Mavericks | Page 5

steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while
trying to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks.
Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and
lowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've
sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he
can. Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got."
Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep.
as a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he
coming?"
"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple
of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop
everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till he
finishes it right," Healy promised.
"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop
this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' around
till we're stole blind," assented Slim.
"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have
been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him to
clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on
you."
"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded
one little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising
from the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the
name of this new nester, Jim?"
Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a
big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast, the
voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto scarce
above a whisper.

"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller,"
he said.
"What's he look like?"
"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this
way."
The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a
rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in
front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and
glanced around.
"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly.
Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his
greeting. But the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not
be doubted. The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand
resting on his hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed
gaze travel from one to another, understood perfectly what those
expressionless eyes of stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of
light derision, trailed debonairly into the store.
"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress.
The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look.
When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a
flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health
had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink
pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized
his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes
that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed
indignantly and withdrew from the window.
Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to
the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter.
His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were
focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility.

He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group,
a lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of
pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess
that they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found in
the boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the lad
needed the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a law
unto themselves.
With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm for
running out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, I
reckon. The range is overstocked now--both with them and cows.
Come a bad year and half of our cattle will starve."
There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced
the growing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a stark
challenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent the
coming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openly against
the law that allowed these men to