred yards on the other side of the hotel Johnny and Billy were

stretched out in an arroyo. Buck was lying down now, and

Hopalong, from his position in the barn belonging to the hotel,

was methodically dropping the horses of the besieged, a job he

hated as much as he hated poison. The corral was their death trap. Red and Lanky were

emitting clouds of smoke from behind the store, immediately across the street from the

barroom. A buffalo gun roared down by the plaza and several Sharps cracked a protest

from different points. The town had awakened and the shots were dropping steadily.

 

Strange noises filled the air. They grew in tone and volume and then dwindled

away to nothing. The hum of the buffalo gun and the sobbing pi-in-in-ing of the

Winchesters were liberally mixed with the sharp whines of the revolvers.

 

There were no windows in the hotel now. Raw furrows in the bleached wood

showed yellow, and splinters mysteriously sprang from the casings. The panels of the

door were producing cracks and the cheap door handle flew many ways at once. An

empty whisky keg on the stoop boomed out mournfully at intervals and finally rolled

down the steps with a rumbling protest. Wisps of smoke slowly climbed up the walls and

seemed to be waving defiance to the curling wisps in the open.

 

Pete raised his shoulder to refill the magazine of his smoking rifle and dropped the

cartridges all over

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