“I’ve got a idea,” says Hashknife. “Mebbe that little store over there
has overalls, Windy.”
“I would wear them,” says Mary Jane, and Hashknife grins like a fool and
says--
“Come on ma’am; if he’s got ’em we’ll get ’em, and if he ain’t got no
back room for yuh to dress in I’ll make him come out in the street.”
He had ’em all right. I dunno how Mary Jane got into ’em, but she did. I
let her ride my bronc, ’cause the one we brings for M. J. Haley wasn’t
no ladies’ saddle-animal. Yuh can mostly always sometimes tell about a
feller, if yuh see him on a high-minded bronc, and we wanted M. J. Haley
to measure right up to us.
Mary Jane never rode a horse before, but she was game. I knowed danged
well that them overalls ached a heap by the time we hit the Circle Dot,
but she don’t chirp a bit over discomfort.
Sing Lee has swamped out Mike’s bood-wah for her and we lets her move
right in. She ain’t been in there long when Bowers comes poking up the
main road. He naturally comes over to see us.
“Blubber has likely lost another cow,” says Windy, but Blubber didn’t
speak of lost cows. He rides up to us and says--
“Did he come?”
“Who?” asks Windy.
“The new feller who is goin’ to boss this outfit.”
“There ain’t no feller goin’ to boss this outfit,” states Windy.
“Zasso? Huh. Station agent says that yuh got a telegraft from M. J.
Haley who says he’s comin’ today. Train comes in, but nobody gets off.
Some of the Bar 20 was down there to see what he looks like.”
“Was they disappointed?” asks Hashknife.
“Natcherally. I comes up to see why he didn’t come. The sheriff was
wonderin’ who he was, and I thought maybe you’d--uh----”
“Did yuh?” says Hashknife. “Your thoughts are like your talk,
Bowers--kinda suckin’ mud. What’s it any of the sheriff’s business?”
“I dunno. Say, Baldy Willis died this mornin’.”
“----!” says Windy, soft-like. “Poor old Baldy.”
“Uh-huh,” admits Bowers. “But it’s just like I said--he didn’t have no
danged business on this range, nohow. When a feller has been warned to
keep off----”
“Let your voice fall, Blubber,” says Windy. “You’ve talked enough.
_Sabe?_ Me nor none of this outfit had anything to do with killin’
Baldy, and the next _hombre_ what insinuates that we did is goin’
kihootin’ to his God or beat me on the draw. That goes for you, the
sheriff or any of that cow-stealin’ Bar 20 outfit. _Sabe?_”
“Honest to ---- I ain’t insinuatin’ nothin’” wails Bowers. “Whatcha
ridin’ me fer? I’ve lost twenty-seven head of cows in the last week, and
I ain’t----”
“Yo’re all packed, wired and billed for shipment--git off this ranch!”
yowls Windy. “I don’t care if somebody steals all your cows! I hope they
do. I hope you’re the last calf they slickears. I hope they slaps every
brand in the State register on your hide and then adds a dewlap and
notches your ears.”
“That ain’t no way to talk,” grumbles Blubber, tearful-like. “I try to
git along and----”
“You better do somethin’ besides try to git along,” says Windy. “You
just ‘get along,’ Bowers, and get along fast.”
Bowers swings his horse around and points toward home.
“What did he want?”
We turns and looks at Mary Jane, standing in the doorway.
“Aw-w, he’s a danged maul-headed prairie-dog, which has to chirp every
time somebody lifts one of his dogies,” says Windy.
* * * * *
Mary Jane laughs and shakes her head.
“I don’t think I understand.”
“He means that this person ain’t such a much,” explains Hashknife, “and
that he gets husky in the neck because somebody rustles his beef.”
“You might try saying it different,” says she, looking at me.
“Well,” says I, “this whippoorwill is about three jumps short of being
half-witted and he----”
“No,” says Mary Jane, “that isn’t exactly clear either.”
“He ain’t got good sense, ma’am,” says Hashknife.
“The ---- I ain’t!” I snaps, ’cause it makes me mad.
