attention.
Wind was talking in the pines along the long slopes when we rode into the high valley called Eagle Nest. The trail to Cimarron cut off into the mountains east of us, so I broke away from the pack train and scouted the ground where the trail came out into the valley. Several lone riders and at least one party had headed north toward Elizabeth-town.
We hauled rein and contemplated. We could follow Moreno Creek right into town, or we could cut around a mountain by following Comanche Creek, but it would be better to seem unconcerned and to ride right on into town and stop for a meal, giving out that we were bound up the trail for Idaho where I had a claim.
Elizabethtown was still a supply point for a few prospectors working the hills, and a rough crowd, left over from the Land Grant fighting, hung out there. We turned our stock into an abandoned corral and paid a Mexican to look after them and our outfits.
As we walked toward the nearest bar Cap told me that eight or ten men had been killed in there, and I could see why. There was twenty feet of bar in forty feet of room. The range was so short that a man could scarcely miss.
The grub's good,' Cap said. They've got a cook who used to be chef in a big hotel back east--until he killed a man and had to light out.'
The men at the bar were a rugged lot, which meant nothing, for good men can look as rough as bad men, and often do.
The one with the General Grant beard,' Cap commented, 'that's Ben Hobes . . . he's on the wanted list in Texas.'
The bartender came over. 'What's it for you?' He glanced at Cap Rountree. 'Ain't seen you in a while.'
'And you won't,' Cap said, 'not unless you come to Idaho. We got us a claim. . . . Who's that white-headed kid at the bar with Ben?'
The bartender shrugged. 'Drifter . . . figures he should be considered a bad man. I ain't seen any graveyards yet.'
'You got some of those oysters? Fix me up a stew.'
'Same for me,' I said, 'only twice as much, and a chunk of beef, if you've got it.'
'Cookie's got a roast on--best you ever ate.'
The bartender walked away, and Cap said, 'Sam's all right. He's neutral, the way he should be. Wants no trouble.'
The white-headed kid that Cap had asked about leaned his elbows on the bar, hooking a heel over the brass rail. He was wearing two guns, tied down. He had a long, thin face, his eyes were close-set, and there was a twist to his mouth.
He said something to Ben Hobes, and the older man said, 'Forget it.' Cap looked at me, his eyes grim.
After a few minutes the bartender came in with the grub and we started to eat. Cap was right. This man could sure put the groceries together.
'He can cook, all right,' I said to Cap. 'How'd he kill that man?'
'Poisoned him,' Cap said, and grinned at me.
Chapter VI
We were hungry. Nobody savors his own cooking too much, and in the months to come we figured to have too much of ours, so we enjoyed that meal. Whatever else the cook was, he understood food.
All the time there was talk at the bar. Folks who live quiet in well-ordered communities probably never face up to such a situation. It was a time of free-moving, independent men, each jealous of his own pride, and touchy on points that everybody is touchy about.
And there are always those who want to be thought big men, who want to walk with great strides across the world, be pointed out, and looked up to. Trouble is, they all don't have what it takes to be like that.
Up there at the bar was this white-headed youngster they were calling Kid Newton, feeling his oats and wanting to stack up against somebody. Cap could see it just as I could; and Ben Hobes, who stood up there beside him, was made nervous by it.
Ben Hobes was a hard man. Nobody needed to point that out, but a man should be wary of the company he keeps, because a trouble-hunter can get you into a bind you'd never get into by yourself. And that Kid Newton was hunting a handle for trouble. He wanted it, and wanted it bad, feeling if he could kill somebody folks would look up to him. And we were strangers.
The thing wrong with strangers, you never know who they are. Cap now, he was a thin old man, and to Newton he might look like somebody to ride over, instead of an old buffalo hunter and Indian fighter who'd seen a hundred youngsters like Kid Newton get taken down.
Me, I'm so tall and thin for my height (Ma says I should put on thirty pounds) that he might figure me as nothing to worry about.
Trouble was the last thing I wanted. Back in Uvalde I'd killed Bigelow in a showdown I couldn't get out of any other way--unless I wanted to die. That was likely to give me all the difficulty I'd want.
Newton was looking at Cap. He grinned, and I heard Hobes say again, 'Forget it.'
'Aw, what's the matter?' I heard the Kid say, 'I'm just gonna have some fun.' Ben whispered to him, but the Kid paid him no mind.
'Hey, old man! Ain't you kind of old to be traipsin' over the country?'
Cap didn't even look up, although the lines in his face deepened a little. I reached down real slow and taken my pistol out and laid it on the table. I mean I taken one pistol out. I was wearing another in my waist-band.
