by Hal Dunning
CHAPTER XXIII
AN OLD FRIEND
Bill watched him for a few minutes, then swung into his saddle andstarted to ride the pasture. He had reached the lower end when he saw ahorseman galloping toward him from the direction of the ranch. A fewminutes later, he recognized the rider as Snoots Stevens, a tall, gawkyman of thirty with a long, thin face.
"Why for yuh out here?" McAllister asked after Stevens had brought hishorse to a sliding stop.
"Nothin'--only----" Snoots broke off and then added: "Where's that kid?"
"The kid--why?"
"Nothin'--only I hears them two twins talkin' about him plenty--I hearsthem say they wasn't goin' to take no chances, but was goin' to drophim," Snoots blurted out.
Bill McAllister had no reply for this. He chewed reflectively and triedto decide what this would lead to. It might be talk and then, again, itmight mean that their suspicions had hardened to certainty.
"Yuh better tell that kid to high-tail it out of here. Where is he?"Snoots demanded.
"I'll go tell him. He's over by them cottonwoods," Bill McAllisterreplied.
The two walked their horses toward the trees They were no nearer thantwo hundred yards before Allen awoke. A swift glance told him they werefriends. He glanced at the sun, calculated the time, and decided he hadnapped long enough. He took a thick sandwich of bacon and bread fromhis pocket and was contentedly gnawing at this when the two slippedfrom their horses.
McAllister had Snoots repeat his story. Allen frowned thoughtfully ashe leisurely finished his frugal meal. Having swallowed the last crumb,he negligently lit a cigarette.
"Yuh act as if them twins ain't nothin' a-tall," McAllister snapped."I'm tellin' yuh them hombres is hell on wheels, an' if they startsthrowin' lead at yuh, every one of the killers will join pronto."
"What yuh figger I better do--cut out an' run?" Allen asked with a grin.
McAllister had no suggestion to make, so he grew silent and shook hishead. Snoots looked curiously from the older to the younger man. Herecalled the scene in the bunk house the first night Allen arrived, andhis eyes popped out as he began to understand the truth.
Allen looked at McAllister with a broad grin.
"There ain't no use growlin'. I knows them twins is plumb homicidous,but I got to stay an' try to fool 'em, 'cause there ain't nothin' elseto do. So it won't do no good to fuss about it."
The old-timer realized that this was Allen's simple philosophy. Therewas no use worrying about a bridge until you came to it. As McAllisterwatched Allen saddle Honeyboy, he knew that all thought of the twinshad been dismissed from the boy's mind.
Snoots was about to speak, when a peremptory gesture of Allen's handheld him silent.
The little outlaw's head was cocked sideways like that of an animal whohas heard something and is unable to place it. He rose in his stirrupsand gazed across the brush, then a second later he relaxed.
"Two gents comin' with a dead man," he announced.
The other two strained their ears, but could hear nothing. It wasseveral minutes later before they heard the clink of a horse's hoofagainst a stone. Then, from out of the brush, two riders appeared,leading a third horse on which there dangled a strange pack.
The faces of the three watchers grew white and then hard. Theyinstantly recognized the two riders, as well as the man who was takinghis last ride. It was the garrulous Shorty who was tied across thesaddle. The two riders were both newcomers to the ranch.
"Where'd yuh find him? Who downed him?" Bill asked.
"Reckon he was dry-gulched," one said.
"We finds him over to Sunk Creek in that wash by them big whitestones," the other added.
"He had his gun in his hand, three shells empty, so I reckon he made afight for it," the first continued. "We scouted around an' finds wherethe killers lay behind some brush."
McAllister and Snoots stared at poor Shorty, but Allen's eyes were onthe men's faces as they told their story.
"Why don't yuh go track them killers?" Allen said, with apparentexcitement, to McAllister.
"Reckon I will."
The two riders headed toward the ranch. McAllister ordered Snoots tostay with the remuda until he returned, and then he and Allen headedtoward Sunk Creek.
"What did yuh want me to come out here for?" McAllister asked afterthey had ridden in silence for a time.
"'Cause Shorty wasn't killed where they found him," Allen explained."There was blood on his off-stirrup leather, and he was tied on withhis head on the near side, so I figger he was packed twice. Reckon hegot too curious--he tells me the other night he was plumb curiousnaturally."