“Back up--you’re in your own loop,” grins Hashknife; “I was speakin’
about Bowers, Sleepy,” and then he turns to Mary Jane.
“This person ain’t got good sense, ma’am. He thinks that somebody is
stealin’ his cows and he comes over here to talk about it.”
“Oh, I see; who does he suspect?”
“Us, I reckon,” says Windy. “They think we killed Baldy Willis, too.”
“Yuh better tell her the whole sad tale, Windy,” says Hashknife.
“Remember she ain’t wise to that layout here.”
“That’s right, Hashknife, I forgot I want to give her some of the old
man’s things too.”
“Let’s go inside,” says Mary Jane. “It’s too hot out here.”
“You tell her, Windy,” says Hashknife. “Me and Sleepy will be down at
the bunk-house.”
In about half an hour we hears a pistol-shot and we tumbles out of the
bunk-house, heeled for trouble. There ain’t nobody in sight, but pretty
soon Windy comes down to see us.
“Hear her shoot?” he asks. “Didja?”
“Her shoot?” parrots Hashknife.
“Uh-huh. Mary Jane Haley fired her first shot. Honest to gosh. Missed my
ear by the breadth of a gnat’s whisker.”
“Shootin’ at you?”
“We-e-e-ll, kinda at me, Hashknife. I tells her the story of the Circle
Dot and then I gives her old Mike’s effects, which included his old .45
Colt. She looks at the old gun, and says, ‘Do I have to carry a gun like
that?’
“I says, ‘It’s a danged good gun, if it ain’t too hard to pull.’ I shows
her what I means and she tries it. Dang the luck! I thought Mike emptied
it into Blazer, but I reckon he only shot five times.”
“Scare her?” I asks.
“I dunno. I went under the sofy like a picket-pin when he sees a hawk.
When I peeked out she’s still got the gun in her hand, and is kinda
feelin’ of the spot over her heart. I loaded it for her, but made her
leave it on the table until I got to the door.”
“We’ll teach her how to shoot,” says I.
“No you won’t,” objects Windy, “but we will have to teach her to point
it at enemies instead of friends.”
“Here comes the sheriff,” says Hashknife. “Wonder what he wants?”
The sheriff rides in the gate and heads toward the house, so we moves up
and meets him at the steps.
“Nice large afternoon,” says Hashknife, pleasant-like.
The sheriff gives a short nod and looks at the open door of the house.
Then he turns to Windy, and says----
“I’d like to see M. J. Haley.”
“Yuh would?”
“I said I would.”
“What for?”
Windy says this kinda soft-like and the sheriff squints at him for
several seconds before he says----
“Baldy Willis died.”
“Yeah, we heard about it,” says Hashknife. “What’s M. J. Haley got to do
with Baldy Willis’ demise?”
“Baldy was shot on the Circle Dot Range,” says the sheriff,
meaning-like. “He didn’t have no business on this range, I reckon,
but--I want to see the owner of this outfit. _Sabe?_ He’s responsible,
or I’ll hold him responsible until I can put the deadwood on the guilty
man.”
“Snag Thorn send yuh?” asks Hashknife.
“He did not! He told me to keep out of this, but I’m the sheriff,
and----”
“Bein’ sheriff means quite a lot to you, don’t it?” asks Hashknife.
“You’d just be plumb miserable if yuh wasn’t sheriff, wouldn’t yuh,
Allen?”
“I didn’t come here to listen to you yappin’,” says he. “I want the man
who owns this here ranch. _Sabe?_”
“Were you looking for some one?”
We all turns and looks at the door where Mary Jane is standing. The
sheriff looks at her and then at us.
“There’s the owner of the Circle Dot,” says Hashknife. “Try to arrest
her.”
The sheriff stares at her for a long time and then looks at us.
“Yuh figure she had anythin’ to do with the killin’ of Baldy?” asks
Windy.
The sheriff sort of starts to reach up to his hat but his hand stops and
rubs his chin. Then he turns his horse around and starts for the gate.
