Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 07 - Sudden Rides Again(1938) by Oliver Strange Page B

City.”
                 “ That needn’t to worry yu. If yo’re there to see him, nobody
will dare cock an eye at yu; he’s got the whole b’ilin’ waitin’ on his word.”
                 “Yu
seem to know him.”
                 “Know
him?” Lagley repeated. “Shore I do, since he was a pup; worked with him on the
range, an’ hope to again. Now, see here, Green, I didn’t cotton to yu right
off—mebbe it was that trick yu played when we first met, but a fella’s a fool
if he can’t change his mind for good reason. I guess we understand one another
better now. Think over what I’ve said, an’ if yu wanta see Satan, I can fix it. Yu sabe?”
                 Sudden
did. He had learned what he wanted—that the foreman was a traitor, willing to
doublecross his employer, and that he and others of the outfit were already
planning to put the son in the father’s place. The idea of Lagley interceding
with Keith on his behalf amused him; either he was making the best of what he
regarded as a bad job, or setting a trap for a man he did not like.
                 “An’
that man is goin’ to walk right into it,” he told himself. “But not with his
eyes shut, Mister Steve.”
                 When
he returned to the bunkhouse, he found the atmosphere altered, evidently the foreman had been talking. Genial looks greeted him from all save
one—Turvey’s warped, malignant mind retained its rancour despite the
instructions he had received.
                 “I’m
told yu come from Texas, Green,” he said, in his high-pitched, reedy voice. “A fine country.”
                 “Shore
is,” Sudden replied, and waited.
                 “Over-run
with sheriffs, though—fair lousy with ‘em,” the other went on.
                 Sudden
smiled sweetly. “Well now, I was wonderin’ why yu didn’t stay.”
                 A
ripple of laughter proclaimed that he had scored and Turvey’s expression was
not pretty.
                 “Who
told yu I ever was there?” he grated.
                 “Why,
yu seemed to know the place,” Sudden retorted, and shot a shaft at a venture,
“Didn’t meet up with Rogue’s Riders, I s’pose?”
                 He
saw the man’s eyes flicker, but the denial came promptly. “Never
heard of ‘em,” and the sneer, “Friends o’ yourn?”
                 “I
knew Rogue,” was the quiet reply. “He was as crooked as they make ‘em, but he
played straight with those who trusted him. I’ve met worse men, an’ how that
fella could use a six-gun!”
                 Turvey
laughed scornfully. “Rogue shoot?” he jeered. “Why, he couldn’t hit a barn
‘less he was inside it.”
                 He
saw the snare into which he had stumbled when Sudden said, “I expect yu ! mowed him better than I did.”
                 “I
was told that—I never seen the man,” he protested.
                 “Yu
said yu hadn’t heard of him,” Lazy pointed out. Turvey scowled, but showed no
desire to continue an argument in which he had very obviously been worsted.
                 For
some time that night Sudden lay awake, trying to place this man who had
apparently played a part in a page of his own past, but without success; after
all, he had not seen all the members of Rogue’s gang of bandits.

  Chapter
X
                 In
the morning, on the pretence that he needed another shirt, Sudden again
searched his belongings, but the telltale notice was not there. Either the
thief had destroyed, or could find another use for it. The circumstance did not
worry him; he had a shrewd suspicion it would be put to the purpose he had
intended. On his way to the corral, the rancher stopped him.
                 “You
and Homer get along all right?” he asked. “Good, I’ve told Steve you