`All right, boys,' Green called out genially. `I've just been visitin' yore boss, an' he said that if I met up with yu, I was to say that he's a-gettin' hungrier every minit, an' he shore enough looked it.'
One of the men laughed, and the attitude of guarded hostility relaxed somewhat. None of the four was young, and all had the look of men toughened by experience--good or bad. A nasty crowd to tangle up with, the cowpuncher decided.
`Dex may reckon hisself lucky to see us to-night,' commented one. `If Pete had been in town it would've bin to-morrow mawnin'.'
Green guessed that they knew who he was, and that the reference to the gambler had been made purposely, but he decided to ignore it.
`Well,' he drawled. `I gotta be pushin' along if I want any supper myself; that Y Z gang is real destructive at mealtimes.'
His refusal to take up the challenge, for so they regarded it, created a bad impression, and the laugh which greeted his remark was frankly sneering. With a curt `S'long' they rode on, grinning at one another. Green also resumed his journey, and he too was smiling.
`They're thinkin' that little ruckus at the Folly was just agrand-stand play, an' that I'm shy the sand to back it up, which is just what,I want 'em to think,' he soliloquised.
All the same, he had to confess that it had been an entirely disappointing day.
Chapter V
A Week passed without any further development to disturb the ordinary routine of the ranch. Green steadily raked the surrounding country, but gained nothing but a knowledge of it, and the covert sneers of the foreman and the older hands. In some way, the impression created by his rough handling of Poker Pete had worn off, and sometimes the insults were so thinly veiled that the object of them had hard work to restrain himself. Larry, his staunch admirer, could not understand it.
`Don't yu see,' Green said, when the boy spoke of it. `I'd be playin' their game? I'm not ready for a showdown yet.'
Another dissatisfied occupant of the ranch was Noreen. Accustomed to the unqualified devotion of all the men she met, she found the aloofness of the newcomer a little disturbing, the more so that she was unable--though she would not admit it--to adopt the same attitude. In her presence he was polite, but quiet, almost stern, whereas she knew that with Larry, and some of the others, he could behave like a boy.
Girl-like, she invested him with mystery, and wove romance of a broken heart and blighted life round him. Once or twice she had deliberately given him opportunities to speak about himself, but he had- always evaded them. Larry, whom she cautiously pumped one day, could tell her nothing.
`I reckon he's had trouble,' the boy said. `Mebbe there's a sheriff a-lookin' for him, but if I was that sheriff I'd take mighty good care not to find him; he's hell on wheels when he gets goin'.'
But to the men he was not eulogistic, even going to the length of expressing the opinion that the newcomer's treatment of the gambler might have been a flash in the pan. More than once he was questioned, for there was a good deal of curiosity in the outfit as to the stranger's ability to take care of himself. He wore two guns, but no one had yet seen him use one. It was Larry who discovered that schemes were being hatched to `try-out' the new hand. The latter laughed grimly when the boy warned him.
`They're goin' to sic "Snap" Lunt on yu,' Larry said. `He's a killer, an' a shore wizard with a six-gun.'
Lunt had recently come back to the ranch, having been riding the line at the time of Green's appearance on the scene. He was a small man, with a twisted, wizened face like dried hide, a square, powerful body, and short legs bowed by years spent in the saddle. His one pride was in his ability to use a Colt, in which accomplishment he acknowledged only one superior. This admission, which was news to the others, was made at supper one evening when the talk had persistently veered to guns and gunmen.
`Who was that, Snap?' asked Simple.
The feller they call "Sudden,"' replied the gunman. `No, I never had a run in with him, or likely I wouldn't be here, but I saw him in action once, years ago when he warn't more than a kid. Neatest thing I ever see, an' it happened in Deadwater, which ain't a town no more. Sudden was in a saloon when the barkeeper, who was a good sort, gives him the word that three fellers, all known killers, is layin' for him.
` "There's a back door here," he sez. "Pull yore freight. Three to one is above the odds, an' nobody'll hold it against yu." ` "Yu bet they won't, but I'm thankin' yu all the same," sez Sudden, an' steps out into the street as unconcerned as the corpse at a buryin'.
`Them three buzzards is waitin' about twenty paces away, two of 'em on the opposite side o' the street, an' the other slinkin' up the same side as the saloon, an' their guns is out. But he beat 'em to it even then. Before they could git a shot out, the fellers across the street is tumblin' in the dust. The other chap fired one shot which might've hit a star mebbe, an' ran for his life. He looked round once, saw the boy's gun on him, an' tried to turn a corner that warn't there. His face was a sight; it looked like a herd o' cattle had stampeded across it, but, all the same, he was lucky; the other two had to be planted.'
`But don't yu reckon yo're faster now than yu were then, Snap?' asked Nigger.
`I know I am; but don't yu reckon he's improved too?' retorted the gunman. `Even if he ain't he's better'n me. I never saw a movement, an' them fellers were drilled plumb centre between the eyes.'
Sudden, the outlaw! Not a man there but had heard of him, and of his uncanny dexterity with weapons, and the ease with which he had so far eluded capture. The tale of his exploits grew as first one and then another related stories he had heard. Snap Lunt listened with an expression of tolerant contempt.
`An' more than half o' them I'll bet my hoss he never done,' he said presently. `When a feller gets a name, every killin', hold- up, or cattle-stealin' that can't be traced to anybody else gets his brand put on it.' There was a tinge of bitterness in his voice, and this deepened as he resumed. `A feller sometimes gets drove into the wrong road. Once it gets known that he's swift with a gun there always happens along a damn fool who thinks he can make a reputation by showin' he's a bit swifter. An' he ain't, so he gets wiped out, an' soon there's another damn fool--the world's full of 'em. By all accounts, Sudden fights fair, an' that's more than some did that went up against him.'
The others were silent for a moment; this was a new side to the man they had always regarded as a ruthless slayer of his fellows--one who took a delight in putting his art to its deadliest use. They sensed that he was telling his own story. It was Rattler who broke the spell; matters were not going as he wished.
'Well, Sudden may be all yu say, Snap; but some fellers sport two guns an' are afeared to use one.'
`Meanin'?' Lunt said quietly.
`Oh, I ain't referrin' to yu, Snap,' replied the foreman quickly. `We all know yo're game; yu have the right to wear a couple o' guns.'
`So has any other feller who cares to tote the weight,' came the reply. `Yu can rope yore own hoss, Rattler.'
Some of the men who knew what was toward looked at Lunt in surprise. Green watched the scene with a glint of a smile on his lips. He was well aware that the foreman was trying to engineer a quarrel between himself and Lunt, and that the latter had now definitely declined to be made use of. He began to have a feeling of respect for the little gunman.
The foreman glared; he had been plainly told to do his own dirty work, and though not lacking in animal courage, the task did not appeal to him. He was considered good with a forty-five himself, but the other man was an unknown quantity, and he could not understand why Lunt had `ducked.' It was Green himself who came to his rescue.
`There won't be any shootin', Blaynes,' he said, and there was an acid touch to his voice. `When there's any necessity, I can use my guns well enough. If yu don't choose to believe that, well'--he leaned forward, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, his eyes narrowed and alert--`pull yore own.'