He just says one word, and that is kinda like he was speakin’ to
himself----
Mary Jane looks at us and then at Hack Allen, who is poking off down the
road. Hashknife steps up beside her and then grins at us.
“The boss was sure heeled,” says he, and then he took her hand from the
folds of her skirt, and I’m a liar if she didn’t have the .45 Colt. In
the other hand she’s got a small bottle. Hashknife peers at the bottle
and then kinda grins back of his hand.
“I--I--Mr. Woods said it needed oil, so I--” says she.
“Uh-huh,” says Hashknife, serious-like. “But yuh hadn’t ought
to--uh--ma’am. I reckon a gun has feelin’s and mebbe--well, I’ve took
that kinda stuff myself, and I sure mixed her plentiful with lemon
juice, and even at that--uh----”
“I thought that oil was oil,” says she.
“Oh sure,” nods Hashknife. “It sure is, but--uh--that old six-shooter
ain’t sick. _Sabe?_ I’ll get yuh some gun-oil.”
“Would yuh have shot at the sheriff?” asks Windy.
“It--it seems to be the thing around here,” says she, serious-like.
Hashknife stares at her for a moment and then at us.
“Ma’am, I’m plumb glad you wasn’t a he. Some fellers are so danged
timid.”
“I am,” says she. “I have never done anything more serious than to sell
lace in a department store. The lawyer found me there and I had just got
my week’s pay, and also a notice that my services were no longer
required. The lawyer was lovely to me, and--he said that Mr. Hartley was
a close friend of his.”
“Sure was close once,” nods Hashknife. “Old Whiskers with his hay-hook
wasn’t far behind us either. I reckon there’s a heap of difference
between the he-men out here and the ones in town. Cow-punchers are
rough, ma’am, but they don’t mean half what they do or say. I hope
you’ll excuse Windy and Sleepy if they makes bad breaks at times ----
knows I’ve done my dangest for ’em.”
* * * * *
“I knew a cowboy once,” says she. “I know now that he was a cowboy, but
he didn’t say he was. It was in San Francisco a year ago. There were
four of us--another girl, and two young men from the store and myself.
We went slumming down to Chinatown and the Barbary Coast.
“We were up in a Chinese noodle-house when a number of young men came
in; I think they were drunk. One of them tried to kiss me. The young man
who was with me asked him to stop and another of the crowd knocked him
down.
“The Chinese were frightened. Some of the other men grabbed Gladys,
and--oh, it was awful! I saw one of the men hit a Chinaman with a chair
and then one of them grabbed me and tried to pull me across the table,
but just then a man came from somewhere.
“He was wearing a big hat and I remember that he did not have any
necktie or coat on, and he was smiling. He crashed into the crowd and
tore his way to us girls, and then I saw his hand swinging a gun, and it
hit a man on the head--then another!”
Mary Jane’s eyes were as big as saucers as she describes it.
“Then somebody fired a shot and I saw the blood trickle down his cheek
where something had hurt him and he stopped hitting and began shooting.
The booth was filled with smoke in a moment and the shots ceased. I
heard him say----
“‘Ma’am, I reckon we better get out of here before the police and the
undertaker comes.’
“I don’t know how we ever got out of there. I had to step over men who
were lying on the floor and then I found myself in the open air, and
Gladys was crying, and the man got a hack and took us home. I tried to
thank him, but he just grinned, and then I--I grabbed him and kissed
him! Honest I did. And as I ran into the house I heard him say----
“‘Well, I’ll be hornswoggled!’
“I have never seen him since then. I know I did not thank him enough,
but if I ever see him again----”
“Yuh done quite a lot for him,” says Hashknife. “More than the lawyer
done for me. Still, I reckon, he didn’t feel like kissin’ me. Did the
police make any fuss over it?”
“We looked in the papers the next day, and it told about a fight in
which three gangsters were killed and two more wounded. They were all
wanted by the police, but it said nothing about the cowboy. If I ever
see him again I want to thank him again.”
“Sure,” says Windy; “we all do. He sure done us a favor, too, ma’am.”
“I wish you would call me Mary Jane.”
