Oh, You Tex! | Page 6

heavy-set, unwieldy man in jeans, slouchy
as to dress and bearing. Perhaps it was the jade eyes of the man that
made Roberts decide instantly he was one tough citizen.
The line-rider ordered a drink.

"Hardware, please," said the bartender curtly.
"Enforcin' that rule, are they?" asked Roberts casually as his eyes swept
over the other men.
"That's whatever. Y'betcha. We don't want no gay cowboys shootin' out
our lights. No reflections, y'understand."
The latest arrival handed over his revolver, and the man behind the bar
hung the scabbard on a nail. Half a dozen others were on a shelf beside
it. For the custom on the frontier was that each rider from the range
should deposit his weapons at the first saloon he entered. They were
returned to him when he called for them just before leaving town. This
tended to lessen the number of sudden deaths.
"Who you ridin' for, young fellow?" asked the sallow man of Roberts.
"For the A T O."
The dark young man turned and looked at the cowboy.
"So? How long have you been riding for Wadley?"
"Nine months."
"Don't think I've seen you before."
"I'm a line-rider--don't often get to the ranch-house."
"What ground do you cover?"
"From Dry Creek to the rim-rock, and south past Box Cañon."
Three pair of eyes were focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow
man squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin
with the palm of a hand.
"Kinda lonesome out there, ain't it?" he ventured.

"That's as how you take it. The country is filled with absentees,"
admitted Roberts.
"Reckoned it was. Never been up that way myself. A sort of a
bad-lands proposition, I've heard tell--country creased with arroyos,
packed with rocks an' rattlesnakes mostly."
The heavy-set man broke in harshly. "Anybody else run cattle there
except old man Wadley?"
"Settlers are comin' in on the other side of the rim-rock. Cattle drift
across. I can count half a dozen brands 'most any day."
"But you never see strangers."
"Don't I?"
"I'm askin', do you?" The voice of the older man was heavy and
dominant. It occurred to Roberts that he had heard that voice before.
"Oh!" Unholy imps of mirth lurked in the alert eyes of the line-rider.
"Once in a while I do--last Thursday, for instance."
The graceful, dark young man straightened as does a private called to
attention. "A trapper, maybe?" he said.
The cowboy brought his level gaze back from a barefoot negro washing
the floor. "Not this time. He was a rustler."
"How do you know?" The high voice of the questioner betrayed
excitement.
"I caught him brandin' a calf. He waved me round. I beat him to the
Box Cañon and saw him ridin' through."
"You saw him ridin' through? Where were you?" The startled eyes of
the dark young man were fixed on him imperiously.
"From the bluff above."

"You don't say!" The voice of the heavy man cut in with jeering irony.
The gleam of his jade eyes came through narrow-slitted lids. "Well, did
you take him back to the ranch for a necktie party, or did you bury him
in the gulch?"
The dark young man interrupted irritably. "I'm askin' these questions,
Dinsmore. Now you, young fellow--what's your name?"
"Jack Roberts," answered the cowboy meekly.
"About this rustler--would you know him again?"
The line-rider smiled inscrutably. He did not intend to tell all that he
did not know. "He was ridin' a sorrel with a white splash on its nose,
white stockin's, an' a bad hoof, the rear one--"
"You're a damn' liar." The words, flung out from some inner
compulsion, as it were, served both as a confession and a challenge.
There was a moment of silence, tense and ominous. This was fighting
talk.
The lank man leaned forward and whispered some remonstrance in the
ear of the young fellow, but his suggestion was waved aside. "I'm
runnin' this, Gurley."
The rider for the A T O showed neither surprise nor anger. He made a
business announcement without stress or accent. "I expect it's you or
me one for a lickin'. Hop to it, Mr. Rustler!"
Roberts did not wait for an acceptance of his invitation. He knew that
the first two rules of battle are to strike first and to strike hard. His
brown fist moved forward as though it had been shot from a gun. The
other man crashed back against the wall and hung there dazed for a
moment. The knuckles of that lean fist had caught him on the chin.
"Give him hell, Ford. You can curry a li'l' shorthorn like this guy with
no trouble a-tall," urged Dinsmore.

The young man needed no urging. He gathered himself together and
plunged forward. Always he had prided himself on being