Hopalong Cassidy Sees Red

Long was leaning against the upper end of the counter, where it turned at right angles to meet the wall behind it. At Bill's back and only two steps away was the front door. His chin was in his hand and his elbow rested on the bar, where he appeared to be moodily studying the floor behind the counter, but in reality his keen, narrowed eyes were watching Thorpe and the loopholes in the checkerboard. From his position he caught the light on them at just the right angle to see the backing plates. He let Johnny go past him without more than a casual glance and nod.

Thorpe moved forward, cleaving a straight path through the restless crowd and stopped in front of the newcomer. 'Nelson,' he said, tartly; 'th' boss wants to see you, pronto!' As he spoke he let his swinging hand rest against the butt of his gun.

Johnny took plenty of time for his answer, his mind Working at top speed. If Kane had caused inquiries to be made around Gunsight concerning him he knew that the report hardly would please any man who was against law and order; and he knew that Kane had had plenty of time to make the inquiries. The thinly veiled hostility and suspicions on the faces around him settled that question in his mind. He slouched sidewise until he had Thorpe in a better position between him and the partition.

'You shore made a mistake,' he drawled. 'Th' boss never even heard of me.'

'I said pronto!' snapped Thorpe.

'Well, as long as yo're so pressin',' came the slow, acquiescent reply, 'you can go to blazes! '

Thorpe's gun got halfway out, and stopped as a heavy Colt jabbed into his stomach with a force which knocked the breath out of him and doubled him up. Johnny's other gun, deftly balanced between his palm and the thumb on its hammer, freezing the expressions as it had found them on the faces of the crowd. 'Stick up yore han's! All of you! You, in the chair!' he roared. 'Stick 'em up!' and Red lost no time in making up for his delinquency. Bill Long, being out of the angry man's sight, raised his only halfway.

'I was welcome enough last night,' snapped Johnny; 'but somethin's wrong today. If Kane wants to see me, he can send somebody that can talk without insultin' me. An' as for this sick cow, I'm warnin' him fair that I shoot at th' first move, his move or anybody else's. Stand up, you!' he shouted; 'an' foller me outside. Keep close, an' plumb in front of me. I'll turn you loose when I get to cover. Come on!'

As he backed toward the door, Thorpe following, Bill Long, seeing that Johnny was master of the situation, got his hands all the way up, but the motion was observed and Johnny's gun left Thorpe long enough to swing aside and cover the tardy one. 'You keep 'em there!' he gritted. 'You can rest 'em later!' and he cautiously backed against the door, moved along it the few inches necessary to gain the opening, and felt his way to the street. 'Don't you gamble, Thorpe!' he warned. 'Stick closer!'

Being furthest from the front door and soonest out of Johnny's sight, Red Thompson let his hands fall to his hips and cautiously peered over the top of the bar, ready to cover the crowd until Bill Long could drop his upraised hands.

Bill was unfortunate, since he would have to be the last man to assume a more natural position; but he was growing tired and suddenly flung himself sidewise beyond the door opening. As he left the bar there came a heavy report from the street and the bullet, striking the edge of the counter where he had stood, glanced upward and entered the ceiling, a generous cloud of dust moving slowly downward.

'He's a mad dog,' muttered Bill, shrinking against the wall. 'An' he can shoot like sin! I reckon he's itchin' to get me on sight, now. Somebody look out an' see where he is. But what'n blazes is it all about, anyhow?'

The chief bartender's head reappeared further down the counter. 'You fool!' he yelled. 'Why didn't you let me know what you was goin' to do? Don't you never think of nobody but yourself? That parted my hair!'; Fisher swore disgustedly. 'Look out, yourself, Long, if yo're curious! But why didn't you get him?' he demanded. 'You was behind him!'

'I wasn't neither behind him; I was on th' side!' retorted Bill. 'He was watchin' me out of th' corner of his eye, like th' cussed rattler he is! I could see it plain, I tell you!'

'You can see lots of things when yo're scared stiff, can't you?' sneered a voice in the crowd.

'I wasn't scared,' defended Bill. 'But I wasn't takin' no chances for th' glory of it. He never done nothin' to me, an' I ain't on Kane's payroll—yet.'