“All right,” grins Hashknife, “but you’ve sure got to cut out misterin’
us, Mary Jane. We’re sort of ele-mental, as the poet would say. Hash,
wind and sleep. Ain’t that elements? Haw! Haw! Haw!”
“Well,” says Mary Jane, grinning, “yuh might give me that gun-oil, so’s
I can limber up this old six-gun.”
“Wel-l-l-come to our cow-camp!” explodes Windy. “That sounded just like
old Mike, y’betcha. Mary Jane, if yuh wants anything out of the ordinary
in cuss words I can loan yuh some that the old man used to patronize.”
“They’ll come to her,” grins Hashknife. “Wait till she gets mad.”
A little later here comes a tall gray-haired feller in a buckboard. He
drives up to the bunk-house and speaks to Windy.
“Howdy, judge,” says Windy. “Meet Mister Hartley and Mister Stevens.
Gents, this is Judge Waugh.”
We shakes hands all around and then the judge says:
“Windy, I came up here to have a talk with you. I suppose you heard
about Pete Kelso getting shot.”
“When did this happen?” asks Windy.
“About noon or a little later--over by Cactus Cañon. Jimmy and Al Orr
found him. Shot with a .45-70. Likely live, I guess.”
“----!” exploded Windy. “Why, we came that way--huh!”
“Jimmy and Al said they thought it was you. They said there was four in
the bunch.”
“Cactus Cañon is on the Circle Dot Range, too,” says Windy,
serious-like, and the judge nods.
“Yes.”
“We don’t know who done it, judge,” says Hashknife. “It’s a cinch that
we didn’t. Somebody ripped my saddle all to pieces the other day, when I
rides on to Bar 20 land.”
“Tell me about it.”
Hashknife gives him the details.
“I don’t know,” says the judge. “Of course there has been bad blood
between these outfits for years. Each accuses the other of rustling, but
neither has any evidence. This shooting is getting serious. Lost any
stock lately, Windy?”
“I dunno. I do know that I seen seven cows with young calves down by the
old salt springs, and the next day I finds seven bawlin’ cows and nary a
calf. It ain’t reasonable to reckon that them cows all deserted their
offsprings.”
“The Bar 20 is boiling,” states the judge. “Snag Thorn is keeping cool,
but he’s cool just like his father used to be. The sheriff wanted to
arrest all of you, but Snag told him to keep out of it and let him
attend to you. They had quite a quarrel. I met Bowers as I came out, and
he told me he lost some more cows and a couple of young horses. I guess
Bowers is just about cleaned out.”
“Well,” says Hashknife, “we ain’t honin’ for trouble, but if they comes
out here I reckon we’ll do like they do in Spain when it rains.”
“How’s that?” asks the judge.
“Let it rain.”
“_Um-yah_” says the judge, grinning. “Well, I hope it won’t be a
cloudburst, boys. I’ve always kinda figured that some day something is
going to bust in the Sundown country. Bar 20 says that Circle Dot are
rustlers, and----”
“We says that they are,” finishes Windy. “She’s a de-plorable fact,
judge.”
“Bowers loses cows, too,” grins Hashknife. “Everybody loses some. I
reckon there’s goin’ to be work for the legal lights before long.”
“_Hm-m-m_,” says the judge; “I hope so, Hartley, but it kinda looks like
there wouldn’t be nothin’ but cripples to go to court.”
After the judge has gone Hashknife goes out and sets on the top pole of
the corral where he acts like he’s thinking. I throwed a rock at him but
he just ducked, stuck in that position and kept on thinking.
“Let him alone,” advises Windy. “That whippoorwill has somethin’ on his
mind. I jist worked long enough with him to respect him with a gun or
brains.”
“He sure can shoot,” I admits, but Hashknife never looked at us.
Me and Windy went down to the bunk-house and argued over the rules of
two-handed poker for about an hour, when the door opens and there stands
Sing Lee, with his hands wrapped up in his apron.
“Missie gone fo’ lide,” says he, offhanded-like.
“Ride?” says Windy, foolish-like, and Sing nods.
