Oh, You Tex!. William MacLeod Raine

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СКАЧАТЬ a moment on those of the line-rider as she nodded good-bye. Jack had never before seen Ramona Wadley, nor for that matter had he seen her brother Rutherford. Since he had been in the neighborhood, both of them had been a good deal of the time in Tennessee at school, and Jack did not come to the ranch-house once in three months. It was hard to believe that this dainty child was the daughter of such a battered hulk as Clint Wadley. He was what the wind and the sun and the tough Southwest had made him. And she—she was a daughter of the morning.

      But Wadley did not release Ramona. "Since you're here you might as well go through with it," he said. "What do you want?"

      "What does a woman always want?" she asked sweetly, and then answered her own question. "Clothes—and money to buy them—lots of it. I'm going to town to-morrow, you know."

      "H'm!" His grunt was half a chuckle, half a growl. "Do you call yoreself a woman—a little bit of a trick like you? Why, I could break you in two."

      She drew herself up very straight. "I'll be seventeen, coming grass. And it's much more likely, sir, that I'll break you—as you'll find out when the bills come in after I've been to town."

      With that she swung on her heel and vanished inside the house.

      The proud, fond eyes of the cattleman followed her. It was an easy guess that she was the apple of his eye.

      But when he turned to business again his manner was gruffer than usual. He was a trifle crisper to balance the effect of his new foreman having discovered that he was as putty in the hands of this slip of a girl.

      "Well, you know where you're at, Roberts. Deliver that herd without any loss for strays, fat, an' in good condition, an' you won't need to go back to line-ridin'. Fall down on the job, an' you'll never get another chance to drive A T O cows."

      "That's all I ask, Mr. Wadley," the cowboy answered. "An' much obliged for the chance."

      "Don't thank me. Thank York's busted laig," snapped his chief. "We'll make the gather for the drive to-morrow an' Friday."

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

TEX TAKES AN INTEREST

       Table of Contents

      Jack Roberts was in two minds whether to stop at the Longhorn saloon. He needed a cook in his trail outfit, and the most likely employment agency in Texas during that decade was the barroom of a gambling-house. Every man out of a job naturally drifted to the only place of entertainment.

      The wandering eye of the foreman decided the matter for him. It fell upon a horse, and instantly ceased to rove. The cow-pony was tied to a hitching-rack worn shiny by thousands of reins. On the nose of the bronco was a splash of white. Stockings of the same color marked its legs. The left hind hoof was gashed and broken.

      The rider communed with himself. "I reckon we'll 'light and take an interest, Jack. Them that looks for, finds."

      He slid from the saddle and rolled a cigarette, after which he made friends with the sorrel and examined carefully the damaged foot.

      "It's a li'l bit of a world after all," he commented. "You never can tell who you're liable to meet up with." The foreman drew from its scabbard a revolver and slid it back into place to make sure that it lay easy in its case. "You can't guess for sure what's likely to happen. I'd a heap rather be too cautious than have flowers sent me."

      He sauntered through the open door into the gambling-house. It was a large hall, in the front part of which was the saloon. In the back the side wall to the next building had been ripped out to give more room. There was a space for dancing, as well as roulette, faro, chuckaluck, and poker tables. In one corner a raised stand for the musicians had been built.

      The Longhorn was practically deserted. Not even a game of draw was in progress. The dance-girls were making up for lost sleep, and the patrons of the place were either at work or still in bed.

      Three men were lined up in front of the bar. One was a tall, lank person, hatchet-faced and sallow. He had a cast in his eye that gave him a sinister expression. The second was slender and trim, black of hair and eye and mustache. His clothes were very good and up to date. The one farthest from the door was a heavy-set, unwieldy man in jeans, slouchy as to dress and bearing. Perhaps it was the jade eyes of the man that made Roberts decide instantly he was one tough citizen.

      The line-rider ordered a drink.

      "Hardware, please," said the bartender curtly.

      "Enforcin' that rule, are they?" asked Roberts casually as his eyes swept over the other men.

      "That's whatever. Y'betcha. We don't want no gay cowboys shootin' out our lights. No reflections, y'understand."

      The latest arrival handed over his revolver, and the man behind the bar hung the scabbard on a nail. Half a dozen others were on a shelf beside it. For the custom on the frontier was that each rider from the range should deposit his weapons at the first saloon he entered. They were returned to him when he called for them just before leaving town. This tended to lessen the number of sudden deaths.

      "Who you ridin' for, young fellow?" asked the sallow man of Roberts.

      "For the A T O."

      The dark young man turned and looked at the cowboy.

      "So? How long have you been riding for Wadley?"

      "Nine months."

      "Don't think I've seen you before."

      "I'm a line-rider—don't often get to the ranch-house."

      "What ground do you cover?"

      "From Dry Creek to the rim-rock, and south past Box Cañon."

      Three pair of eyes were focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow man squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin with the palm of a hand.

      "Kinda lonesome out there, ain't it?" he ventured.

      "That's as how you take it. The country is filled with absentees," admitted Roberts.

      "Reckoned it was. Never been up that way myself. A sort of a bad-lands proposition, I've heard tell—country creased with arroyos, packed with rocks an' rattlesnakes mostly."

      The heavy-set man broke in harshly. "Anybody else run cattle there except old man Wadley?"

      "Settlers are comin' in on the other side of the rim-rock. Cattle drift across. I can count half a dozen brands 'most any day."

      "But you never see strangers."

      "Don't I?"

      "I'm askin', do you?" The voice of the older man was heavy and dominant. It occurred to Roberts that he had heard that voice before.

      "Oh!" Unholy imps of mirth lurked in the alert СКАЧАТЬ