Hopalong Cassidy Sees Red

by Clarence E. Mulford

  Arnold rode up laughing, dismounted and entered the house with an agility rare to him. And he was vastly relieved. "Well! Well! Well!" he shouted, shaking hands like a pump handle. "I saw you ride over the hill an' got here as fast as Lazy would bring me. Red an' Hopalong! Our household gods with us in the flesh! And that scalawag off seeing the sights of strange towns when his old friends come to visit him. I'm glad to see you boys! The place is yours. Red and Hopalong! I'm not a drinkin' man, but there are times when—follow me while Peggy gets supper!"

  "Can I go with you, Dad?" demanded Charley.

  "You help Peggy set the table."

  "Huh! I don't care! Me an' Hoppy an' Red are goin' after bear, an' I'm goin' to use Red's gun."

  "Seems to me, Charley," reproved Arnold, "that you are pretty familiar, for a boy; and especially on such short acquaintance. You might begin practicing the use of the word 'Mister.'"

  "Or say 'Uncle Red' and 'Uncle Hopalong,'" suggested Margaret.

  "'Red' is my name, an' I'm shore 'Red' to him," defended that person.

  "Which goes for me," spoke up his companion." I'm Hopalong, or Hoppy to anybody in this family—though 'Uncle' suits me fine."

  "Then we'll have a fair exchange," retorted Margaret, smiling. "The family circle calls me 'Margaret' or Peggy.'"

  "If you want to rile her, call her Maggie," said Charley. "She goes right on th' prod!"

  "I'm plumb peaceful," laughed Red, turning to follow his host. "You help Mrs.—Margaret, an' when I come back you an' me'll figger on goin' after bear as soon as we can."

  CHAPTER III

  A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

  JOHNNY sauntered into Quayle's barroom and leaned against the bar, talking to Ed Doane. An hour or two before he had finished his dinner, warned his outfit again about the early start on the morrow, advanced them some money, and watched them leave the hotel for one more look at the town, and now he was killing time.

  "What do you think about Kane's?" asked Ed carelessly, and then looked up as a customer entered. When the man went out he repeated the question.

  Johnny cogitated and shrugged his shoulders. "Same as you. Reg'lar cow-town gamblin'-hall, with th' same fixin's, wimmin', crooked games, an' wise bums hangin' 'round. Am I right?"

  A group entered, and when they had been served they went into the hotel office, the bartender's eyes on them as long as they were in sight. He turned and frowned. "Purty near. You left a couple of things out. I'm not sayin' what they are, but I am sayin' this : Don't you ever pull no gun in there if you should have any trouble. Wait till you get yore man outside. Funny thing about that—sort of a spell, I reckon—but no stranger ever got a gun out an' workin' in Kane's place. They died too quick, or was put out of workin' order."

  Johnny raised his eyebrows: "Mebby no good man ever tried to get one out, an' workin'."

  "You lose," retorted Ed emphatically. "Some of 'em was shore to be good. It's a cold deck—with a sharpshooter. There I go again!" he snorted. "I'm certainly shootin' off my mouth today. I must be loco!"

  "Then don't let that worry you. I ain't shootin' mine off," Johnny reassured him. "I'm tryin' to figger—"

  A voice from the street interrupted him. "Hey, stranger! Yore outfit's in trouble down in Red Frank's!"

  Johnny swung from the bar. "Where's his place?" he asked.

  "One street back," nodded the bartender, indicating the rear of the room. "Turn to yore right—third door. It's a Mexican dive—look sharp!"

  Johnny grunted and turned to obey the call. Walking out of the door, he went to the corner, turned it, and soon turned the second corner. As he rounded it he saw stars, reached for his guns by instinct, and dropped senseless. Two shadowy figures pounced upon him, rolled him over, and deftly searched him.

  Back in the hotel Idaho stuck his head into the barroom. "Seen Nelson?" he asked.

  "Just went to Red Frank's this minute—his gang's in trouble there!" quickly replied Ed.

  "I'll go 'round an' be handy, anyhow," said Idaho, loosening his gun as he went through the door. Rounding the first corner, he saw a figure flit into the darkness across the street and disappear, and as he turned the second corner he tripped and fell over a prostrate man. One glance and his match went out. Jumping around the corner, he saw a second man run across an open space between two clumps of brush, and his quick hand chopped down, a finger of flame spitting into the night. A curse of pain answered it and he leaped forward, hot and vengeful; but his search was in vain, and he soon gave it up and hastened back to his prostrate friend, whom he found sitting up against the wall with an open jackknife in his hand.

