The Heart of the Range | Page 8

cautiously eased his long
body up from behind the pony. With slightly narrowed eyes he stared at
the gate behind which Jack Harpe and his two friends had been
standing.
"Now I wonder," mused Racey Dawson, "I shore am wonderin' what
kind of skulduggery li'l Mr. Lanpher of the 88 is a-trying to crawl out
of and what Mr. Stranger is a-trying to drag him into. Nebraska, too,
huh? I was wondering what that feller's name was."
He knelt down again and swiftly completed the bandaging of the cut on
the pony's near fore.
As he rode round the corner of the hotel to reach Main Street he saw
Luke Tweezy single-footing into town from the south. The powdery
dust of the trail filled in and overlaid the lines and creases of Luke
Tweezy's foxy-nosed and leathery visage. Layers of dust almost
completely concealed the original colour of the caked and matted hide
of Luke Tweezy's well-conditioned horse. It was evident that Luke
Tweezy had come from afar.

In common with most range riders Racey Dawson possessed an
automatic eye to detail. Quite without conscious effort his brain
registered and filed away in the card-index of his subconscious mind
the picture presented by the passing of Luke Tweezy, the impression
made thereby, and the inference drawn therefrom. The inference was
almost trivial--merely that Luke Tweezy had come from Marysville,
the town where he lived and had his being. But triviality is frequently
paradoxical and always relative. If Dundee had not raised an arm to
urge his troopers on at Killiekrankie the world would know a different
England. A single thread it was that solved for Theseus the mystery of
the Cretan labyrinth.
Racey Dawson did not like Luke Tweezy. From the sparse and sandy
strands of the Tweezy hair to the long and varied lines of the Tweezy
business there was nothing about Mr. Tweezy that he did like. For Luke
Tweezy's business was ready money and its possibilities. He drove hard
bargains with his neighbours and harder ones with strangers. He bought
county scrip at a liberal discount and lent his profits to the needy at the
highest rate allowed by law.
Luke Tweezy's knowledge of what was allowed by territorial law was
not limited to money-lending. He had been admitted to the bar, and no
case was too small, too large, or too filthy for him to handle.
In his dislike of Luke Tweezy Racey Dawson was not solitary. Luke
Tweezy was as generally unpopular as Lanpher of the 88. But there was
a difference. Where Lanpher's list of acquaintances, nodding and
otherwise, was necessarily confined to the Lazy River country, Luke
Tweezy knew almost every man, woman, and child in the territory. It
was his business to know everybody, and Luke Tweezy was always
attending to his business.
He had nodded and spoken to Racey Dawson as they two passed, and
Racey had returned the greeting gravely.
"Slimy ol' he-buzzard," Racey Dawson observed to himself and
reached for his tobacco.

But there was no tobacco. The sack that he knew he had put in his vest
pocket after breakfast had vanished. Lack of tobacco is a serious matter.
Racey wheeled his mount and spurred to the Blue Pigeon Store.
Five minutes later, smoking a grateful cigarette, he again started to ride
out of town. As he curved his horse round a freight wagon in front of
the Blue Pigeon he saw three men issue from the doorway of the Happy
Heart Saloon. Two of the men were Lanpher and the stranger. The third
was Luke Tweezy. The latter stopped at the saloon hitching-rail to untie
his horse. "See yuh later, Luke," the stranger flung over his shoulder to
Luke Tweezy as he passed on. He and Lanpher headed diagonally
across the street toward the hotel. It seemed odd to Racey Dawson that
Luke Tweezy by no word or sign made acknowledgment of the
stranger's remark.
Racey tickled his mount with the rowels of one spur and stirred him
into a trot. Have to be moving along if he wanted to get there some
time that day. He wished he didn't have to go alone, so he did. The old
lady would surely lay him out, and he wished for company to share his
misery. Why couldn't Swing Tunstall have stayed reasonably in
Farewell instead of traipsing off over the range like a tomfool. Might
not be back for a week, Swing mightn't. Idiotic caper (with other
adjectives) of Swing's, anyway. Why hadn't he used his head? Oh,
Racey Dawson was an exceedingly irritable young man as he rode out
of Farewell. The aches and pains were still throbbingly alive in his own
particular head. The immediate future was not alluring. It was a hard
world.
When he and his