Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 08 - Sudden Takes The Trail(1940) by Oliver Strange Page B

dense brush. This was
Dark Canyon, the overhanging walls fully justifying the name. It was never
used, being difficult to enter, and without an exit. At the nearer end to The
Step, Mullins, Javert, and five others were sitting round the embers of a fire.
The man with the pitted face was finishing his story:
                 “An’
if it hadn’t bin for Pinto, I’d likely be dancin’ on nothin’ right now.”
                 “ Bah ! O’ course you’d ‘a’ squealed.” This
from Javert. Pocky glared at him. “Yo’re a dirty liar,” he rasped. “I
never sold a pal yet.”
                 “Have
it yore way,” the gambler returned carelessly. “I’ll bet Owen was bluffin’,
anyway.”
                 “You’d
lose—he ain’t that sort. If he promises to stretch a fella’s neck he’ll do it,
regardless. It’s a good thing I planted a friend at the Bar O.” Javert sneered.
“You foresaw this happenin’, huh?”
                 “No,
I put Pinto there to keep me posted on the movements o’ the cowboys an’ cattle,”
                 Jake
replied. “I’ve had this game in mind for months; it’s easy money.”
                 “Yeah, an’ damn’ little of it. A few cows,
which we gotta sell for half their value.”
                 “If
it ain’t worth yore while you got a simple remedy,” Jake reminded. “This is on’y
a beginnin’— there’s other ranges in reach.”
                 “A
lot o’ hard work for two-three hundred bucks, an’ risk our necks at that. We
couldn’t lose more if we made it thousands.”
                 “What
you drivin’ at?”
                 “This
cattle rustlin’ is chicken-feed, just keeps us in grub an’ smokin’. Why not try
where there’s real money, scads of it. A bank, say?” He saw at once that he had regained the ground he had lost in the recent
quarrel, for the eyes of his companions gleamed avariciously at his audacious
proposal. Even their leader could put forward no objection.
                 “I
think you got somethin’ there,” he said. “0I’ Morley must carry a lot o’ coin
at times, an’ there’s on’y him an’ his missis on the premises. It would square
my little account with him.”
                 “An’
give some o’ them Welcome hucksters a pain in the breakfast,” Javert added
viciously.
                 “We’ll
do it,” Mullins decided. “But we gotta pick the right night. Dutch, ain’t I
seen young Evans, Morley’s clerk, in Dirty Dick’s?”
                 “Shore, he dasn’t go to the Red Light; Bob has threatened to
fire him if he does.”
                 “That’s
fine. You slide in this evenin’, git hold o’ that boy, an’ pump him dry,
casual-like, o’ course. Then we can make our plans. Now, them steers we lifted
last night need attention, an’, Pocky, don’t forget to blot the brand o’ that
hoss you took in exchange for yore own; she’s a dead giveaway.” On that same
afternoon, Mary Gray had a surprise when Jesse Sark dismounted outside her
establishment, hitched his horse, and entered. She was alone, clearing up after
the last of her midday customers. Sark cast an appraising eye round the
rehabilitated eating-house, and a remembrance of what it had been forced a
compliment even from his reluctant lips.
                 “My
word, Mary, but you’ve certainly worked wonders,” he said. “I must see if yore
cookin’ grades up to the layout —if you’ll serve me.”
                 “That’s
what I’m here for,” she replied coldly.
                 He
had been drinking, and his eyes watching her vanish into the kitchen, were
covetous.
                 Happiness
and motherhood had made her more physically attractive, accentuating the curves
of her youthful body, which her simple black dress set