  "What happened?" demanded Idaho, stopping and bending down. "Where'd he get you?"

  "Somethin' fell on my head—an' my guns are gone," mumbled Johnny. "I—bet I've been robbed!" His slow, fumbling search revealed the bitter truth, and he grunted. "Clean! Clean!"

  "I shoved a hunk of lead under th' skin of somebody runnin'—heard him yelp," Idaho said. "Lost him in th' dark. Here, grab holt of me. I'll take you to my room in th' hotel. Able to toddle?"

  "Able to kill th' skunk with my bare han's," growled the unfortunate, staggering to his feet. "I'm goin' to Kane's!" he asserted, and Idaho's arguments were exhausted before he was able to have his own way.

  "You come along with me—I want to look at yore head. An', besides, you ought to have a gun before you go huntin'. Come, on. We'll go in through th' kitchen—that's th' nearest way. It's empty now, but th' door's never locked."

  "You gimme a gun, an' I'll know where to go!" blazed Johnny, trembling with weakness. "I showed my roll in there, like a fool. Eleven hundred—mighty fine foreman I am!"

  "You can't just walk into a place an' start shootin'!" retorted Idaho, angrily. "Will you listen to sense? Come on, now. After you get sensible you can do what you want, an' I'll go along an' help you do it. That's fair, ain't it? How do you know that feller belongs to Kane's crowd? May be a Mexican, an' a mile away by now. Come on—be sensible!"

  "Th' SV can't afford to lose that money—oh, well," sighed Johnny, "yo're right. Go ahead. I'll wash off th' blood, anyhow. I must be a holy show."

  They got to Idaho's room without arousing any unusual interest and Idaho examined the throbbing bump with clumsy fingers, receiving frank statements for his awkwardness.

  "Shucks," he grinned, straightening up. "It's as big as an egg, but besides th' skin bein' broke an' a lot of blood, there ain't nothin' th' matter. I'll wash it off—an' if you keep yore hat on, nobody'll know it. I reckon that hat just about saved that thick skull of yourn."

  "What did you see when you found me?" asked Johnny when his friend had finished the job.

  Idaho told him and added: "Hoped I could tell him by th' yelp, but I can't, unless, mebby, I go around an' make everybody in this part of th' country yelp for me. But I don't reckon that's hardly reasonable."

  "Yo're right," grinned Johnny. "Well," he said, after a moment's thought, "I don't go back home without eleven hundred dollars, U. S., an' my guns; but I got to send th' boys back. They can't help me none, bein' known as my friends. Besides, we're all broke, an' they're needed on th' ranch. If I knowed that Kane had a hand in this, I'd cussed soon get that money back!"

  "Yo're shore plumb set on that Kane idear."

  "I showed that wad of bills in just two places: Ed's bar, an' Kane's joint."

  "Ed's bar is out of it if nobody else was in there at th' time."

  "Only Ridley, Ed, an' myself."

  "Somebody could 'a' looked in th' window," suggested Idaho.

  "Nobody did, because I was lookin' around."

  "If you go in Kane's an' make a gunplay, you'll never know how it happened or who done it; an' if you go in, without a gunplay, an' let 'em know what you think, some Mexican'll hide a knife in you. Then you'll never get it back."

  "Just th' same, that's th' place to start from," persisted Johnny doggedly. "An' from th' inside, too."

  Idaho frowned. "That may be so, but startin' it f
rom there means to end it there an' then. You can't buck Kane in his own place. It's been tried more'n once. I ain't shore you can buck him in this town, or part of th' country. Bigger people than you are suspected of payin' him money to let 'em alone. You'd be surprised if I named names. Look here: I better speak a little piece about this part of th' country. This county is unorganized an' ain't got no courts, nor nothin' else except a peace officer which we calls sheriff. It's big, but it ain't got many votes, an' what it has is one-third Mexican. Most Mexicans don't amount to much in a stand-up fight, but their votes count. They are all for Kane. We've only had one election for sheriff, an' although Corwin is purty well known, he won easy. Kane did it, an' when anybody says 'Corwin,' they might as well say 'Kane.' He is boss of this section. His gamblin'-joint is his headquarters, an' it's guarded forty ways from th' jack. His gang is made up of all kinds, from th' near decent down to th' night killer. When Kane wants a man killed, that man don't live long. Corwin takes his orders before an' after a play like this one. Yo're expected to report it to him. Comin' down to cases, th' pack has got to be fed, an' they have got to make a killin' once in a while. Even if Kane ain't in on it direct, he'll get most of that money across his bar or tables. To wind up a long speech, you better go home with yore men, for that ain't enough money to get killed over."