A short time later, they were in the wash near the big white stoneswhere Shorty's body had been found. Allen circled around and found thetracks of three horses. He followed them with the sureness and cunningof the desert wolf, up the wash, across the range, and twisting amongthe brush. There were times when Bill McAllister could see no sign atall and believed that the outlaw had lost the trail. Then, after theyhad twisted about for a mile, he would see bent blades of grass orscuffled stones, proving that Allen had been following the trail withthe sureness of death itself.
The trail twisted this way and that, but always came nearer and nearerto the Hard Pan country.
"Yep, Shorty was tellin' me he was plumb curious to visit over there.Reckon he did an' gets cashed," Allen said. "Reckon if they kills agent for gettin' curious about this here Hard Pan country, I figgers Ibetter amble in there myself."
He warned Bill McAllister to say nothing about their having followedthe trail, and then he swung Honeyboy about and headed toward thewooded country that lay to the left of the Hard Pan. His companion rodesoberly back to the Double R Ranch.
It was not until the following morning that McAllister saw Allen again.The boy was sitting in the sun against the wall of the bunk house,laughing and talking with two of the Double R riders. Bill McAllistertried to signal that he wished to talk to him, but Allen ignored himcompletely. The old wrangler edged up close to the group by the bunkhouse.
"Yuh take that old mossback--I once heard if a gent chews regular thetobacco works up in his brain an' makes it solid," he heard Allen say.
Then the boy went on and added a ribald joke. Although his name had notbeen mentioned, Bill McAllister knew that he was the butt at whom Allenwas poking his fun, and the laughter that followed made the oldwrangler's cheeks burn. He took one step forward with the intention ofchastising the grinning kid. Then realization came to him--thatgrinning kid was Jim-twin Allen. For some reason of his own, Allen wasgiving the impression of disliking the old wrangler.
Just the same, Allen's joke had been a cruel one, and Bill McAllister'sface was flushed as he walked away. He was anything but in a good humorwhen he passed around the front of the ranch house and climbed into thebuckboard waiting there. He was to drive Dot Reed into town that day.
A few minutes later, Dot ran from the house and stepped into thebuckboard. She shot a flashing smile at McAllister as she announced shewanted to drive into town. The two half-broken horses hitched to thewagon were fresh, rearing to go and trying to break loose from the twomen who held them firmly by the bits. But Dot was an accomplishedhorsewoman, so McAllister changed places with her without any protest.She gave the word, the two men holding the reins sprang back, and thehorses leaped forward at a wild gallop and went tearing down the lane.With a shout she swung them through the gate and deftly sent themdashing down the trail toward Malboro. They covered several milesbefore the team allowed itself to be pulled down from its headlong gait.
"Yuh're lookin' real perky this mornin'," Bill McAllister saidcuriously.
"I am--I got some good news this morning," she smiled. She studied theweather-beaten face of the man beside her. "Do yuh think Slivers wasguilty of the murder?"
He stiffened and thought quickly for a moment, then said cautiously, "Ialways figgered as Slivers warn't the kind of man to dry-gulch a gent.
"
"He wasn't," she cried warmly. Then, after a moment, she added: "I gota letter from him this morning. He is coming back and is now trying toprove his innocence. Do yuh know that letter just appeared out ofnowhere? I don't know who brought it. It said I was to trust any onewho came to me an' said: 'My name's Allen; I come from Slivers Hart.'"
"I wouldn't go tellin' that to everybody," Bill McAllister warned.
"Isn't it exciting? I think Slivers has a friend working on the ranch."
"Look here, Dot. Mebbe Slivers has a friend in our outfit, mebbeSlivers is right close--but yuh got to remember that if yuh tol' thewrong person, mebbe that friend an' Slivers would die pronto. So don'tyuh go talkin' to nobody--nobody a-tall!" McAllister warned her.
The gravity of his expression made her eyes cloud with fear. Shethought for a moment and then nodded. "I won't tell any one," sheagreed.
It was close to noon when they arrived in Malboro. As they turned intothe livery stable, a rider swung from a big dun horse and addressed thehostler.
"Feller, don't be skimpin' the oats. Gents call me Toothpick Jarrick,'cause I sure whittle hombres, what rile me, to the size oftoothpicks." He removed one of those implements from the corner of hismouth and held it up for the holster's inspection. "Yuh see that?That's all what's left of the gent what last annoyed me. Now, on thecontrary, if I likes a gent, I buys him plenty of drinks."
The hostler grinned at him, then both became conscious of Dot Reed andBill McAllister.
The hostler ran forward to take the horses, while Toothpick stared infrank admiration at Dot Reed and regretted his own travel-stained anddusty appearance. He watched the old man and the girl walk down thestreet.
"Who's she?" he asked.
