The Killer | Page 2

We never
held much with grooming in Arizona, but these beasts shone like
bronze. Good sizeable horses, clean built--well, I better not get started
talking horse! They're the reason I had never really sized up the old
man the few times I'd passed him.
"Well, he's a tough bird," said Jed.
"Looks like a harmless old cuss--but mean," says I.
"About this trip," said Jed, after I'd saddled and coiled my rope--"don't,

and say you did."
I didn't answer this, but led my horse to the gate.
"Well, don't say as how I didn't tell you all about it," said Jed, going
back to the bunk house.
Miserable old coot! I suppose he thought he had told me all about it!
Jed was always too loquacious!
But I hadn't racked along more than two miles before a man cantered
up who was perfectly able to express himself. He was one of our outfit
and was known as Windy Bill. Nuff said!
"Hear you're goin' up to stay the night at Hooper's," said he. "Know
Hooper?"
"No, I don't," said I, "are you another of these Sunbirds with glad
news?"
"Know about Hooper's boomerang?"
"Boomerang!" I replied, "what's that?"
"That's what they call it. You know how of course we all let each
other's strays water at our troughs in this country, and send 'em back to
their own range at round up."
"Brother, you interest me," said I, "and would you mind informing me
further how you tell the dear little cows apart?"
"Well, old Hooper don't, that's all," went on Windy, without paying me
any attention. "He built him a chute leading to the water corrals, and
half way down the chute he built a gate that would swing across it and
open a hole into a dry corral. And he had a high platform with a handle
that ran the gate. When any cattle but those of his own brands came
along, he had a man swing the gate and they landed up into the dry
corral. By and by he let them out on the range again."

"Without water?"
"Sure! And of course back they came into the chute. And so on. Till
they died, or we came along and drove them back home."
"Windy," said I, "you're stuffing me full of tacks."
"I've seen little calves lyin' in heaps against the fence like drifts of
tumbleweed," said Windy, soberly; and then added, without apparent
passion, "The old----!"
Looking at Windy's face, I knew these words for truth.
"He's a bad hombre," resumed Windy Bill after a moment. "He never
does no actual killing himself, but he's got a bad lot of oilers[A] there,
especially an old one named Andreas and another one called Ramon,
and all he has to do is to lift one eye at a man he don't like and that man
is as good as dead--one time or another."
This was going it pretty strong, and I grinned at Windy Bill.
"All right," said Windy, "I'm just telling you."
"Well, what's the matter with you fellows down here?" I challenged.
"How is it he's lasted so long? Why hasn't someone shot him? Are you
all afraid of him or his Mexicans?"
"No, it ain't that, exactly. I don't know. He drives by all alone, and he
don't pack no gun ever, and he's sort of runty--and--I do'no why he ain't
been shot, but he ain't. And if I was you, I'd stick home."
Windy amused but did not greatly persuade me. By this time I was
fairly conversant with the cowboy's sense of humour. Nothing would
have tickled them more than to bluff me out of a harmless excursion by
means of scareful tales. Shortly Windy Bill turned off to examine a
distant bunch of cattle; and so I rode on alone.
It was coming on toward evening. Against the eastern mountains were
floating tinted mists; and the cañons were a deep purple. The cattle

were moving slowly so that here and there a nimbus of dust caught and
reflected the late sunlight into gamboge yellows and mauves. The
magic time was near when the fierce, implacable day-genius of the
desert would fall asleep and the soft, gentle, beautiful star-eyed
night-genius of the desert would arise and move softly. My pony
racked along in the desert. The mass that represented Hooper's ranch
drew imperceptibly nearer. I made out the green of trees and the white
of walls and building.
CHAPTER II
Hooper's ranch proved to be entirely enclosed by a wall of adobe ten
feet high and whitewashed. To the outside it presented a blank face.
Only corrals and an alfalfa patch were not included. A wide, high
gateway, that could be closed by massive doors, let into a stable yard,
and seemed to be the