  "Mebby not if it was mine!" snapped Johnny. "An' I ain't shore about that, neither. An' there's more'n money in this, an' more than th' way I was handled. Somebody in this wart of a town has got Johnny Nelson's two guns—an' nobody steals them an' keeps 'em! I got friends, lots of 'em, in Montanny, that would lend me th' money quick; but there ain't nobody can give me them six-guns but th' thief that's got 'em. I'm rooted—solid."

  "All right," said Idaho. "Yo're talkin' foolish, but cussed if I don't like to hear it. So me an' you are goin' to hog-tie that gang. If I get Corwin in th' ruckus, I'll be satisfied."

  "Yo're th' one that's talkin' foolish," retorted Johnny, fighting back his grin. "An I'm cussed ifI don't like to hear it. But there's this correction: Me an' you ain't goin' to bulldog that gang at all. I am. Yo're goin' to sprawl on yore saddle an' light out for wherever you belong, an' stay there. Yo're a marked man an' wouldn't last th' swish of a longhorn's tail. Yore brand is registered—they got you in their brand books; but they ain't got mine. I'm not wearin' no brand. I ain't even ear-notched, 'though I must 'a' been a 'sleeper' when I let 'em put this walnut on my head. I'm a plain, ornery maverick. Think I'm comin' out in th' open? I don't want no brass band playin' when I go to war. I'm a Injun."

  "Yo're a little striped animal in this town—one of them kind that's onpleasant upwind from a feller," snorted Idaho. "How can you play Injun when they know yo're hangin' 'round here lookin' for yore money? Answer me that, maverick!"

  "I'm comin' to that. Can you get me an old hat? One that's plumb wore out?"

  "Reckon so," grunted Idaho, in surprise. "Th' clerk might be able to dig one up."

  "No, not th' clerk; but Ed Doane," corrected Johnny. "Now you think hard before you answer this one: Could you see my face plain when you found me? Could they have seen it plain enough to be shore it was me?"

  Idaho stared at him and a cheerful expression drifted across his face. "I'm gettin' th' drift of this Injun business," he muttered. "Mebby—mebby—cuss it, it will work! I couldn't see nothin' but a bump on th' ground along that wall till I lit a match. I'll get you a hat an' I'll plant it, too."

  Johnny nodded. "Plant anythin' else you want that don't look like anythin' I own. Be shore that hat ain't like mine."

  Idaho raised his hand as a sudden tramping sounded on the stairs. "That yore outfit?" he asked as a loud, querulous voice was heard.

  Johnny went to the door and called, whereupon Arch waved his companions toward their quarters and answered the summons, following his foreman into the room. Johnny was about to close the door when Idaho arose and pushed past him.

  "We been talkin' too loud," whispered the departing puncher. "You never can tell. I'm goin' out to sit on th' top step where there's more air," and he went on again, the door closing after him.

  Johnny turned and smiled at Arch's expression. "You boys leave at daylight on th' jump. I got to stay here. You can say I'm waitin' for th' chance to pick up some money—buyin' a herd of yearlin's cheap, or anythin' you can think of. Anythin' that'll stick. You'll have plenty of time to smooth it out before you get back home. I want you boys to scratch up every cent you've got an' turn it over to me. Any left of that I gave you after supper?"

  "Shore—quite some," grinned Arch. "We had better luck, down th' street. You must be aimin' to get a-plenty yearlin's, with that roll you got. What are we goin' to do, busted?"

  "I want a couple of Colts, too," continued Johnny. "You won't need any money. Th' waggin is well stocked—an' when you get back you can draw on Arnold." "We was goin' to stop at Highbank for a good time," protested Arch.

  "Have it in yore old man's hotel an' owe it to him," suggested Johnny.

  "Have a good time in my old man's place!" exclaimed Arch. "Oh, Judas!" He burst out laughing. "That'll tickle th' boys, that will!" The puncher looked searchingly at his foreman. "Hey, what's all th' trouble?"

  Johnny thought it would be wiser to post his companion and crisply told what had happened.

