be as intelligent as you two are, and I might wind up having to kill them.”
“All right, yeah, that’s a good idea,” Ian said. “We’ll take you.”
Back at the house, Frewen got up from his chair, crossed the room and planted a kiss on the lips of his beautiful wife.
“My dear,” he said. “Don’t you know that my life started when I met you? Compared to that lucky day when you agreed to become my wife, nothing from my past—no dalliance, no adventure, no accomplishment of any kind— could ever be of any import.”
Clara smiled. “You do have a way of smoothing my feathers, don’t you, Moreton?”
Frewen returned her smile. “Lord, I certainly hope so,” he said.
Moreton Frewen’s “gentleman’s gentleman” stepped into the drawing room.
“Sir Moreton, there is a gentleman by the name of Matt Jensen to see you.”
“He’s here? Good, good, show him in, would you please, Benjamin?”
“Who is Matt Jensen?” Clara asked as Benjamin left.
“He is someone that I hope I can convince to do some work for me,” Frewen replied.
When Matt was led into the drawing room, he saw as handsome a couple as he had ever seen. The woman was blond and beautiful, the man tall and handsome, with a well-groomed mustache. Both were elegantly dressed.
“Mr. Jensen, thank you so much for coming,” Frewen said.
“I must confess, Mr. Frewen, that your invitation was quite compelling,” Matt said. “In fact, I would say that it provided me with five thousand reasons to come.”
Frewen chuckled. “I hoped that would get your attention. I’ve read a great deal about you, Mr. Jensen. I knew that if I had any hope of getting your attention, I would have to do something dramatic.”
“You got my attention,” Matt said.
“Good.” Frewen turned toward Clara. “Clara, would you excuse us, please, my dear? Mr. Jensen and I are going to talk some business and I fear that some of it might not be suitable for a lady’s ears.”
“Very well,” Clara replied without protesting. She flashed a big smile toward Matt. “If you would excuse me, Mr. Jensen?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Matt replied with a slight nod of the head.
Frewen waited until after Clara was gone before he resumed the conversation.
“I hear that there was some unpleasantness last night in the pub.”
For a second, Matt had to think about what Frewen was talking about. Then he realized the pub Frewen was talking about was The Lion and The Crown Saloon.
“Yes, I’m afraid there was,” Matt said. “The man I shot, Kyle Houston, said that he had been hired to kill me.”
“So I heard.”
“Do you have any idea who might have hired him?” Matt asked.
“My foreman and I were discussing that same subject,” Frewen said. “And we have come up with the idea that it may have been Sam Logan.”
“Sam Logan?”
“Have you ever heard of him?”
“Only that you mentioned him in your letter.”
“Yes, well, he is an outlaw, though I have heard that at one time he was a peace officer. I do find that hard to believe, though. I mean, why would a former peace officer become an outlaw?”
“It’s really not all that hard to believe,” Matt said. “The West is full of outlaws who have gone straight and started wearing a badge, as well as peace officers who have crossed the line to become outlaws.”
“Then perhaps the rumors are true. Whatever his background, he is affiliated with a very active gang of cattle rustlers who are operating here in Johnson County with absolute impunity. They call themselves the Yellow Kerchief Gang because they all wear a yellow kerchief, as if it is a point of great personal pride. And, I am sorry to say, they have already killed six of my men, to say nothing of the cattle they have stolen.”
“Thank you for the way you put that,” Matt said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“When you said that they were causing you trouble, you put the lives of your men above the loss of your cattle. Not all ranchers would do that.”
“I assure you, Mr. Jensen, I feel the loss of each life most intensely.”
“Did you tell anyone you were contacting me?” Matt asked.
“I did, actually,” Frewen replied. “I hoped that just the knowledge that you might be working with me would cause Mr. Logan to have second thoughts about stealing cattle from me.”
“How does Logan work?”
“Well, as I said, he is the head of the Yellow Kerchief Gang, and they have gotten very bold, because now they are quite large. They succeed by overwhelming numbers. And Logan seems to understand military tactics. He knows where he will be able to enjoy numerical superiority, and he will ride in, bold as you please, with a group of ten or twelve men against two or three, four at the most, and proceed to cut out cattle. On one such raid, he took over fifteen hundred cattle.”
