TEX TAKES AN INTEREST
Jack Roberts was in two minds whether to stop at the Longhorn saloon. He
needed a cook in his trail outfit, and the most likely employment agency
in Texas during that decade was the barroom of a gambling-house. Every
man out of a job naturally drifted to the only place of entertainment.
The wandering eye of the foreman decided the matter for him. It fell
upon a horse, and instantly ceased to rove. The cow-pony was tied to a
hitching-rack worn shiny by thousands of reins. On the nose of the
bronco was a splash of white. Stockings of the same color marked its
legs. The left hind hoof was gashed and broken.
The rider communed with himself. "I reckon we'll 'light and take an
interest, Jack. Them that looks for, finds."
He slid from the saddle and rolled a cigarette, after which he made
friends with the sorrel and examined carefully the damaged foot.
"It's a li'l bit of a world after all," he commented. "You never can
tell who you're liable to meet up with." The foreman drew from its
scabbard a revolver and slid it back into place to make sure that it lay
easy in its case. "You can't guess for sure what's likely to happen.
I'd a heap rather be too cautious than have flowers sent me."
He sauntered through the open door into the gambling-house. It was a
large hall, in the front part of which was the saloon. In the back the
side wall to the next building had been ripped out to give more room.
There was a space for dancing, as well as roulette, faro, chuckaluck,
and poker tables. In one corner a raised stand for the musicians had
been built.
The Longhorn was practically deserted. Not even a game of draw was in
progress. The dance-girls were making up for lost sleep, and the patrons
of the place were either at work or still in bed.
Three men were lined up in front of the bar. One was a tall, lank
person, hatchet-faced and sallow. He had a cast in his eye that gave him
a sinister expression. The second was slender and trim, black of hair
and eye and mustache. His clothes were very good and up to date. The one
farthest from the door was a heavy-set, unwieldy man in jeans, slouchy
as to dress and bearing. Perhaps it was the jade eyes of the man that
made Roberts decide instantly he was one tough citizen.
The line-rider ordered a drink.
"Hardware, please," said the bartender curtly.
"Enforcin' that rule, are they?" asked Roberts casually as his eyes
swept over the other men.
"That's whatever. Y'betcha. We don't want no gay cowboys shootin' out
our lights. No reflections, y'understand."
The latest arrival handed over his revolver, and the man behind the bar
hung the scabbard on a nail. Half a dozen others were on a shelf beside
it. For the custom on the frontier was that each rider from the range
should deposit his weapons at the first saloon he entered. They were
returned to him when he called for them just before leaving town. This
tended to lessen the number of sudden deaths.
"Who you ridin' for, young fellow?" asked the sallow man of Roberts.
"For the A T O."
The dark young man turned and looked at the cowboy.
"So? How long have you been riding for Wadley?"
"Nine months."
"Don't think I've seen you before."
"I'm a line-rider--don't often get to the ranch-house."
"What ground do you cover?"
"From Dry Creek to the rim-rock, and south past Box Canon."
Three pair of eyes were focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow man
squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin with
the palm of a hand.
"Kinda lonesome out there, ain't it?" he ventured.
"That's as how you take it. The country _is_ filled with absentees,"
admitted Roberts.
"Reckoned it was. Never been up that way myself. A sort of a bad-lands
proposition, I've heard tell--country creased with arroyos, packed with
rocks an' rattlesnakes mostly."
The heavy-set man broke in harshly. "Anybody else run cattle there
except old man Wadley?"
"Settlers are comin' in on the other side of the rim-rock. Cattle drift
across. I can count half a dozen brands 'most any day."
"But you never see strangers."
"Don't I?"
"I'm askin', do you?" The voice of the older man was heavy and dominant.
It occurred to Roberts that he had heard that voice before.
"Oh!" Unholy imps of mirth lurked in the alert eyes of the line-rider.
"Once in a while I do--last Thursday, for instance."
The graceful, dark young man straightened as does a private called to
attention. "A trapper, maybe?" he said.
The cowboy brought his level gaze back from a barefoot negro washing the
floor. "Not this time. He was a rustler."
"How do you know?" The high voice of the questioner betrayed
excitement.
