The Max Brand Megapack. Max Brand
sure are,” said Kilduff, “I ain’t heard a thing.”
Silent rolled his eyes angrily from face to face.
“I’m kind of sorry the lad got his in the fire. I was hopin’ maybe we’d meet agin. There’s nothin’ I’d rather do than be alone five minutes with Whistlin’ Dan.”
His eyes dared any one to smile. The men merely exchanged glances. When he turned away they grinned broadly. Hal Purvis turned and caught Bill Kilduff by the shoulder.
“Bill,” he said excitedly, “if Whistlin’ Dan is dead there ain’t any master for that dog!”
“What about him?” growled Kilduff.
“I’d like to try my hand with him,” said Purvis, and he moistened his tight lips. “Did you see the black devil when he snarled at me in front of Morgan’s place?”
“He sure didn’t look too pleasant.”
“Right. Maybe if I had him on a chain I could change his manners some, eh?”
“How?”
“A whip every day, damn him—a whip every time he showed his teeth at me. No eats till he whined and licked my hand.”
“He’d die first. I know that kind of a dog—or a wolf.”
“Maybe he’d die. Anyway I’d like to try my hand with him. Bill, I’m goin’ to get hold of him some of these days if I have to ride a hundred miles an’ swim a river!”
Kilduff grunted.
“Let the damn wolf be. You c’n have him, I say. What I’m thinkin’ about is the hoss. Hal, do you remember the way he settled to his stride when he lighted out after Red Pete?”
Purvis shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re a fool, Bill. Which no man but Barry could ever ride that hoss. I seen it in his eye. He’d cash in buckin’. He’d fight you like a man.”
Kilduff sighed. A great yearning was in his eyes.
“Hal,” he said softly, “they’s some men go around for years an’ huntin’ for a girl whose picture is in their bean, cached away somewhere. When they see her they jest nacherally goes nutty. Hal, I don’t give a damn for women folk, but I’ve travelled around a long time with a picture of a hoss in my brain, an’ Satan is the hoss.”
He closed his eyes.
“I c’n see him now. I c’n see them shoulders—an’ that head—an’, my God! them eyes—them fire eatin’ eyes! Hal, if a man was to win the heart of that hoss he’d lay down his life for you—he’d run himself plumb to death! I won’t never sleep tight till I get the feel of them satin sides of his between my knees.”
Lee Haines heard them speak, but he said nothing. His heart also leaped when he heard of Whistling Dan’s death, but he thought neither of the horse nor the dog. He was seeing the yellow hair and the blue eyes of Kate Cumberland. He approached Jordan and took a place beside him.
“Tell me some more about it, Terry,” he asked.
“Some more about what?”
“About Whistling Dan’s death—about the burning of the saloon,” said Haines.
“What the hell! Are you still thinkin’ about that?”
“I certainly am.”
“Then I’ll trade you news,” said Terry Jordan, lowering his voice so that it would not reach the suspicious ear of Jim Silent. “I’ll tell you about the burnin’ if you’ll tell me something about Barry’s fight with Silent!”
“It’s a trade,” answered Haines.
“All right. Seems old Joe Cumberland had a hunch to clean up the landscape—old fool! so he jest up in the mornin’ an’ without sayin’ a word to any one he downs to the saloon and touches a match to it. When he come back to his house he tells his girl, Kate, what he done. With that she lets out a holler an’ drops in a faint.”
Haines muttered.
“What’s the matter?” asked Terry, a little anxiously.
“Nothin,” said Haines. “She fainted, eh? Well, good!”
“Yep. She fainted an’ when she come to, she told Cumberland that Dan was in the saloon, an’ probably too weak to get out of the fire. They started for the place on the run. When they got there all they found was a pile of red hot coals. So everyone figures that he went up in the flames. That’s all I know. Now what about the fight?”
Lee Haines sat with fixed eyes.
“There isn’t much to say about the fight,” he said at last.
“The hell there isn’t,” scoffed Terry Jordan. “From what I heard, this Whistling Dan simply cut loose and raised the devil more general than a dozen mavericks corralled with a bunch of yearlings.”
“Cutting loose is right,” said Haines. “It wasn’t a pleasant thing to watch. One moment he was about as dangerous as an eighteen-year-old girl. The next second he was like a panther that’s tasted blood. That’s all there was to it, Terry. After the first blow, he was all over the chief. You know Silent’s a bad man with his hands?”
“I guess we all know that,” said Jordan, with a significant smile.
“Well,” said Haines, “he was like a baby in the hands of Barry. I don’t like to talk about it—none of us do. It makes the flesh creep.”
There was a loud crackling among the underbrush several hundred yards away. It drew closer and louder.
“Start up your works agin, will you, Bill?” called Silent. “Here comes Shorty Rhinehart, an’ he’s overdue.”
In a moment Shorty swung from his horse and joined the group. He gained his nickname from his excessive length, being taller by an inch or two than Jim Silent himself, but what he gained in height he lost in width. Even his face was monstrously long, and marked with such sad lines that the favourite name of “Shorty” was affectionately varied to “Sour-face” or “Calamity.” Silent went to him at once.
“You seen Hardy?” he asked.
“I sure did,” said Rhinehart, “an’ it’s the last time I’ll make that trip to him, you can lay to that.”
“Did he give you the dope?”
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“I jest want you to know that this here’s my last trip to Elkhead—onany business.”
“Why?”
“I passed three marshals on the street, an’ I knew them all. They was my friends, formerly. One of them was—”
“What did they do?”
“I waved my hand to them, glad an’ familiar. They jest grunted. One of them, he looked up an’ down the street, an’ seein’ that no one was in sight, he come up to me an’ without shakin’ hands he says: ‘I’m some surprised to see you in Elkhead, Shorty.’ ‘Why,’ says I, ‘the town’s all right, ain’t it?’ ‘It’s all right,’ he says, ‘but you’d find it a pile more healthier out on the range.’”
“What in hell did he mean by that?” growled Silent.
“He simply meant that they’re beginnin’ to think a lot more about us than they used to. We’ve been pullin’ too many jobs the last six months.”
“You’ve said all that before, Shorty. I’m runnin’ this gang. Tell me about Hardy.”
“I’m comin’ to that. I went into the Wells Fargo office down by the railroad, an’ the clerk sent me back