DOT REED
The two went over their plans, arranging camp. Slivers was to remain
there while Allen went on to the ranch to ascertain if the feeling
against Slivers was still vindictive. Jim Allen knew that the fame of
his grays had traveled all over the West and that if he took both with
him, it would make the chances of his being recognized that much
greater, so he hobbled Honeyboy and saddled Princess. The stallion
uttered shrill neighs of protest at being left behind, and Princess
balked at leaving her constant companion.
Allen circled to the east, for he did not wish to leave a direct trail
from Slivers' camp to the ranch. After an hour's ride, he struck the
road that ran south to Wichita Falls, where he turned to the north. It
was close to sundown when he arrived at the small town of Malboro. This
was the typical cow town of the region. It consisted of a few stores, a
combination hotel and bar, a post office, and three or four saloons.
There were but a few people about the streets as he rode into town and
these gave him but a casual glance. If they classified him at all, they
put him down as some kid from a distant ranch. He wore no gun that
could be seen, his shirt and jeans were tattered and torn. Princess was
the personification of a tired, worked-out old horse. Her head drooped,
her feet shuffled up little clouds of dust as she ambled along. No one
would have taken her for one of the most famous horses in the West, nor
her rider as the most famous outlaw of all time.
Allen swung from his horse before the Wichita Hotel, dropped the reins
over the hitch rack and stood for a moment gazing about like a gawky
country boy on his first visit to town.
He wandered aimlessly along the street. Spying a store that displayed
candy bars in its window, he entered and reappeared a moment later
sucking at a brightly colored candy bar. Munching the candy, he slipped
through the doors of the hotel and entered the bar. There was no one
there, so he walked briskly toward the wall where they had posted the
bills for the men who were wanted. He found one for himself, but he
gave a sigh of relief when he noted it was an old one and did not have
his picture. He also found one for Slivers Joe Hart, which offered a
reward of five hundred dollars for that young man, dead or alive. He
was reading this when some one entered the room. He glanced over his
shoulder and saw a stout, one-armed man, of about fifty, whom he
surmised to be "One-wing" McCann, the owner of the hotel.
"Hello, bub! Lookin' for your own picture or figgerin' on nabbin' some
of them gents?" McCann asked genially.
"Naw, I was just lookin'," Allen said awkwardly.
"Where did yuh come from an' where yuh goin'?"
"I come from down Fort Worth way an' I'm driftin' aroun' lookin' for a
job," Allen replied.
"I'm goin' out to the Double R to-morrow. Spur Treadwell, the manager,
is a friend of mine. Want to go along an' ast him for a job?" One-wing
asked.
"Sure--but I don't want no job peeling potatoes," Allen complained.
"Yuh be aroun' at seven to-morrow, an' I'll take yuh out an' make Spur
give yuh a job as top hand," the older man chuckled.
One-wing McCann was the sort who would do a favor for some one if it
did not cost him effort or money, but his generosity did not run to
staking a ragged, homeless boy to a dinner and bed. He walked behind
the bar and helped himself to a drink.
Allen wandered out into the street. It was dark now, and he made for a
small restaurant he had seen when he entered the town. Having tucked
away a beefsteak and some coffee, he wandered forth again and peered
into the various saloons. He carefully studied each man he saw, but
found none whom he knew or who might know him.
The following morning, when One-wing McCann came from the hotel and
climbed into his buckboard, he found Allen waiting for him. He stared;
his invitation of the evening before had been carelessly given and
forgotten ten minutes after.
"Yuh said yuh'd take me with yuh," Allen said with assumed ignorance.
"That so. Yuh want to ride with me, or are yuh goin' to fork that ol'
bag of bones?" McCann asked, and jerked a contemptuous thumb toward
Princess.
"She ain't much to look at, but I've had her ever since I was a kid, so
I reckon I'll ride her," Allen said aggrievedly, seeming to resent
One-wing's abuse of his horse.
"Suit yourself," McCann said indifferently.
He climbed into the buckboard and picked up the reins. He spoke to the
horses, and they started out of town at a fast trot. Allen held the
indignant Princess down to an awkward gait that was half trot and half
gallop.
Allen was well pleased with his good luck. His arriving with McCann
would lessen the chances of his being recognized. He had felt that he
would run a great risk of this, for the Double R was not many miles
from the Nations, the refuge of many a hunted man. And most outlaws and
gunmen hated and feared him far more than many an honest citizen.
The road wound in and out between hills and followed the course of the
Little Deadman's Creek.
It was close to thirty miles from Malboro to the Double R, and it was
well past noon before the road dipped into the valley and the ranch
buildings appeared before them. The scene took Allen back to his
boyhood, for he had been raised in just such a place. He marked the
place where the old stockade had stood, for these buildings had been
built in the days when the savage Comanche had laid claim to all this
part of the country. Within the old stockade, the eight or ten houses
had been built in the form of a rough square, with the main ranch
building forming the southern side. Where once there had been only
loopholes, there were now windows. All the houses were of one story,
built of heavy logs and roofed with sod.
One-wing McCann brought his sweating horses to a sliding stop before
the front porch. A puncher ran around the corner to take the horses,
and as One-wing climbed from the buckboard, a man came out of the front
door.
"Hello, One-wing."
He was a powerfully built man, fully six feet three in height, with a
large mouth, a pair of china-blue eyes and close-cut straw-colored hair.
"'Lo, Spur," McCann replied.
Allen twisted in his saddle and studied Spur Treadwell, the man who, in
Slivers' opinion, had killed Iky Small and then placed the guilt on
Slivers. Allen had the uncanny gift of being able to look at any man
and shrewdly estimate that man's real character. The little outlaw
utterly disregarded the outer signs that influence most men. He was not
to be fooled by a genial manner, a straight-looking eye or any of the
other outer attributes which are usually worn by men to hide their real
thoughts and selves.
