“Before we go, Sheriff, I’d like to ask you a question,” said Bond as they rose. “Why did you give ’em notice up in Sunrise to lay off this Bovert if he came along?”
“Maybe I wanted to see him, for one thing,” replied the sheriff. “Maybe I intended to take him in before he could start more trouble than I had already. Maybe I wanted to see if he could get that crowd all tangled up and fighting with him and themselves and save me a lot of trouble by letting Sunrise clean up by itself.” He smiled faintly. “What made you stop here, Bond?”
“Me? Why I didn’t intend to stop here, Sheriff, I was on my way north. Then I met Gladys and found out something was up, and I stayed to play it out because . . . well, I liked her father, too.”
“You mean you stayed to help him on her account, young man,” said the sheriff sternly. “When I saw the way things were going, I sat back and looked on. You needn’t take all the credit to yourself. Now, let’s go.”
Several persons were in Farlin’s room at the hotel when Bond and Mills arrived. Farlin was up and dressed, save for his coat. The breakfast dishes still remained on a side table. Gladys was there, looking flushed and happy. George Reed, the amiable proprietor of the hotel, was present, and the round, genial face of the banker, John Duggan, beamed upon the assemblage.
“I was just thanking Dan, here, for helping to stop that no-good Lawson’s deviltry, Sheriff,” John Duggan boomed. “And there was something that outlaw didn’t know.” The banker chuckled and winked at the official. “He didn’t know about that secret vault I had put in under the old one. He’d have had some trouble getting into that strong box, eh, Mills?”
“You shouldn’t be telling the bank’s secrets.” Mills frowned.
“Well, it’s my bank,” Duggan said, laughing. “Of course I’m responsible to my directors,” he added hastily, clearing his throat. “I was going to talk a bit with Dan, here, about his future. He’s done a service that . . .”
“I’m not going to take any more credit for something I didn’t do!” Farlin broke in loudly, slapping the table with an open palm.
“Dan Farlin, you shut up!” thundered the sheriff. “And you just listen to what John has to say.”
“That’s the ticket,” said Duggan. “Now you’ve got your orders from headquarters. It’s like this. Sunrise is going to boom. The days of making a living in this country by gambling are about over. So we won’t think of you as a gambler any more, Dan. You have good business possibilities. You know men . . . which is important. And you know how to handle money outside of the slot in a gaming table. I’m going to fix up that ranch proposition of yours in Texas so you won’t lose too much. What you need is two or three months’ technical experience, we’ll call it, in our bank here. Then, late this fall, I’m going to put in a branch up at Sunrise and put you in charge of it.” The banker’s big, friendly face glowed.
“Me?” Farlin gasped. “Me . . . a banker?” He laughed shortly. “I’d do better to buy out the Red Arrow and run it for a living.”
“Some of Lester’s relatives are going to look after that,” said Duggan. “You’ll do better to take up my proposition and you’ll sort of dress up my bank.”
“I think,” drawled the sheriff, “that the matter is settled. Anyway, you’ll be close enough to keep an eye on him, John, and help him out when he needs it. And I suppose he’ll have a clerk or two to do the heavy work. He might even take some stock in it. Have you thought of that, John?”
“I’ve already decided how much he’ll take,” boomed Duggan.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Spring was blossoming into summer. It was evening and a cooling breeze was laving Sunrise in its magic setting of green. Red and golden banners of glory streamed in the western sky. Dan Farlin, straight, handsome, and elegant, stood on the little front porch of his cabin, looking down at the figures of a tall youth and a girl strolling on the grassy trail leading to town—the new town of Sunrise. Dan was up for over Sunday from the bank at Rocky Point.
“Yes, I’ve got a place,” Jim Bond was telling Gladys Farlin. “Only four miles west of town. A hundred and sixty acres of homestead and I’m buying a piece of grazing land that adjoins it on time. We can have a little home of our own, Gladys. Tell me, don’t you think it’s time you answered my question?”
“Don’t you think there’s something you should tell me before . . . I answer, Jim?” she said in a low voice.
“I know.” He nodded, taking her hands as they paused in the trail. “I was Bovert, sweetheart, but now I’m what I was in the first place. Just Jim Bond. And I owe it to you. Now you can answer, girlie, if you still trust me.”
The girl looked up at him out of shining eyes. “I still trust you, Jim,” she said softly. “I have to trust you because . . . because I love you.” Jim Bond barely heard the last words before he took her in his arms.
“Then that’s your answer,” he said in a thrilling voice.
“Yes,” she whispered as their lips met.
“And that’s that,” said Dan Farlin to himself as he turned back into the cabin. “I might have known it. Well, I guess I’ll have to be satisfied.”
“Was you speaking to me, Mister Dan?” asked the housekeeper as he entered the living room.
Dan Farlin roused himself at the unexpected voice. “Yes”—he smiled—“if you were quick enough to catch it.”
He lit a cigarette and sat down on the divan to await the two young people who were strolling hand in hand up the path. He had an idea that they had something to tell him.
And he was right.
THE END
About the Author
Robert J. Horton was born in Coudersport, Pennsylvania in 1889. As a very young man he traveled extensively in the American West, working for newspapers. For several years he was sports editor for the Great Falls Tribune in Great Falls, Montana. He began writing Western fiction for Munsey’s All-Story Weekly magazine before becoming a regular contributor to Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine. By the mid-1920s Horton was one of three authors to whom Street & Smith paid 5¢ a word—the other two being Frederick Faust, perhaps better known as Max Brand, and Robert Ormond Case. Some of Horton’s serials for Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine were subsequently brought out as books by Chelsea House, Street & Smith’s book publishing company. Although all of Horton’s stories appeared under his byline in the magazine, for their book editions Chelsea House published them either as by Robert J. Horton or by James Roberts. Sometimes, as was the case with Rovin’ Redden (Chelsea House, 1925) by James Roberts, a book would consist of three short novels that were editorially joined to form a “novel” and seriously abridged in the process. Other times the stories were magazine serials, also abridged to appear in book form, such as Unwelcome Settlers (Chelsea House, 1925) by James Roberts or The Prairie Shrine (Chelsea House, 1924) by Robert J. Horton. It may be obvious that Chelsea House, doing a number of books a year by the same author, thought it a prudent marketing strategy to give the author more than one name. Horton’s Western stories are concerned most of all with character, and it is the characters that drive the plots rather than the other way around. Attended by his personal physician, he died of bronchial pneumonia in his Manhattan hotel room in 1934 at the relatively early age of forty-four. Several of his novels, after Street & Smith abandoned Chelsea House, were published only in British editions, and Robert J. Horton was not to appear at all in paperback books until quite recently. Rainbow Range will be his next Five Star Western.
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