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 from 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."