"I caught him brandin' a calf. He waved me round. I beat him to the Box
Canon and saw him ridin' through."
"You saw him ridin' through? Where were you?" The startled eyes of the
dark young man were fixed on him imperiously.
"From the bluff above."
"You don't say!" The voice of the heavy man cut in with jeering irony.
The gleam of his jade eyes came through narrow-slitted lids. "Well, did
you take him back to the ranch for a necktie party, or did you bury him
in the gulch?"
The dark young man interrupted irritably. "I'm askin' these questions,
Dinsmore. Now you, young fellow--what's your name?"
"Jack Roberts," answered the cowboy meekly.
"About this rustler--would you know him again?"
The line-rider smiled inscrutably. He did not intend to tell all that he
did not know. "He was ridin' a sorrel with a white splash on its nose,
white stockin's, an' a bad hoof, the rear one--"
"You're a damn' liar." The words, flung out from some inner compulsion,
as it were, served both as a confession and a challenge.
There was a moment of silence, tense and ominous. This was fighting
talk.
The lank man leaned forward and whispered some remonstrance in the ear
of the young fellow, but his suggestion was waved aside. "I'm runnin'
this, Gurley."
The rider for the A T O showed neither surprise nor anger. He made a
business announcement without stress or accent. "I expect it's you or me
one for a lickin'. Hop to it, Mr. Rustler!"
Roberts did not wait for an acceptance of his invitation. He knew that
the first two rules of battle are to strike first and to strike hard.
His brown fist moved forward as though it had been shot from a gun. The
other man crashed back against the wall and hung there dazed for a
moment. The knuckles of that lean fist had caught him on the chin.
"Give him hell, Ford. You can curry a li'l' shorthorn like this guy with
no trouble a-tall," urged Dinsmore.
The young man needed no urging. He gathered himself together and plunged
forward. Always he had prided himself on being an athlete. He was the
champion boxer of the small town where he had gone to school. Since he
had returned to the West, he had put on flesh and muscle. But he had
dissipated a good deal too, and no man not in the pink of condition had
any right to stand up to tough Jack Roberts.
While the fight lasted, there was rapid action. Roberts hit harder and
cleaner, but the other was the better boxer. He lunged and sidestepped
cleverly, showing good foot-work and a nice judgment of distance. For
several minutes he peppered the line-rider with neat hits. Jack bored in
for more. He drove a straight left home and closed one of his opponent's
eyes. He smashed through the defense of his foe with a power that would
not be denied.
"Keep a-comin', Ford. You shore have got him goin' south," encouraged
Gurley.
But the man he called Ford knew it was not true. His breath was coming
raggedly. His arms were heavy as though weighted with lead. The science
upon which he had prided himself was of no use against this man of
steel. Already his head was singing so that he saw hazily.
The finish came quickly. The cowboy saw his chance, feinted with his
left and sent a heavy body blow to the heart. The knees of the other
sagged. He sank down and did not try to rise again.
Presently his companions helped him to his feet. "He--he took me by
surprise," explained the beaten man with a faint attempt at bluster.
"I'll bet I did," assented Jack cheerfully. "An' I'm liable to surprise
you again if you call me a liar a second time."
"You've said about enough, my friend," snarled the man who had been
spoken to as Dinsmore. "You get away with this because the fight was on
the square, but don't push yore luck too far."
The three men passed out of the front door. Roberts turned to the
barkeeper.
"I reckon the heavy-set one is Pete Dinsmore. The cock-eyed guy must be
Steve Gurley. But who is the young fellow I had the mixup with?"
The man behind the bar gave information promptly. "He's Rutherford
Wadley--son of the man who signs yore pay-checks. Say, I heard Buck
Nelson needs a mule-skinner, in case you're lookin' for a job."
Jack felt a sudden sinking of the heart. He had as good as told the son
of his boss that he was a rustler, and on top of that he had given him a
first-class lacing. The air-castles he had been building came tumbling
down with a crash. He had already dreamed himself from a trail foreman
to the majordomo of the A T O ranch. Instead of which he was a
line-rider out of a job.
"Where can I find Nelson?" he asked with a grin that found no echo in
his heart. "Lead me to him."