'An' you ain't goin' to be, I reckon,' laughed another.

Fisher's face proclaimed that he had solved whatever problem there might be in Bill's lack of action. 'Ain't had a chance to get it from him yet, huh?' he asked. Sneering, he gave a warning as he turned away. 'An' don't you try for it, neither. If he won't come back here no more, I can get him playin' somewhere else.'

Red arose fully and stretched, hearing a slight grating noise at a loophole in the partition behind him, where the slide dropped into place. 'I'm dry; bone dry,' he announced. 'I never was so dry before. All in favor of a drink, step up. I'm payin' for this round.'

All were in favor of it, and the bartender moved slowly behind the counter toward the front door, his head bent over far to the right. 'Don't see him; but we better wait till Thorpe comes back. Great guns! Did you see it!' he marveled.

'I can see it better now than I could then,' said Red, leaning against the bar. 'Come on, boys; he's done gone. This means you, too, Long; 'though I ain't sayin' you hardly earned it. If he saw you before he backed up, I says he's got eyes in his ears. Why, cuss it, he was lookin' plumb at me all th' time. You got too hefty an imagination, Long.'

Out in the street Johnny, backing swiftly from the building, saw Bill Long's sudden leap and fired, for moral effect, at the place vacated. Yanking his captive's gun from its holster, he was about to toss it aside when his fingers gripped the telltale butt and a colder look gleamed in his eyes. Slipping his right-hand gun into its holster he gripped the captured weapon affectionately, and then hazarded a quick glance around him. Someone was riding rapidly down the trail from the north, and a second sidewise glance told him that it was Idaho.

'Faster, you!' he growled to the doorkeeper. 'Keep a-comin'—keep a-comin'. One false move an' Kane'll need another sentry. You may be able to make Bill Long climb up a wall, but I ain't in his class.'

Idaho, who was riding in to appease his burning curiosity, felt its flames lick instantly higher as he saw his friend back swiftly from Kane's front door, with Thorpe apparently hooked on the sight of the six-gun. Drawing rein instantly in his astonishment, he at once loosened them and whirled into the scanty and scrawny vegetation on the far side of the trail. Going at a dead run he sent the wiry little pony over piles of cans, around cacti and other larger obstructions until he reached the rear of Red Frank's, facing on the next street. Here he pulled up and drew the Winchester from its scabbard, feeling that Johnny was capable of taking care of Kane's if not interfered with from behind.

Johnny, reaching the rear of the building which he had sought the night before, leaped back and to one side as he came to the end of the wall, glanced along the rear end and then curtly ordered Thorpe back to his friends.

'There'll be more to this,' snarled Thorpe, white from anger, his face working. His courage was not of the fineness necessary to let him yield to the mad impulse which surged over him and urged him to throw himself, hands, feet and teeth, in a blind and hopeless attack upon the certain death which balanced itself in the gun in Johnny's hand. His blazing eyes fixed full on his enemy's, he let discretion be his tutor and slowly, grudgingly stepped back, his dragging feet moving only inches at each shuffle, while their owner, poised and tense and ready to take advantage of any slip on Johnny's part, backed toward the sandy street and the scene of his discomfiture. At last reaching the front of the building he paused, stood slowly erect and then wheeled about and strode toward Kane's. At the door he glanced once more at his waiting adversary and then plunged into the room, Striding straight for the partition door without a single sidewise glance.

Idaho's voice broke the spell. 'I thought he was goin' to risk it,' he muttered, a deep sigh of relief following the words. 'He was near loco, but he just about had enough sense left to save his worthless life. You would 'a' blowed him apart at that distance.'

'I'd 'a' smashed his pointed jaw!' growled Johnny. 'I ain't shootin' nobody that don't reach for a gun. An' if I'd had any sense I'd 'a' chucked th' guns to you an' let him have his beatin'. Next time, I will. Fine sort of a dog he is, tellin' me what I'm goin' to do, an' when I'm goin' to do it!'

'Wait till pay day, when I'll have more money,' chuckled Idaho. 'I can easy get three to two around here. He's th' champeen rough-an'-tumble fighter for near a hundred miles, but I'm sayin' any man with th' everlastin' nerve to