Raw Gold | Page 4

where I'd heard
that soft, drawly voice. I knew I wasn't mistaken in the man, though his
face was turned from me, and I likewise knew that old Piegan Smith
was nearer kingdom come than he'd been for many a day, if he did have
the drop on the man with the scarlet jacket. He was holding his pistol
on a double back-action, rapid-fire gun-fighter, and only the fact that
Piegan was half drunk and the other performing an impersonal duty had
so far prevented the opening of a large-sized package of trouble. While
on the surface Smith had all the best of it, he needed that advantage,

and more, to put himself on an even footing with Gordon MacRae in
any dispute that had to be arbitrated with a Colt; for MacRae was the
cool-headed, virile type of man that can keep his feet and burn powder
after you've planted enough lead in his system to sink him in swimming
water.
There was a minute of nasty silence. Smith glowered behind his cocked
pistol, and the policeman faced the frowning gun, motionless, waiting
for the flutter of Piegan's eye that meant action. The gurgling keg was
almost empty when he spoke again.
"Don't be a fool, Smith," he said quietly. "You can't buck the whole
Force, you know, even if you managed to kill me. You know the sort of
orders we have about this whisky business. Put up your gun."
Piegan heard him, all right, but his pistol never wavered. His thin lips
were pinched close, so tight the scrubby beard on his chin stood
straight out in front; his chest was heaving, and the angry blood stood
darkly red under his tanned cheeks. Altogether, he looked as if his
trigger finger might crook without warning. It was one of those long
moments that makes a fellow draw his breath sharp when he thinks
about it afterward. If any one had made an unexpected move just then,
there would have been sudden death in that camp. And while the lot of
us sat and stood about perfectly motionless, not daring to say a word
one way or the other, lest the wrathful old cuss squinting down the
gun-barrel would shoot, the policeman took his foot off the empty
cause of the disturbance, and deliberately turning his back on Piegan's
leveled six-shooter, walked calmly over to his waiting horse.
Smith stared after him, frankly astonished. Then he lowered his gun.
"The nerve uh the darned----Say! don't go off mad," he yelled, his
anger evaporating, changing on the instant to admiration for the other's
cold-blooded courage. "Yuh spilled all the whisky, darn yuh--but then I
guess yuh don't know any better'n t' spoil good stuff that away. No hard
feelin's, anyhow. Stop an' eat dinner with us, an' we'll call it square."
The policeman withdrew his foot from the stirrup and smiled at Piegan
Smith, and Piegan, to show that his intentions were good, impulsively

unbuckled his cartridge-belt and threw belt and six-shooters on the
ground.
"I don't hanker for trouble with a hombre like you," he grunted. "I
guess I was a little bit hasty, anyhow."
"I call you," the policeman said, and stripping the saddle and bridle
from his sweaty horse, turned him loose to graze.
"Hello, Mac!" I hailed, as he walked up to the fire. He turned at the
sound of my voice with vastly more concern than he'd betrayed under
the muzzle of Piegan's gun.
"Sarge himself!" he exclaimed. "Beats the devil how old trails cross,
eh?"
"It sure does," I retorted, and our hands met.
He sat down beside me and began to roll a cigarette. You wouldn't call
that a very demonstrative greeting between two old amigos who'd
bucked mesquite and hair-lifting Comanches together, all over the
Southwest. It had been many a moon since we took different roads, but
MacRae hadn't changed that I could see. That was his way--he never
slopped over, no matter how he felt. If ever a mortal had a firm grip on
his emotions, MacRae had, and yet there was a sleeping devil within
him that was never hard to wake. But his looks gave no hint of the real
man under the surface placidity; you'd never have guessed what
possibilities lay behind that immobile face, with its heavy-lashed hazel
eyes and plain, thin-lipped mouth that tilted up just a bit at the corners.
We had parted in the Texas Panhandle five years before--an unexpected,
involuntary separation that grew out of a poker game with a tough
crowd. The tumultuous events of that night sent me North in
undignified haste, for I am not warlike by nature, and Texas was no
longer healthy for me unless I cared to follow up a bloody feud. But I'd
left Mac a