“Yessum. Yo’ _sabe_ glay hoss, Tinker name?”
“Uh-huh.”
“She lide glay hoss day she come. Yo’ _sabe?_ I t’ink she lide allesame
glay hoss today. Blimeby I see glay hoss Tinker name. She no like, yo’
_sabe?_ She allesame like glay hoss like Tinker. Me seeum.”
Windy sets there, staring at Sing, and then he gets slow-like to his
feet.
“Wait a minute, Sing. She rode a gray horse, but didn’t ride Tinker?”
“Yessum. Tinker down by collal. She rideum glay hoss. Yo’ _sabe_?”
Windy beats it for the door and I went behind him. Down by the corral
stands the gray horse she rode the day she came here. We went into the
stable, but the saddle ain’t on the peg.
“What’s all the fuss about?” I asks.
“My ----!” wails Windy. “She hooked a hull on to Cheater!”
“Meaning what?”
“Cheater!” wails Windy. “That sun-fishin’ man-eater from Wyoming. Looks
like Tinker. Oh, ---- it! Sleepy, that hawse is plumb loco! He might go
good for a mile and then dump her off and walk on her. He’s a ----
tiger!”
“Glay hoss,” says Sing, stony-faced, coming up to us; “look like Tinker,
yo’ _sabe_? Me t’ink ---- bad hoss, when me see Tinker. Mebbyso she get
dump. Me no see her go. Where Lashknife? Mebbyso he go too.”
“I suppose that ---- fool rode a gentle bronc,” wails Windy. “Where did
she go-o-o-o?”
“You must ’a’ herded sheep,” says I. “I knowed a shepherd who used to
say, _‘Ya-a-a-a-a-s_ and _no-o-o-o-o_,’ just like you do.”
“Funny, ain’tcha?” he howls. “Lady in peril, and you gets comical.”
“What do yuh want me to do--turn a handspring or climb a tree? We don’t
know where she went, do we?”
“My ----, you can ask useless questions, Sleepy! Don’t know where she
went, do we? I ask yuh to answer it yourself. You makes me tired, I tell
yuh. Just stand around and ask fool questions, when a-a----”
“Lady is in peril. Now, just what had we ought to do. Windy? Can yuh
track that pet man-eater? Got any idea what direction said horse favors
to go? If you----”
“Look!” yelps Windy. “----’s bells, look what’s comin’!”
* * * * *
Up the road comes a cloud of dust and in and out of that cloud goes a
dust-colored horse, bucking like a crazy animal. Sunfish, worm fence,
swapping ends and spinning like a top. Straight for the gate it comes,
bucking straight for us. We climbs the corral fence just as the animal
pitches straight into it, and goes down in a splinter of cottonwood
poles and a cloud of dust.
I fell off the fence and got up just in time to see Hashknife untangle
himself and step away from the horse. He looks down at it, trying to get
up, and then at Windy.
“That’s a ---- vigorous animal, Windy,” says he foolish-like, and then
he takes a deep breath and says----
“Get your Winchester and saddle--quick!”
“Why--uh--why--” grunts Windy.
“----!” he explodes. “Get into action, will yuh! I’ll tell yuh later.”
Well, it didn’t take us long to saddle up, get our rifles and breeze off
down the road, Hashknife in the lead.
“Mary Jane,” he grunts, as we swing in close to him. “She saddled that
gray bronc. Wanted to ride, asked me to go with her. I didn’t like the
looks of that gray, so I traded with her. We went halfway to town. I saw
that the gray wasn’t bridlewise, but he didn’t act bad until we met the
sheriff, and then he got restless. _Sabe?_”
“Me and the sheriff had words. That gray started to pitchin’, and I
busted a rein and couldn’t pull his head, and--and the jug-head bucked
all the way back home. First runnin’ bucker I ever seen. My ----, but
that bronc can hop, skip and jump somethin’ awful.”
“Mary Jane?” asks Windy. “Where is she?”
“They took her with ’em,” says Hashknife, kinda whispering. “The sheriff
and Bowers and a couple of them Bar 20 _hombres_.”
