by Hal Dunning
CHAPTER XIX
DOT REED
The two went over their plans, arranging camp. Slivers was to remainthere while Allen went on to the ranch to ascertain if the feelingagainst Slivers was still vindictive. Jim Allen knew that the fame ofhis grays had traveled all over the West and that if he took both withhim, it would make the chances of his being recognized that muchgreater, so he hobbled Honeyboy and saddled Princess. The stallionuttered shrill neighs of protest at being left behind, and Princessbalked at leaving her constant companion.
Allen circled to the east, for he did not wish to leave a direct trailfrom Slivers' camp to the ranch. After an hour's ride, he struck theroad that ran south to Wichita Falls, where he turned to the north. Itwas close to sundown when he arrived at the small town of Malboro. Thiswas the typical cow town of the region. It consisted of a few stores, acombination 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 andthese gave him but a casual glance. If they classified him at all, theyput him down as some kid from a distant ranch. He wore no gun thatcould be seen, his shirt and jeans were tattered and torn. Princess wasthe personification of a tired, worked-out old horse. Her head drooped,her feet shuffled up little clouds of dust as she ambled along. No onewould have taken her for one of the most famous horses in the West, norher rider as the most famous outlaw of all time.
Allen swung from his horse before the Wichita Hotel, dropped the reinsover the hitch rack and stood for a moment gazing about like a gawkycountry boy on his first visit to town.
He wandered aimlessly along the street. Spying a store that displayedcandy bars in its window, he entered and reappeared a moment latersucking at a brightly colored candy bar. Munching the candy, he slippedthrough the doors of the hotel and entered the bar. There was no onethere, so he walked briskly toward the wall where they had posted thebills for the men who were wanted. He found one for himself, but hegave a sigh of relief when he noted it was an old one and did not havehis picture. He also found one for Slivers Joe Hart, which offered areward of five hundred dollars for that young man, dead or alive. Hewas reading this when some one entered the room. He glanced over hisshoulder and saw a stout, one-armed man, of about fifty, whom hesurmised to be "One-wing" McCann, the owner of the hotel.
"Hello, bub! Lookin' for your own picture or figgerin' on nabbin' someof 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 ajob," 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-wingasked.
"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 Spurgive 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 itdid not cost him effort or money, but his generosity did not run tostaking a ragged, homeless boy to a dinner and bed. He walked behindthe bar and helped himself to a drink.
Allen wandered out into the street. It was dark now, and he made for asmall restaurant he had seen when he entered the town. Having tuckedaway a beefsteak and some coffee, he wandered forth again and peeredinto the various saloons. He carefully studied each man he saw, butfound none whom he knew or who might know him.
The following morning, when One-wing McCann came from the hotel andclimbed into his buckboard, he found Allen waiting for him. He stared;his invitation of the evening before had been carelessly given andforgotten 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 towardPrincess.
"She ain't much to look at, but I've had her ever since I was a kid, soI reckon I'll ride her," Allen said aggrievedly, seeming to resentOne-wing's abuse of his horse.
"Suit yourself," McCann said indifferently.
He climbed into the buckboard and picked up the reins. He spoke to thehorses, and they started out of town at a fast trot. Allen held theindignant Princess down to an awkward gait that was half trot and halfgallop.
Allen was well pleased with his good luck. His arriving with McCannwould lessen the chances of his being recognized. He had felt that hewould run a great risk of this, for the Double R was not many milesfrom the Nations, the refuge of many a hunted man. And most outlaws andgunmen hated and feared him far more than many an honest citizen.
The road wound in and out between hills and followed the course of theLittle Deadman's Creek.
It was close to thirty miles from Malboro to the Double R, and it waswell past noon before the road dipped into the valley and the ranchbuildings appeared before them. The scene took Allen back to hisboyhood, for he had been raised in just such a place. He marked theplace where the old stockade had stood, for these buildings had beenbuilt in the days when the savage Comanche had laid claim to all thispart of the country. Within the old stockade, the eight or ten houseshad been built in the form of a rough square, with the main ranchbuilding forming the southern side. Where once there had been onlyloopholes, 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 beforethe 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 frontdoor.
"Hello, One-wing."
