"Go to Farewell an' Marysville. What I find out in them two places
will show me what to do next. I'm goin' to Farewell anyhow on my own
hook."
"If I say no, would yuh quit me now?"
"I'd have to. I got business with a certain party in Farewell. After
I'd finished up I'd come back o' course--if yuh still wanted me."
"Well, I don't say no. I think yuh've hit it. I knowed yuh was
Opportunity with a big O when I hired yuh. Yuh've proved it. Fly at
it, Tom, an' prove it some more. Get the evidence, an' I'll do the
rest. We'll wipe out the 88 ranch, hide, hoof, an' taller. There
ain't a ranch in Sunset County that won't help. We can count in the
Cross-in-a-box, the Double Diamond A, an' the Hawgpen, in the Lazy
River country, too. Oh, we'll fix 'em. How many o' the boys do yuh
want? I don't begrudge 'em to yuh, but go as light as yuh can. I
still got quite a few hosses left to wrangle."
"Gimme Telescope."
"Is he enough? I can spare another--two if I got to."
"Well, yuh see, I was countin' on borrowin' Johnny Ramsay from Jack
Richie, an' there's Chuck Morgan o' the Bar S. I guess I can get him."
"Get him, an' I'll give him a job after it's all over. Wish I could
get Johnny Ramsay, too, but he'd never quit Richie. Well, yuh shore
done noble in findin' out that truck about Pete O'Leary."
"Yuh've got to thank Miss Saltoun for that. She done it all."
"Her! Old Salt's daughter! Say, I take it all back. She can come out
here whenever she wants. I'll be proud to shake her hand, I will.
Well, I did hope it'd be Dorothy, but now I suppose it's Miss Saltoun.
Dunno's I blame yuh. Dunno's I blame yuh."
"As usual, yo're a-barkin' up the wrong stump. I'm gun-shy of all
women, an' I don't want to talk about 'em."
"Oh, all right, all right," said Scotty, hastily. "How soon can yuh
start?"
"Right now, soon's I get another hoss."
"Take Brown Jug. He'll tote yuh from hell to breakfast an' never feel
it. Yuh'll find the outfit som'ers over north o' Miner Mountain, I
guess. Tell Telescope I want him to go with yuh, an' the rest of 'em
are to come home on the jump. Doubleday an' Swing have got their hands
full twenty times over. First thing I know there won't be a cayuse
left on the ranch."
Two days later Loudon and Laguerre rode into Rocket and spent the night
at the hotel. The landlord, Dave Sinclair, had an interesting tale to
tell.
"Yest'day," said Dave, "Lanky Bob finds Jim Hallaway's body in a gully
near the Bend trail. Jim had been shot in the back, an' he'd been dead
quite a while. Jim an' his brother Tom have a little ranch near the
Twin Peaks, an' Tom hadn't missed him none 'cause Jim, when he left the
ranch, expected to be gone a month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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