Ike Hibby jerked, and looked around hastily. Ringer Cobb's eyes narrowed, and strayed to Dowd. Texas Dowd was leaning against the wall again, and he looked back at Cobb, his eyes bright with malice.
Hibby shifted his feet. 'Reckon I'll be headin' for home,' he said. 'Got a long ways t' go!'
Brewster picked up his hat and nodded good-bye to everyone. Alcorn and Ike glared at Remy, Alcorn licking his lips. 'I don't figure I know what you mean, ma'am. But if anyone is accusin' anyone, it's us against Mahone. Not the other way around.'
Slowly, they trooped out.
'Now what did I say?' Remy demanded, looking from her father to Dowd.
The tall Texan walked over and dropped into a chair. 'You put your finger on the sore spot,' he said grimly. 'You blew the lid off the trouble in Laird!'
'Why, how do you mean?' she demanded, wide-eyed.
'Got a pen?' Texas said grimly.
She brought one out, and some paper. He looked up at her. 'What's Abe's brand? A Spur, ain't it? Now look, an' I'll draw a Spur. Now what's Ike Hibby's brand? IH' joined. Now just you take a look, ma'am ...'
She looked at the rough drawing.
'You see what I mean? You take Abe's brand, add a mite more to the sides of the Spur to make it look like an I, then put a bar on the end of the Spur to make her look like the outside of the H.'
Remy leaned over the table, excitedly. 'But then, he could steal the Spur cattle and alter that brand without trouble!'
'Uh-huh, unless we caught him at it. Or unless we found some stock with altered brands. We ain't done either.'
'You mean to say you've known this all the time?'
'I been thinkin' about it. But thinking something and havin' evidence ain't the same thing.'
'But what about ours? The Lazy K?'
'It's probably made into a Box Diamond, and that's Ringer Cobb's brand. Brewster's Lazy S they change into a Lazy Eight.'
'But then, that Rawhide crowd must be the rustlers!' Remy exclaimed.
'Uh-huh,' Dowd agreed. 'That's what I thought, but what can we prove?
'Something else, too,' he added gravely. 'Tonight the Rawhide bunch voted their own boss in as a paid, legal killer! Who's goin' to tell him where to stop? Or who he kills? Who will stop him once he's started?'
Chapter 4
Finn Mahone heard of the action of the Cattleman's Association when in Rico. He had made it a duty to visit Rico every so often, always hoping the man he had come west to find would show himself there again.
He had never seen the man for whom he was looking close up. He knew his name, that he had been a riverboat gambler, and that he was a wizard with cards and deadly with a pistol. He knew also that the man carried a derringer in his sleeve and was not above sneak-shooting a man.
Finn Mahone had trailed him from New Orleans to Natchez. All the time, the man had ridden a stolen steel- dust gelding. The man had ridden the big horse all the way to Santa Fe, where he traded it off for another animal. Mahone had bought the steel-dust from the new owner on a hunch and continued on.
Then he heard that a man answering the rough description had killed a man in Rico. But in Rico the trail was lost for good. Eventually, Finn had explored the Crystal Valley and settled down there. He was operating on a hunch that his man was somewhere around. He kept the big gelding, although he could not bring himself to ride it, and the horse grazed his upper pasture even now.
Ed Wheeling was in the Gold Spike Bar when he walked in. Wheeling greeted him with a smile. 'How's it, Finn? Got any cattle? That last herd I bought from you was said to be the finest beef in Kansas City!'
'Thanks.' Finn ordered a drink. 'When do you want some? I reckon I can bring over a few. About a hundred head.'
'That all you've got? I'll take them, and top prices any time you get them over here. What's this I hear about Sonntag being hired as a range detective?'
Mahone looked at him quickly. 'Sonntag? That's bad.'
'What I thought. The man's a killer. I saw him kill one man here in town only a few weeks ago. The man had an even break, if you can ever call it even when they go-against him.'
Finn turned his glass in his fingers. 'Wheeling, what do you know about this rustling?'
Wheeling glanced right and left, then touched his tongue to his lips. 'Nothing, if anybody asks. Me, I don't buy any doubtful beef, but there's others do. I'll tell you this much. There's been some queer-looking brands shipped out of here. Good jobs, but they looked burned over to me.'
'Who buys 'em?'
'Well, don't go saying I told you. Jim Hoff bought 'em, but then, he'd buy anything he could get cheap.'
'Thanks.' He tossed off his drink. 'This Sonntag deal is liable to be bad for those folks over to Laird. Sonntag is boss of that Rawhide bunch.' He glanced at Wheeling. 'They run the Lazy Eight, Box Diamond, and IH connected, if that means anything to you.'
'It does,' Wheeling replied. 'It means plenty!'
Finn left the saloon. What Wheeling had told him only confirmed what he had believed. There was brand altering being done somewhere around. And some, at least, were being sold in Rico. They would move against him now, he had no doubt of that. The employing of Sonntag. would give them a free rein. He wondered what the first move would be.
The noose was tightening now. Stopping in at the store he bought three hundred rounds of .44-caliber ammunition. His pistols had been modified to use the same ammunition as his Knight's Patent Winchester, which simplified things in that department.
He was just stowing it in his saddlebags when he saw Dean Armstrong. The newspaperman was coming toward him. 'Howdy, Dean!' he said.
Armstrong's face was somber. 'Watch yourself, Finn,' he said. 'I think Sonntag's gunning for you. I know Ringer Cobb is. He made his boast at the Cattleman's meeting that he would accuse you to your face.'
'What happened at that meeting?'
'It was ramrodded, in a sense. Judge Collins, Kastelle, Remy, and Dowd voted against Sonntag. But Brewster and Taggart threw in with the Rawhide bunch.'
'Taggart?'
'Abe Mclnnis's foreman. Abe was drygulched, wounded badly the same time they killed Tony Welt.'
'Hadn't heard about that.'
Armstrong looked at him quickly, worriedly. 'Finn, > they've got you pegged for that job. It happened in one of the canyons in the wild country south of the Rimrock. They found the tracks of a big horse, and some of them say they saw your stallion in there.'
'I might have been there,' Finn admitted, 'but not when any shooting took place.'
He dug his toe into the dust. 'Remy voted against Sonntag, huh?'
'Yes. In fact, Finn, she spoke right out in the meeting and said she didn't believe you were a rustler.'
'What did Dowd say?'
'He was against Sonntag. But on the whole, he didn't have much to say. I think Texas Dowd believes in killing his own beef.'
'You're damned right he does,' Mahone said sharply. 'That man's got more cold-blooded nerve than any I ever a saw!'
'What's between you two, anyway?' Dean demanded, looking curiously at Finn. 'I'd think you two would be friends!'
Mahone shrugged. 'That's the way things happen. We were friends once, Dean. For a long time. I know that man better than anyone in the world, and he should know me, but he's powerful set in his ways, and once he gets an idea in his head it's hell getting' it out.'
Finn Mahone headed across the plateau in sooty darkness. Dean's information and what he had learned from Wheeling put the problem fairly in his hands. The Rawhide bunch were evidently out to get him. Ringer Cobb had made his boast, and he was the type of man to back it up if he could.