He was a powerfully built man, fully six feet three in height, with alarge 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, inSlivers' opinion, had killed Iky Small and then placed the guilt onSlivers. Allen had the uncanny gift of being able to look at any manand shrewdly estimate that man's real character. The little outlawutterly disregarded the outer signs that influence most men. He was notto be fooled by a genial manner, a straight-looking eye or any of theother outer attributes which are usually worn by men to hide their realthoughts and selves.
So now, after studying Spur Treadwell, he knew him to be a man of greatforce, a dominating character, yet one who was utterly unscrupulous,who would fight with the brutality of a bull and the savageness of atiger. He shrewdly surmised that the man's weakness was his vanity.Here was a man who possessed the force to make other people carry outhis wishes, but would fail because of his pride.
"Who's the kid?" Spur Treadwell asked, as he cast a searching glance atAllen.
"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 afact that Allen had come from Fort Worth. It was a little thing, but itmight some day serve to throw some suspicious person off the scent.
"All right, kid, yuh go aroun' back an' ask cooky to get yuh somechuck, an' I'll see yuh later," Spur Treadwell said.
"Yuh know right well, Spur, that 'Arizona' won't give him nothin' atthis time of the day," a young girl cried, as she stepped out of thedoor 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 hisgreat shoulders.
Dot Reed was a young girl of about nineteen, with dark, curling hairand vivid blue eyes. Bidding Allen to follow her, she reentered thehouse and led the way to the kitchen. She cut some cold meat and placeda platter of it on the oilcloth-covered table with some bread andbutter. Quickly she stirred up the embers in the kitchen stove, built afire, and placed a coffeepot on to boil. Allen followed her with hiseyes as she prepared the meal.
> "Gosh, I don't blame Slivers none at all, yuh sure are a real girl," hetold himself.
"I'm bettin' yuh're Dot Reed," Allen told her, with his mouth full ofmeat.
"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 inseven States," he said, grinning. "My handle is Jim Ashton."
She decided she liked this boy and she smiled again with thecondescension of a girl of nineteen looking down at a mere boy ofeighteen.
"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 hopedthat John Reed would help clear his name. It meant they had lost apowerful ally. Allen now understood the lines of worry he had noticedin the girl's face. He waited for her to go on.
Dot Reed looked at Allen and saw something in his face that inspiredher with confidence. There was a look of understanding that was unusualfor one of his age.
"Dad surprised two rustlers over near Hard Pan, an' they shot him," shefaltered.
"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 Treadwellhad 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 henow believed he had stumbled into a dark conspiracy that had a deepermotive 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, offear, sprang into them.
"What do you mean? Do you know him?"
Allen saw that he had stepped out of character. In order to gain timefor thought, he busied himself with his food for a moment. After he hadswallowed his meat, he looked up at her and grinned.
"I don't mean nothin'. Only the way yuh spoke, I sorta thought yuhliked him, an' it ain't right to believe nothin' of nobody unless yuhgive them a chance to tell their side," he blundered.
"But--the rustlers were blottin' the Double R to Double B, an' that'shis brand. He--he---- Some one said he killed a man an' he had to hideout. Spur said he came back an' tried rustlin' to get even."
"Did yuh see your dad after he was shot?" Allen asked quickly, asthought 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 heavytread sounded in the next room.
A moment later, the door opened and Spur Treadwell entered. Allennoticed he was so tall that he had to stoop as he came through thedoor. He glanced swiftly at Allen and then to the girl. His eyes werepenetrating, inquiring, and Allen saw a glint of suspicion in them.
"If yuh're goin' to work for me, yuh have to hustle down your grubfaster 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, butdon't forget I'm your guardian until yuh are of age an' that I do thehirin' an' firin'," Spur said tolerantly with the touch of authority inhis voice that one uses to an unruly child.
The girl flushed. Allen rose to his feet and picked up his hat. Amoment before, he had been irritated that Spur Treadwell had enteredbefore the girl had time to tell him what her father wrote before hedied, but he now felt that it made no difference, for he was certainthat he knew what John Reed had written, or at least what SpurTreadwell had said was written.
"Well, anyway, it was my fault the boy stayed here to talk," Dot saidafter a pause.
"Talk?" Again Spur glanced from the girl to Allen.
"He was tellin' me about his home," she said. She cast a quick glanceat Allen as if to beg him not to contradict her lie.