  Arch cleared his throat, hitched up his belt, and looked foolish but determined. "It's been comin' rapid, but I got it all. Yo're talkin' to th' wrong man. You want to fix up that story for th' ranch with some soft-belly that's ridin' that way. Better send a letter. We're all stayin' here. Fine bunch of—"

  "You can help me more by goin' back like nothin's happened," interrupted Johnny. "Th' ranch won't be worryin' me then, an' if you stayed here it might give th' game away. Besides, one man can live longer on th' money we got than four can, only have a quarter of th' chance to drink too much, an' only talk a fourth as much. That's th' natural play, an' everythin' has got to be natural."

  "That's th' worst of havin' a smooth face," grumbled Arch, ruefully rubbing his chin. "If I only had whiskers, I could shave 'em off an' be a total stranger; but I don't reckon I could grow a good enough bunch to get back here in time."

  Johnny laughed, his heart warming to the puncher. "Take you a year or two; an' there's more'n whiskers needed to hide from a good man. There's little motions, gait, voice—oh, lots of things. You can help me more if you go north. See Dave Green, tell him on th' quiet, an' ask him to send me down a couple hundred dollars. He can buy a check from th' Doc, payable to George Norton. There's a bank in this town. He's to send it to George Norton, general delivery."

  "Dave will spread it far an' wide," objected Arch. "He tells all he knows."

  "If he did," smiled Johnny, "it shore would be an eddication for th' man that heard it. He talks a lot—an' says nothin'. If he told all he knew, things would 'a' popped long ago on them ranges. I'm only wishin' he could get a job in Kane's!"

  "Gosh!" exclaimed Arch. "Mebby he can. He's a bang-up bartender."

  Johnny shook his head and laughed.

  "Well, I reckon you know best," said Arch. "If you say so, we'll go home—but it hurts bad as a toothache. An' as long as we're goin', we can start tonight—this minute."

  "You'll start at daylight, like honest folks," chuckled Johnny. "Think I want Kane to sit down an' figger why a lazy outfit got ambitious all at once? An' th' two boys that lend me their guns want to be ridin' close to th' waggin, on its left side, until they get out of town. I don't want anybody noticin' they ain't got their guns. Mebby their coats'll hide 'em, anyhow. But before you do anythin' else, get me a copy of that weekly newspaper downstairs. There's some layin' around th' office. Shore you got it all?"

  Arch nodded, and his foreman opened the door. Idaho glanced around and then went down the stairs and through the office, stopping at the bar, where he held a low-voiced conversation with the man behind it. Ed looked a little surprised at the unusual request, but Idaho's earnestness and anxiety told him enough and he a
sked no questions A few minutes later, after Idaho had disappeared into the kitchen, Ed told the clerk to watch the bar, and went up to his room, and dropped several articles out of the window before he left it again.

  When Idaho had finished scouting and planting the sombrero, a broken spur, and a piece torn from a red kerchief, he went into the barroom and grinned at his friend Nelson, who leaned carelessly back against the wall; and then his eyes opened wide as he saw the size of the roll of bills from which Johnny was peeling the outer layer. For two hours they sat and played California Jack in plain sight of the street as though nothing unusual had occurred, Johnny's sombrero pushed back on his head, the walnut handle of one of his guns in plain sight, his boots not only guiltless of spurs, but showing that they never had borne them, and his faded, soiled, blue neckerchief was as it had been all day. His mood was cheerful and his laughter rang out from time to time as his friend's witticisms gave excuse. To test his roll. he pulled it out again under his friend's eyes and thumbed off a bill, changed his mind, rolled it back again, and carelessly shoved the handful into his pocket.

  Idaho leaned forward. "Who th' devil did you slug? he softly asked."

  "Tell you later—deal 'em up," grunted Johnny, a sigh of satisfaction slipping from him. It had been one of Tex Ewalt's maxims never to be broke, even if carefully trimmed newspapers had to serve as padding, and in this instance, at least, Johnny believed his old friend to be right. The world finds bluff very useful, and opulence seldom receives a cold shoulder.

  At daylight three horsemen and a wagon went slowly up the little street, two men sticking close to each other and the vehicle, and soon became lost to sight. Two or three nighthawks paused and watched the outfit, and one of them went swiftly into Kane's side door. Idaho drew back from the corner of the hotel where he had been watching, nodded wisely to himself, and went into the stable to look after his horse.

  The little outfit of the SV stopped when a dozen miles had been put behind and prepared and ate a hurried breakfast. As he gulped the last swallow of coffee, Arch arose and went to his horse.