“Took her!” explodes Windy. “What for, Hashknife?”
“Said she owned the Circle Dot and they wanted her. Seems that that last
feller that was shot died. I called the sheriff and he drawed, but I
shaded him a little.
“What in ---- do yuh keep a bronc like that around for?”
“I thought it was the same gray that Mary Jane rode, honest I did. I
never looked at it close but I seen it kinda hump under the saddle, and
I thinks maybe it feels cocky and I was goin’ to shake it up a little
but I was the one that got shook. Couple of bullets fanned past me, but
they’d ’a’ had to have a shotgun to hit me on the wing thataway.”
“What are we goin’ to do?” I asks.
“Do? Sleepy, we’re goin’ to get our hoss back or they’ll have to build a
new town. I’m goin’ through that town like quicksilver through a sieve.”
“And land in the penitentiary,” says I. “Cool off a little, Hashknife,
and do a little thinking. There’s only three of us, yuh understand.”
“They’ll be lookin’ for us,” opines Windy, and then he asks--
“Was Snag Thorn with ’em?”
“Nope. One feller had a broken nose and a cock-eye, and the other had
bat-ears and a yellow mustache.”
“‘Blondy’ McClure and ‘Peeler’ Malloy,” says Windy. “As fine a pair of
horse-thieves as ever wore guns. Them two sure do show lack of Sunday
schoolin’, and I reckon this is the time that we teaches ’em a few
morals. Lemme get my old 40-82 lined up on either one--just lemme,
tha’sall.”
“You too,” says I, complaining-like. “Want to kill somebody? You two
_hombres_ hankers for gore regardless, don’t yuh? Regular killers, eh?
It’s a danged good thing you has a cool brain among yuh.”
“Cool ----!” snorts Hashknife. “Froze since the Winter of the big wind.”
“Course, this stealin’ of our lady boss don’t mean nothin’ to you,” says
Windy, sarcastic-like, easing himself in the saddle when his bronc kinda
loosens up. “You better go back and chop wood.”
“We won’t need any heat,” says I and everybody shuts up. We swung into
town and rode straight to a crowd in front of the saloon. On the
sidewalk lays a feller who looks a heap like he had met the enemy. We
jerks up in front of ’em and looks the bunch over. Hashknife and Windy
cocked their rifles and I’m expectin’ things to start whooping. This
bat-eared, yellow-mustached _hombre_ steps out of the crowd, and Windy
spurs in close to him and says:
“Talk out loud, Blondy. Where’s the lady?”
“Aw-w-w-w_, I dunno!” wails Blondy.
“She went, ---- it!”
“Anybody around here got any intelligence?” asks Hashknife, looking
around, and then he sees the bartender.
“What happened?” asks Hashknife.
“I didn’t see it all,” says the bartender. “I heard somebody yell that
here comes the sheriff and some feller with a lady, and I just got to
the door when I hears a gun pop, and I seen Peeler’s horse buckin’
across the street, draggin’ Peeler. Then I sees Snag Thorn running for
his horse and I seen a female on a horse runnin’ down the street. The
sheriff took a shot at somebody--I think it was Snag, but he didn’t hit
him.”
“The lady shot Peeler,” says a skinny puncher.
“She did not!” declares a little bow-legged puncher. “That first shot
hit the casing of the store door right beside me. Snag Thorn killed
Peeler.”
“Just the same, she shot at somebody.”
“Mebbe it was me then,” grins bow-legs.
“Where’d the sheriff go?” asks Windy.
“To his office, I reckon,” says the bartender. “Him and Bowers was
together.”
“Do yuh reckon Mary Jane went home?” asks Windy.
“She didn’t pass us,” says I.
“The female took a shot at Peeler,” insists the skinny puncher. “I seen
it. Peeler yanked his gun to--well, just then Snag shot from over there
on the sidewalk, and I seen Peeler fall off. I dunno which shot hit
him.”
“I tell yuh that first shot hit.”
