Taggart (?)
Show this to the judge.
Collins studied it thoughtfully. 'I reckon he's got it figured proper,' he said. 'That would make it at worst a tie vote. Taggart would have gone along with his boss, I know that. Dan's hotheaded, but Abe always sort of calms him down and keeps him thinking straight.'
'You see what it implies, don't you?' Dean indicated. 'That Abe Mclnnis was drygulched on purpose!'
'Uh-huh,' Finerty agreed, 'it does. I agree.'
'Let's call another meeting,' Armstrong suggested, 'and vote him out. You've got some stock running with the judge, haven't you, Doc? Enough to vote?'
'It wouldn't do,' Collins said. 'The Rawhide bunch wouldn't meet. We couldn't get a quorum now. No, he's in, and we might as well make the best of it. What's he been doing, Dean?'
'Riding all over the range so far. That's all.'
Pierce Logan sat in his office. He wore a neatly pressed dark gray suit and a white vest. His white hat lay atop the safe nearby. As he sat, he fingered his mustache thoughtfully.
It had been a long wait, and hard work, but now he was there. Only a few more weeks and he would be in possession of all he had hoped for. They would be shaky, dangerous weeks, but the danger would be of the sort he understood best.
He had come out of the carpetbag riots in New Orleans with money. Enough to come west in obvious prosperity. The little affair near New Orleans, one of those times when the ingrown rapacity of the man had let go like an explosion, had passed over without trouble. Since arriving in Laird he had bided his time. Now he was ready.
He was not worried about Texas Dowd. Sonntag had set something up, and it would be taken care of soon. Sonntag was range detective, and any killings he might commit would have a semblance of legality. There was opposition here in town, he knew. Judge Collins would be against him, but the judge was no longer young. Finerty could not stand against him, and as for Armstrong ... Logan didn't like Armstrong. At the first hint of trouble from The Branding Iron, he would have to have the presses smashed up.
His eyes shifted out the window, and suddenly, he stiffened.
A man was walking slowly along the sandy hillside beyond the livery barn and corrals. He was walking along as though studying the ground. Now and then he would halt, kneel down, and study it carefully, then he would rise and move on. Occasionally he would sift a little dirt through his fingers.
The man was Garfield Otis.
Pierce Logan put a hand to his brow. He was sweating. His heart pounding, he slid a hand in a drawer for a gun. Then drew it back. No, that wasn't the way.
But what could the old fool be looking for? Why would he be examining that hillside, of all places?
It had been years ago. Certainly, Otis could know nothing. Yet he watched him, and Logan knew for the first time what it meant to fear.
If he was discovered now, he was ruined. Not even the Rawhide bunch could save him. It was only his power and money that held them together, and if the lid blew off this !
Garfield Otis was wandering back down the wash now. He would be in the saloon in a few minutes. But no, Otis hadn't been drinking lately. And Otis was a friend of Mahone's.
Whatever was done must be done at once, and Logan knew there was only one thing that could be done. He got up and walked out into the street.
Finn Mahone had taken an old game trail east from the entrance to Crystal Valley. It led him down, and across a corner of the lava beds, then into the wild country of the Highbinders north of the Lazy K.
His stallion walked slowly, and Finn kept one hand near his walnut gun butt. The chance of seeing an enemy here was slight, although he had decided against trying the Notch. If anyone were to lie in wait for him, that would be the ideal spot.
The country in which he now rode was country where few horsemen ever went. The hillsides of the Highbinders were too grass less to draw cattle away from the fertile bottoms of the Lazy K range. This was a broken, partly timbered, and very rocky country that offered nothing to any man. Sheep or goats might have lived there; cattle could not.
Yet, when he was almost due north of the Lazy K ranch buildings, he stopped and swung down.
Coming out of the woods and turning into the small trail he followed were the recent tracks of a horse!
Finn loosened his gun in its holster and walked on, leading Fury. On second thought, he turned off the trail and chose a way under the pines, avoiding the dust where his tracks would be seen. When he had gone a little way further, he smelled smoke.
At first, it was just a faint suggestion, then he got a stronger whiff. Tying the stallion to a low branch, he worked his way cautiously through the brush. He had gone almost a hundred yards when he saw a faint blue haze rising from a hollow among the rocks.
Crawling out on a flat-topped rock that ended in a clump of manzanita, he lay on his belly and stared down into the hollow.
A fire, small and carefully built, burned among some stones. A coffeepot sat on the stones, being warmed. A buckskin horse was tethered nearby, and not far away, a grulla packhorse.
There was one man, and Finn watched him curiously. The man was small and dark, and at the moment Finn spotted him, he was fastening a long narrow piece of white cloth to a tree trunk. Peering at it, Finn could see that it had a cross printed on it near the top, and then graduated markings running down its length. At the bottom was a weight so that the strip would hang straight down.
When it was fastened, the small man carefully paced off a certain distance and marked the spot, then he picked up his rifle, a Sharps buffalo gun. Finn's brow furrowed.
Puzzled, Mahone watched the man carry his Sharps to the mark on the ground and rest the muzzle in the crotch of a forked stick he carried. Laying prone, the little man carefully aimed at the cloth strip and then proceeded to work the screw-adjustable peep sight that was fitted to the big gun up and down, making minute adjustments until it was lined up with one of the marks on the cloth.
'Well, I'll be forever damned!' Finn Mahone muttered. 'That's a new one on me!' The dark man was calibrating his sights for a long shot over a previously measured distance.
When he was satisfied, the man left the rifle where it was and returned to his fire. He drank coffee, ate a little, and took a hurried look around. Then he put out his fire, scattered it, and carefully wiped out all footprints with a pine bough. For a half hour he worked until every mark of the camp had been obliterated.
Only then did he take his rifle. Mounting the buckskin, which with the packhorse had been led into the trail, he ! held his rifle with great care, then he moved off, walking the horse.
Finn Mahone got up quietly and walked back to his own horse. Moving carefully, he followed the strange rider. The man's every action gave evidence that he had no intention of riding far, and the only place close to j them was the Lazy K ranch!
Who, then, was the killer after? For Finn had noj doubts about the man's intentions. Remy? That would] serve no purpose, Frenchy Kastelle? Probably not.
Who, of all the men on this range, would be most dangerous to successful rustling? Texas Dowd. Who, on this range, might match guns with Sonntag or Ringer Cobb or Montana Kerr? Only, aside from himself, Texas Dowd. All of which meant that this man intended to kill Dowd.
His conclusion might be mistaken, but Finn could think of no logical alternative.
When they drew near the edge of the timber, Finn tied the stallion in a concealed position among the trees and, rifle in hand, moved out after the unknown sharpshooter.
The man had tied his horses with a slip knot and had vanished into the brush. Finn started to follow, then hesitated and walked back to the horses. Untying them, he retied the knot, and lashed it hard and fast. The man who rode these horses wasn't going to be getting away in a hurry!
Then, working with infinite care, Finn Mahone worked down along the marksman's trail.
He lost the trail on the edge of the brush. Here the man had moved into a gully, and whether he had gone up down, Finn could not tell. Yet from where he lay on the side of the bluff Finn had an excellent view of the grassy field between the Lazy K ranch buildings and the position he occupied. The sharpshooter would have to move out into position from here, and get into place to fire on the buildings.