So now, after studying Spur Treadwell, he knew him to be a man of great
force, a dominating character, yet one who was utterly unscrupulous,
who would fight with the brutality of a bull and the savageness of a
tiger. He shrewdly surmised that the man's weakness was his vanity.
Here was a man who possessed the force to make other people carry out
his wishes, but would fail because of his pride.
"Who's the kid?" Spur Treadwell asked, as he cast a searching glance at
Allen.
"A kid from down Fort Worth way--he's lookin' for a job."
Allen chuckled to himself. One-wing's words implied that he knew for a
fact that Allen had come from Fort Worth. It was a little thing, but it
might some day serve to throw some suspicious person off the scent.
"All right, kid, yuh go aroun' back an' ask cooky to get yuh some
chuck, an' I'll see yuh later," Spur Treadwell said.
"Yuh know right well, Spur, that 'Arizona' won't give him nothin' at
this time of the day," a young girl cried, as she stepped out of the
door onto the porch.
"All right, Dot, yuh're great at carin' for ol' animals, hobos, an'
kids--go feed him yourself." Spur Treadwell laughed and shrugged his
great shoulders.
Dot Reed was a young girl of about nineteen, with dark, curling hair
and vivid blue eyes. Bidding Allen to follow her, she reëntered the
house and led the way to the kitchen. She cut some cold meat and placed
a platter of it on the oilcloth-covered table with some bread and
butter. Quickly she stirred up the embers in the kitchen stove, built a
fire, and placed a coffeepot on to boil. Allen followed her with his
eyes as she prepared the meal.
"Gosh, I don't blame Slivers none at all, yuh sure are a real girl," he
told himself.
"I'm bettin' yuh're Dot Reed," Allen told her, with his mouth full of
meat.
"How did yuh know? What is your name?" she asked with a smile.
"A gent tol' me about yuh. He said yuh was the best-lookin' gal in
seven States," he said, grinning. "My handle is Jim Ashton."
She decided she liked this boy and she smiled again with the
condescension of a girl of nineteen looking down at a mere boy of
eighteen.
"An' your dad, John Reed, owns this outfit?" he asked.
Her face clouded and her lip trembled. She was silent and looked away.
"He was killed a month ago," she said at last.
This was news to Allen and came to him as a shock. Slivers had hoped
that John Reed would help clear his name. It meant they had lost a
powerful ally. Allen now understood the lines of worry he had noticed
in the girl's face. He waited for her to go on.
Dot Reed looked at Allen and saw something in his face that inspired
her with confidence. There was a look of understanding that was unusual
for one of his age.
"Dad surprised two rustlers over near Hard Pan, an' they shot him," she
faltered.
"Did they get the coyotes?"
"Yeh, Spur Treadwell an' the twins come along an' shot them both.
They--they----" She faltered, and the tears sprang to her eyes.
"They?" he urged her gently.
"They said there was another man with the rustlers, but he got away.
They said it was a friend of mine. Oh--oh--I won't believe it of him!"
she ended passionately.
Allen swore to himself. Without being told, he knew whom Spur Treadwell
had said the third man was. Spur Treadwell was both deep and thorough.
Allen had come to Little Deadman's to help clear a boy's name, and he
now believed he had stumbled into a dark conspiracy that had a deeper
motive than just the removal of a rival.
"That's right, ma'am, don't believe it of him, 'cause it ain't true,"
Allen said earnestly.
The girl looked at him with big, round eyes. Something of hope, of
fear, sprang into them.
"What do you mean? Do you know him?"
Allen saw that he had stepped out of character. In order to gain time
for thought, he busied himself with his food for a moment. After he had
swallowed his meat, he looked up at her and grinned.
"I don't mean nothin'. Only the way yuh spoke, I sorta thought yuh
liked him, an' it ain't right to believe nothin' of nobody unless yuh
give them a chance to tell their side," he blundered.
"But--the rustlers were blottin' the Double R to Double B, an' that's
his brand. He--he---- Some one said he killed a man an' he had to hide
out. Spur said he came back an' tried rustlin' to get even."
"Did yuh see your dad after he was shot?" Allen asked quickly, as
thought materialized in his brain.
"No."
"Then he didn't live to say nothin'?"
"Yeh, he talked to Spur an' wrote a--a----" She broke off, as a heavy
tread sounded in the next room.
A moment later, the door opened and Spur Treadwell entered. Allen
noticed he was so tall that he had to stoop as he came through the
door. He glanced swiftly at Allen and then to the girl. His eyes were
penetrating, inquiring, and Allen saw a glint of suspicion in them.
"If yuh're goin' to work for me, yuh have to hustle down your grub
faster than that," he said with a touch of harshness in his voice.
"It was my fault, an' it is _my_ ranch, an' if I want to talk to one of
_my_ men, I will." The girl was quick to spring to Allen's defense.
"Let's not go into that again, Dot. It's your ranch all right, but
don't forget I'm your guardian until yuh are of age an' that I do the
hirin' an' firin'," Spur said tolerantly with the touch of authority in
his voice that one uses to an unruly child.
The girl flushed. Allen rose to his feet and picked up his hat. A
moment before, he had been irritated that Spur Treadwell had entered
before the girl had time to tell him what her father wrote before he
died, but he now felt that it made no difference, for he was certain
that he knew what John Reed had written, or at least what Spur
Treadwell had said was written.
"Well, anyway, it was my fault the boy stayed here to talk," Dot said
after a pause.
"Talk?" Again Spur glanced from the girl to Allen.
"He was tellin' me about his home," she said. She cast a quick glance
at Allen as if to beg him not to contradict her lie.