The Heart of the Range | Page 7

anybody to hear a word, and there's only hosses in the corral. Get
a-hold of yoreself. Don't be so skittish."
"I ain't skittish. I'm sensible. I know--" Lanpher broke off abruptly.
"What do you know?"
"What yo're due to find out."
"Now lookit here, Mr. Lanpher," said the stranger in a low, cold tone,
"you said those last words a leetle too gayful to suit me. If yo're
planning any skulduggery--don't."
"I ain't. Not a bit of it. But I got my duty to my company. I can't get
mixed up in any fraycas on yore account, because if I do my ranch will
lose money. That's the flat of it."
"Oh, it is, huh? Yore ranch will lose money if you back me up, hey?
And you ain't thinkin' nothin' of yore precious skin, are yuh? Oh, no,
not a-tall. I wonder what yore company would say to the li'l deal
between you and me that started this business. I wonder what they'd
think of Mr. Lanpher and his sense of duty. Yeah, I would wonder a
whole lot."
"Well--" began Lanpher, lamely.
"Hell!" snarled the stranger. "You make me sick! Now you listen to me.
Yo're in this as deep as I am. If you think you ain't, try to pull yore
wagon out. Just try it, thassall."
"I ain't doing none of the work, that's flat," Lanpher denied, doggedly.
"You gotta back me up alla same," declared the stranger.
"That wasn't in the bargain," fenced Lanpher.
"It is now," chuckled the stranger. "If I lose, you lose, too. Lookit," he
added in a more conciliatory tone, "can't you see how it is? I need you,
an' you need me. All I'm asking of you is to back me up when I want

you to. Outside of that you can sit on yore shoulder-blades and enjoy
life."
"We didn't bargain on that," harked back Lanpher.
"But that was then, and this is now. Which may not be logic, but it is
necessity, an' Necessity, Mr. Lanpher, is the mother of all kinds of
funny things. So you and I we got to ride together."
Lanpher pushed back his hat and looked over the hills and far away.
The well-known carking care was written large upon his countenance.
Slowly his eyes slid round to meet for a brief moment the eyes of his
companion.
"I can't answer for my men," said Lanpher, shortly.
"Can you answer for yoreself?" inquired the stranger quickly.
"I'll back you up." Grudgingly.
"Then that's all right. You can keep the men from throwing in with the
other side, anyway, can't you?"
"I can do that much."
"Which is quite a lot for a ranch manager to be able to do," was the
stranger's blandly sarcastic observation. "C'mon. We've gassed so much
I'm dry as a covered bridge. I--What does Thompson want now? 'Lo,
Punch."
"'Lo, Jack. Howdy, Lanpher." Racey could not see the newcomer, but
he recognized the voice. It was that of Punch-the-breeze Thompson, a
gentleman well known to make his living by the ingenious
capitalization of an utter lack of moral virtue. "Say, Jack," continued
Thompson, "Nebraska has been plugged."
"Plugged?" Great amazement on the part of the stranger.

"Plugged."
"Who done it?"
"Feller by the name of Dawson."
"Racey Dawson?" nipped in Lanpher.
"Yeah, him."
Lanpher chuckled slightly.
"Why the laugh?" asked Jack Harpe.
"I'd always thought Nebraska could shoot."
"Nebraska is supposed to be some swift," admitted the stranger. "How'd
it happen, Punch?"
Thompson told him, and on the whole, gave a truthful account.
"What kind of feller is this Dawson?" the stranger inquired after a
moment's silence following the close of the story.
"A skipjack of a no-account cow-wrastler," promptly replied Lanpher.
"He thinks he's hell on the Wabash."
"Allasame he must be old pie to put the kybosh on Nebraska thataway."
"Luck," sneered Lanpher. "Just luck."
"Is he square?" probed the stranger.
"Square as a billiard-ball," said Lanpher. "Why, Jack, he's so crooked
he can't lay in bed straight."
At which Racey Dawson was moved to rise and declare himself. Then
the humour of it struck him. He grinned and hunkered down, his ears
on the stretch.

"Well," said the stranger, refraining from comment on Lanpher's
estimate of the Dawson qualities, "we'll have to get somebody in
Nebraska's place."
"I'm as good as Nebraska," Punch-the-breeze Thompson stated,
modestly.
"No," the stranger said, decidedly. "Yo're all right, Punch. But even if
we can get old Chin Whisker drunk, the hand has gotta be quicker than
the eye. Y' understand?"
Thompson, it appeared, did understand. He grunted sulkily.
"We'll have to give Peaches Austin a show," resumed the stranger.
"Nemmine giving me a argument, Punch. I said I'd use Austin. C'mon,
le's go get a drink."
The three men moved away. Racey Dawson