"That's Dot Reed, the owner of the Double R. That gent what is crossin'over to her is Spur Treadwell, her sweetie," the hostler explained ashe deftly unhitched the sweating horses from the buckboard.
Spur Treadwell walked across the road with an arrogant grace. He sweptoff his hat as he neared the girl, and then the three of them enteredMcCann's hotel.
"Yep, I'm tellin' the worl' that gent is the first gent I ever see whatis handsomer than me, an' I don't blame that gal none," Toothpick said.
"Shucks!" The hostler looked him up and down and then shook his head."Feller, yuh ain't never looked into a lookin'-glass, I'm bettin'plenty on that, 'cause my eyesight is plumb good an' I finds yuh aboutas handsome as a chuckwalla horned toad."
The two watered and fed the horses, then headed across the streettoward the Lone Star Saloon to attend to their own personal wants. Thesaloon was a long, low room. At the rear four men were playing pool;the bar itself was deserted, except for the McGill twins. When thehostler saw them, he attempted to back out, but Toothpick pushed himforward.
"Barkeeper, push out a bottle. Gents, what's yourn?" The last wasaddressed to the McGill twins.
Like a pair of puppets worked by the same string, the twins slowlyturned toward Toothpick and allowed their hard, cold eyes to wanderfrom his dusty boots up along his worn jeans to come to rest on hisface.
Toothpick's expression never changed as he met their searching gaze.The hostler fidgeted uneasily and looked everywhere excepting at thekillers.
At last, Sandy McGill broke the silence.
"Yuh a stranger?"
Toothpick remarked easily: "I sure am--an' I'm hopin' yuh gents willjoin me in a little liquor."
The twins made no answer to this request. Their expressions grewbleaker, their eyes colder. In spite of Toothpick's laughing eyes, theyread the challenge that lay within them. It was not the challenge of agunman--simply that of a brave man who would die rather than back down,even if faced by a thousand enemies. Simultaneously, remembrance cameto both the twins of something that had happened the night before. Itwas too soon to kill again. They relaxed.
Mac McGill reached for the bottle and filled both their glasses.Silently they raised them to Toothpick and all drank. The twins noddedto the bartender, who refilled the four glasses and they again drank insilence. The twins then turned and commenced to talk to each other in alow voice. They thus gave notice that they wished to be alone.
Later, Toothpick and the hostler crossed the street toward the hoteldining room. As they stepped up on the raised sidewalk on the fartherside, the hostler shivered and cast an admiring look at his companion.
"Feller, yuh was sure born lucky. I'm tellin' yuh them twins is worserthan wolves, rattlers, an' grizzlies done all up together! An' yuhdeliberately aggrify 'em. I figgers they is sure goin' to drop yuhpronto."
"Shucks! I seen plenty like them hombres," Toothpick said, as they tooktheir places at the dining table.
"Yuh has, like Hades! Them two twins is the worst an' fastest gunslingers in this whole world," the hostler said warmly after he hadordered his meal.
"Shucks! Yuh ever heard tell of the Allen twins? Them two yuh isbraggin' about ain't in the same class a-tall," Toothpick saidscornfully.
"They ain't!" the hostler cried. "Yuh know what I saw last night rightover there whar yuh got so darn salty? There was a young gent in therewhat thinks he is papa's bad boy, an' he has words with the McGilltwins. This young gent was a nester, an' McGill starts talkin' to him,makes him go for his gun' an then drops him dead as a herrin'. An' yuhknow he gets his gun out so fast an' puts it back faster, so nobodysees it an' nobody knows which of them McGills done the shootin' untilI see smoke comin' from Sandy's holster."
"Yuh didn't know which done the shootin'? 'Cause why--'cause yuh waspushin' sawdust with your nose huntin' a hole to hide in," Toothpicksaid, grinning aggravatingly. After a moment, he continued: "I'mbettin' them McGills picked a fight deliberate with that kid. There'sthat kind what gets a rep from shootin' kids an' old men. An' wasn'tthere any men in this town to take that kid's part?"
"Yuh see, both them twins was there," the hostler returned weakly, "an'they sorta got this town buffaloed. I ain't sayin' they wasn't no talkabout it bein' sorta like plain murder. But the kid was a no-goodnester."
"Plain no-good murder! Gunmen! Shucks! Yuh wait until they hears theWolf howl."
"The Wolf?"
Toothpick remembered his dead friend, Dutchy's, warning about some daydigging his own grave with his tongue, so he resolutely stopped it bycramming his mouth full of beefsteak.
