Ronicky Doones Reward | Page 2

right back in the oil range land, bought
in the acres that Bennett had robbed him of, and now he's giving
Bennett some of his own medicine. And Bennett don't like it. This
blond-headed kid -- well, I dunno. Every now and then Bennett gets
some new hands, and they try to hold down jobs for a while on the
ranch, but sooner or later they got to come to town. Well, partner, when
they come to town they meet up with the boys, and the boys give 'em a
pretty rough ride. You watch the way they handle 'Blondy' when he
sails in. Maybe he'll sashay into town as a peacock, but before he
leaves Twin Springs I reckon some of the starch will be took out of
him!"
He twisted himself from side to side in the ecstasy of his emotion.
"Yes sir, something is sure going to happen to that gun fighter!"
"Gunfighter?" echoed Ronicky. "You know this Blondy, then?"
"Sure I don't. But I know that everybody out on Bennett's ranch has to
know that when they wander into Twin Springs they're going to have a

rough ride. And the ones that come in, come because they're all set for
the party. They know well that the man that can ride into Twin Springs
off'n the ranch of old Steve Bennett and get out without having his guns
and his spurs took from him, is quite some party!"
He set his teeth to prove the strength of his own convictions on the
matter.
"Why," continued Ronicky, forced to raise his voice because of the
gathering clamor, as new men came out from the interior of the hotel to
hear the tidings, "why should the whole town be agin Bennett and for
Al Jenkins?"
"That's easy," responded his informant "It works this way. The money
that Al Jenkins sunk into Twin Springs is what brung it to life. You'd
ought to have seen this here town a few years back. Any respectable
junk dealer would have laughed himself to death if he'd been asked to
make a bid on it. There wasn't a piece of a board in it that wasn't rotten.
There wasn't a nail that wasn't rusted in two. Why? Just because the old
toll road had been allowed to go bust. That's why! When the railroad
picked out The Falls as the place it was going to run through, why
everybody in Twin Springs just sat down and folded their hands and
said: 'Here's where we slip off the map and get all rubbed out!'
"And that's what was happening, too. Twin Springs done just that same
thing. It begun to die like a tree when the taproot's cut. The old toll road
was allowed to go to pieces. The rains of a couple of winters put a
crimp in that roadbed and made every teamster take chances on
cross-country rather than use the old toll road from here to The Falls.
"Well, then along comes old Al Jenkins that Bennett had run out of the
country a half lifetime before. What did he do? Did he sit down and
fold his hands in his lap like the rest of 'em? No, sir!
"'If the old town is dead,' he says, 'we'll bring the old town back to life,'
says he.
"And that is what he's done, just as sure as if you'd read about him in

the Bible. He climbed down into his purse and come up covered with
gold and greenbacks. He spilled money everywhere, and everything
that money touched turned green and begun to put out shoots like
springtime. Yes, sir, he was like irrigation. Old Al Jenkins, the first
thing he done, was to send out a gang to work on the toll road, and he
got that back into better shape than it ever was before. It cost a sight of
money but he slicked it up as smooth as glass. He got all the old-timers
that had used to team on it before the railroad went through, and he got
them to tell him every good feature of the old road. After they'd told
him, he went ahead and fixed up this road just the same and better. He
got it so good that not a one of the old boys could drive over it without
admitting that that road couldn't give a man a bump in the worst wagon
that was ever made.
"And when the road was fixed, Twin Springs begin to come to life. The
railroad went to The Falls, sure, and so Glendon Falls now is a real city.
But we ain't dead any more, no, sir. We're alive and coming! Look
down the street. You see all those new houses? Well, they mean new
folks