"Dessay yo're right, for once," the other conceded. "Allasame, she could let slip a pointer, unmeanin'."
A small discovery puzzled Sudden. Rummaging in his. war-bag one evening, he found that something was missing. This was a roughly printed notice offering the sum of five hundred dollars for the capture of--himself, wanted for robbery and murder. Though it had been issued some years earlier, the descriptions both of man and horse were sufficiently near to make recognition almost inevitable. It bore the name of the sheriff of Fourways, Texas. Sudden had brought it for a definite purpose, and he wished to use it in his own way. He went at once to the ranch-house.
"Well, Green, what's the trouble?" his employer asked. "None a-tall, seh--yet," Sudden replied, adding, "Yu hired me in the dark."
"I backed my judgment."
"Yeah, an' I'm askin' yu to keep on doin' that, no matter what tale comes to yu. Mebbe yu'll be shown what 'pears to be, an' is, certain proof, but I want yu to remember I'm playin' straight with yu, right to the end o' the game."
The rancher sat silent, considering the maker of this odd request, but he could read nothing in the lean, tanned, immobile face. From the first he had taken to this competent-looking stranger, instinct with youth yet moulded by experience into a man. Had his own son been of this type ..
He dismissed the thought with a gesture of impatience.
"This is all very mysterious, Green," he said.
"I'm askin' a whole lot, seh," the puncher admitted.
"Very well," Keith said. "After all, a person's past is no concern of other folks, except perhaps--a sheriff's."
Sudden was not to be drawn. "I'm thankin' yu, seh."
From his seat on the verandah the Colonel watched his visitor return to the bunkhouse, moving with a long swinging stride which told of supple joints and perfectly coordinating muscles.
"He moves like a cougar," he murmured. "Wonder what he's done? Doesn't look a desperate character, but ..." The gravel crunched as the foreman came hurrying up. "Anything to report, Steve?"
"Betcha life," Lagley replied triumphantly. "That fella vu took on, who calls hisself Green, dropped this. Might interest yu."
The rancher read the damning document slowly. "The descriptions arc certainly similar, but that may be just a coincidence," he said.
"What's he totin' it around for, then?"
"As a curiosity, perhaps. If it really concerned himself, I imagine he would have destroyed it."
"Oh, these killers have their pride," Lagley fleered. "As for it bein' him, there ain't no doubt; Turvey was in Texas 'bout the time this hombre was raisin' hell there, an' had to skip 'cause things got too lively. No, he never seen him, but afriend o' his was rubbed out tryin' to stop this Sudden when he made a getaway from San Antonio, with a sheriff's posse behind him."
Keith deliberated. This was the tale he had been warned might come to him. The new hand had discovered his loss and acted promptly; that was the kind of man he wanted. "What do you suppose brought him here?" was his question.
"Headed for Hell City, I'd say," the foreman replied. "Then he runs into trouble with Roden an' figures it ain't goin' to make him over-welcome there, so when yu push a job at him he naturally jumps at it."
"Admirably reasoned."
"An' yu can add that Mister Satan would be damn glad to put on his pay-roll a fella already on yourn."
-
"That seems possible."
"Shore as death," the other rejoined. "Point is, what yu goin' to do? Me, I'd boot him off'n the ranch."
"Having first obtained his permission, of course," the Colonel said drily. "No, if he's the man you claim, he's dangerous, and it would be poor policy to present him to the enemy. Here, we can keep an eye on his activities. Do the men know?"
"I ain't told nobody, but Turvey may have talked."
"If so, it can't be helped. Give Green to understand that his past doesn't matter, and especially, that I am ignorant of it. Keep him tied to Homer--I think that lad is loyal, and we shall have news of any treachery."
"Well, yo're the boss, but it's takin' a devil of a risk," Lagley grimaced.
For some time after the foreman had departed, Keith sat in the gathering gloom, chewing at the butt of his cigar, thinking the situation over. He could not doubt what he had heard, for Green himself had admitted that the tale would be true. The puzzling point was the presence of a notorlous outlaw, presumably fleeing from justice, in that part of the country, if it were not to seek sanctuary in Hell City. Texas was a long way off, but other offences might have been committed since, perhaps in Arizona, necessitating a hiding-place.
"It certainly seems that Steve must be right," he mused aloud. "All the same, I don't believe it."
"Don't believe what, yu ol' slave-owner?" boomed a big voice from a few yards distant. "That the North beat the South? Well, they did; I was there, an' seen it."
Keith stood up. "Hello, Martin, I hear you've been rustling some of my cows," he retaliated. "Come right in."
"Druv over a-purpose to pay yu for 'em."
"Why?" the Double K man snorted. "You and your damned Yankee Government didn't mind stealing my niggers, so--"
A slim form slipped from the lighted window which led on to the verandah. "If you two are going to fight the Civil War all over again, supper will be ruined," Joan said. "Good evening, Mister Merry; I fancied I recognized your voice."
"Yu know darned well there ain't another like it in Arizony," the visitor responded, and shook a warning finger at her. "Don't yu go gettin' sarcastic--one in yore family is a-plenty. An' yu needn't to `mister' me neither, just because yu got a good-lookin' new rider; he ain't half the man I am, anyways."
"Just about, I should guess," she dimpled, with a calculating glance at the other's squat bulk, "but he's more--distributed."
"Yu sassy young chipmunk--"
The voice of the host intervened. "Stop wrangling, you--infants; I'm hungry. And Joan, you'd better hear what I have just learned before you decide to fall in love with Green."
"I haven't the remotest intention of doing so," she laughed. "It would break Martin's heart."
"Shore would," the fat man agreed. "I'd have to shoot him up, an' I'm admittin' that's a task I wouldn't fancy."
"You'll fancy it less presently," Keith said sardonically. During the meal, he told his news. The Twin Diamond owner nodded his head, as though not surprised.
"A gunman, huh?" he commented. "Guessed he warn't just an ornery cow-punch. Sudden! Seem to have heard of him some time, but ... What arc yu goin' to do, Ken?"
"Watch him," the rancher replied, "an' if he's straight, use him to clean up that den of infamy in the hills." Merry looked at the girl, whose face was now pale; he knew of what she was thinking. His own expression belied his name.
"A clean-up means on'y one thing to such a man," he stated. "Does he know about--Jeff?"
Keith's aristocratic features might have been carved in white marble. "Yes," he said, in a cold, passionless tone which effectually closed the subject.
In the bunkhouse, Sudden soon sensed an air of restraint in regard to himself. He caught some of the outfit eyeing him furtively, and, while no one deliberately avoided him, even the men he knew best appeared to be afflicted with a feeling of awkwardness utterly foreign to their care-free souls. Evidently the purloiner of the placard had lost no time in making use of it. Frosty was not there, having gone to Dugout, and Sudden speculated, rather bitterly, whether the new friendship would stand the strain. Presently the foreman threw back the door and called him outside.
"They figure I'm goin' to be fired," he reflected.
Lagley went to the point at once. "The 01' Man sent for me," he began. "Someone has told him that yo're a Texas outlaw named Quick, no, that ain't it--Sudden--knowed it was somethin' to do with speed. He's mighty sore, said for me to give yu yore time, pronto."