We whirled and rode for the sheriff’s office and didn’t wait to hear the
finish of the argument. Their two horses are outside the door. We hops
right off and went inside. The sheriff and Bowers are in there. Bowers
is setting on the table, working some shells into a Winchester, while
the sheriff is washing his wrist where Hashknife’s bullet creased it.
Bowers drops the rifle and puts his hands up, but the sheriff keeps
right on bathing his wrist. He just looks at us and then back to his
wash-basin. Hashknife says:
“Sheriff, for a dobie cent I’d fill you full of lead. Where is Miss
Haley?”
“I dunno. Mebbe she’s at the Bar 20 by this time. I reckon Snag Thorn
will know what to do with her when he catches her.”
“What in ---- does he want her for?” asks Hashknife.
“Snag’s lost two men and a lot of cows and maybe he’s seein’ a chance to
get even.”
_Bang!_
The wash-basin hops right out from under the sheriff’s hands and a
splash of soapy water hits him right in the face.
“Say it this way-- ‘He thinks he’s lost cows,’” advises Hashknife,
rubbing his thumb softly over the hammer of his cocked Winchester.
“Th-thinks he’s lost cows,” mumbles the sheriff, shaking the soap out of
his eyes.
“I lost fifteen head and--” began Bowers, but Windy jabs him in the ribs
with his rifle-barrel.
“Who in ---- cares what you lost? You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Did Snag Thorn follow Miss Haley out of town?” I asks.
“Yeah! She shot one of his men, didn’t she? Maybe he rode to the ranch
to get the rest of his men. Said he was going to clean out the Circle
Dot while he had men enough left to help him.”
“Said that, did he?” asks Windy.
“He did. Whatcha mean by comin’ down here and actin’ like this? I’m the
sheriff of this county and I won’t stand----”
“I sure apologizes to the wash-basin,” says Hashknife, “but that’s as
far as I’ll go, Allen. You didn’t have no right to bring her here.”
“Didn’t I? Two men killed on her ranch, and cows stolen and----”
“Whope!” snaps Hashknife. “You never seen any of them on the Circle Dot.
You don’t know that they’ve lost cows.”
“Snag said----”
“Sure. Stick to what you heard, sheriff--not to what you think you
know.”
“She shot Peeler Malloy,” states Bowers.
“You’re a liar!” snaps Windy.
“Well,” sniffles Bowers. “Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought Blondy
said----”
“There’s too danged much talk about what somebody else said,” says
Hashknife. “Come on, boys; let’s get travelin’.”
“Where yuh goin’?” asks the sheriff.
“Goin’ to find out who has been doin’ all this dirty work. _Sabe?_”
“Zasso? Lemme tell yuh I’m the sheriff around here and I----”
The sheriff took hold of Hashknife’s left arm, like he was goin’ to stop
him, and I said a short prayer for Mister Allen. Hashknife had that
Winchester in his left hand, and it looked like the sheriff was goin’ to
try to take hold of it, but Hashknife’s right fist hooked him under the
chin and he lit on the back of his neck in the corner of his office and
stayed there.
“He-he’s goin’ to be sore as ----,” states Bowers, awed-like.
“Little liniment will fix him,” says Hashknife. “Come on, boys.”
* * * * *
We went out of that town like bats out of ---- and we never broke a
running lope until we hit the ranch. Mary Jane ain’t there. Sing Lee
says he ain’t seen her.
“What will we do now?” asks Windy, but Hashknife whirls his bronc around
and we follers him. We sailed out of the gate and hit straight for the
hills.
“You aimin’ to hit the Bar 20?” yells Windy.
“Just like a ton of lead,” says Hashknife. We tore across the dead-line,
and never slowed up until the Bar 20 ranch-house is in sight.
“Don’t shoot until yuh has to,” advises Hashknife.
We ripped right into their front yards, and set up our horses. Just then
Snag Thorn limps out of the front door and looks us over. I’ll say this
much for him; he didn’t act a danged bit nervous.
“Where’s our boss?” asks Hashknife.
“Your boss?” he says, foolish-like.
“The lady you followed out of town.”
“Oh!”