Starlight Riders Boxed-Set 50 Western Classics in One Edition. Ernest Haycox
words. "Now you see what's going to happen? This water company will get everything all cluttered up with its ditches and laterals. First thing you know there'll be a lot of money sunk uselessly. When the time comes for us to start our little venture, it's going to be that much more expensive on all hands and the cook. I tried to head them off but the crooked rascal who's heading the thing yelled me down."
"Who?"
"James J. Lestrade, no less."
Bill whistled. "Lin, I heard something at the main office concerning that gent. Maybe he ain't just interested in water, either."
Lin stood up. "Think he's got wind of this same idea of ours?"
"I'd bet a hundred dollars he has."
Lin was silent for a time, trying to reconcile this news with Lestrade's interest in water. "Can't just see how he figures to join the two," he said at last.
"Devious ways have a manner of joining, some time or later," the lanky Bill observed. "Let's get somewhere. I'm dying to smoke."
"Jump on the horse. You'll have to ride him bareback."
Bill collected his luggage and put a leg up. "What's our next move?"
Lin Ballou led the way north, parallel with the mesa. "We'll reach that old Miller house—it was abandoned last fall, you remember—by daylight. Then we'll stay over till it's dark again. All the ground we've got to cover now is close to Powder and it means night work and plenty of caution. Ought to get it finished in four-five days, shouldn't we?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then," Lin went on, sweeping the darkness with watchful eyes, "you can hoof it back to headquarters and get the final decision. We've got to move pretty fast from now on. While you're gone, I've got other irons to heat."
"Lead on," Bill urged. "I want to get to shelter where I can light a smoke. I'm dying for a little nicotine in my system."
A heavy voice said, "Ho, you fool horse," and wheeled directly by the shanty door, at the same time calling out in no particularly subdued tone, "You there, Chatto?"
Beauty moved from the shanty, grumbling. "Damn it, Lestrade, ain't you never going to take care how you talk? Folks can hear you a mile away."
Lestrade sat in the saddle. "Been a policy of mine to let folks know I'm present, so it's kind of difficult to tone down. Don't you worry, Chatto. Nobody around this neck of the woods."
"Can't tell about that," Chatto said. "Folks is often where they ain't got no business being. For instance, you and me."
"Well, now, I wouldn't say we've got no business here. Fact is, we have some right important business."
"All set for next Tuesday, like you said?"
"That's right. How you coming?"
"Fair enough. We'll have nigh forty head."
Lestrade said, "Uh-huh," in a pleased tone and, much to Chatto's disgust, lit a cigarette. "You drive 'em down to the East Flats loading pens Tuesday night. My cows'll be already there. I'll jerk everybody away from the place except the foreman and a right close-mouthed man. Wednesday they'll be shipped. Think you can do it in time?"
"Sure. We got an addition to our happy family."
Lestrade jerked the cigarette from his mouth and said, "Who's that?" in a savage voice. "Addition? You fool, you mean to say you took in another partner? Without my knowledge?"
"Oh, I ain't told him no thing about your connection with us. He knows there's another party—name unknown. I said I'd see said party before giving out any more information. But, you see, this fellow's in our own line of business and we can't have no opposition. That'd create a fuss sooner or later. Easiest thing was to take him in. Besides, Nig and me, we needed a little more help."
"Who is he?"
"Brace yourself for a shock," Chatto warned, grinning through the dark. "The gent is none other than your friend Lin Ballou."
"By Godfrey!" Lestrade exclaimed in complete amazement. "Lin—why, Lin—I thought he was honest. You must be joking."
"The joke's on us. I figured him honest, too. But after that affair at the dance, and after I caught him red-handed, tampering with some of Offut's critters, I sure changed my mind."
Lestrade was lost in several moments' silence. The horse moved beneath him uneasily. "No, I didn't figure him to be a rustler. But I did figure he had something else on his mind besides prospecting. That's just a blind."
Chatto muttered something to himself, and then broke out with a dissatisfied remark. "Well, there may be something else he's got in his system, for all I know. Blamed if I can just figure what. But I never take a man's word for granted till I do a little investigating on my own hook. So after catching him with Offut's critters, I figured I'd follow him and see what he did next. What do you suppose it was?"
Lestrade, moving nervously, urged Chatto on. The cigarette made a crimson arc through the air and fell amid a tiny shower of sparks.
"Well, sir, I followed him back a piece on the mesa and then I lost him. Yes, by God, he plumb vanished in the earth. Well, I wait. Bye and bye he comes out of the same hole he goes into—this is after dark—and I track him down into the East Flats and lose him again. But next morning I find his tracks extending over to the water tank and back towards Miller's old place. I didn't go no farther. But there's sign that says he met another gent by that tank. I see the footprints. Now what's that mean?"
Lestrade had grown more and more restive as Chatto related his story. After Beauty stopped he leaned over in the saddle and put a heavy hand on his shoulder and spoke in a half-angry manner.
"Beauty, he's got to be stopped. You understand? He's got to be put away. There's too much at stake for him to be meddling."
"Meddling how?" Chatto demanded.
"Never mind," Lestrade replied. "He's up to another game and I know what it is. If he's let alone he'll ruin old James J. Lestrade. He's got to be stopped."
'"Well, old-timer, if you want a bust of gunplay from Beauty, you'll have to pay high."
"Come here close," Lestrade said. Chatto bent forward. Lestrade, dropping his head still lower, began to whisper.
Chatto said "Uh-huh" at the end of each phrase and finally stepped back. "You want him double-crossed, huh?"
"Well, that'll clear anybody else of suspicion. Old man Offut's on the warpath, looking for rustlers, and if he catches Lin that'll leave you all the better off, won't it?"
"You got a head," Chatto said in admiration. "In plain words, you want Lin Ballou's neck stretched? You want him killed?"
Lestrade swore. "Be careful of your words!"
"Oh," Chatto said, "you might as well say it outright if you mean it. If it's crooked work, it's crooked work."
Lestrade rested a moment, quite still. Then he nodded slowly. "That's it."
"All right. Leave it to me. You take care of your end of it."
Lestrade turned about and galloped away. Chatto watched him climb to the rim of the hummock and drop from sight. Slowly he went to his own horse and started back for the mesa.
Life is sure getting complicated for a plain rustler like me, he brooded. There's something else going on that I don't savvy. Them gents is playing at another game. Beauty Chatto, you sure better watch your hole card or you'll get tangled up in trouble. But if Lestrade wants Ballou outa the way, outa the way he goes. G'long pony.
CHAPTER V
THE STORM GATHERS
Coming out of the mesa the following Sunday, Lin Ballou arrived in front of Hank Colqueen's