In the morning, Red Ringo grinned at Tandy. "He should have knowed better than to draw against an hombre slick with a gun as you," he said. "That was plumb suicide!"

"Luck," Thayer said honestly. "Pure luck!"

"Huh!" Ringo was disgusted. "After that card I saw you shoot a hole into?"

Thayer reached in his pocket and took out another card. "Look!" he said. Spinning it into the air, he drew and fired. "Now take a look at it."

Ringo walked over and picked up the card. It was a trey, and all the pips were shot out. He stared at it. "But you only shot once!" he protested.

"Sure." Tandy Thayer reached in his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards with all the pips shot out. "I shoot em out first, then always have one around. You ain't got any idea how many arguments they stop!"

THE GUNS TALK LOUD.

He rode into town on a brown mule and swung down from the saddle in front of the Chuck Wagon. He wore a high Mexican hat and a pair of tight Mex pants that flared over his boots. Shorty Duval started to open his mouth to hurrah this stranger when the hombre turned around. Shorty Duval's mouth snapped shut like a steel trap, and you could almost see the sweat break out on his forehead.

One look was all anybody needed. Shorty was tough, but n.o.body was buying any trouble from the drifter in the high-crowned hat. He had a lean brown face and a beak of a nose that had been broken some time or other. There was a scar along his cheekbone that showed white against the leather brown of his face. But it was his eyes that gave you the chills. They were green and brown, but there was something in the way they looked at you that would make a strong man back up and think it over.

He was wearing two guns and crossed belts. They were not Peacemakers, but the older Colt, the baby cannon known as the Walker Colt. Too heavy for most men, they would shoot pretty accurate for well over a hundred yards, which wasn't bad for a rifle. He wore one of them short Mex jackets, too, and when we looked from his queer getup to that brown mule that was all legs we couldn't figure him one little bit.

Not many strangers rode into White Hills. I'd been there all of two months, and I was the last one to come. This hombre showed he knowed the kind of a town he was in when he didn't look too long at anybody. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice us. He just pushed through the doors and bellied up to the bar.

Bill Riding was in there, and some four or five others. Being a right curious hombre, I walked in myself. If this gent did any talkin', I aimed to be where I could listen. I saw Riding look around when I come in. His eyes got mean.

From the first day I hit town, we'd no use for each other. Partly it was because of Jackie Belton's cur dog. Belton was a kid of fourteen who lived with his sister, Ruth, on a nice cattle spread six or seven miles out of White Hills. That dog ran across in front of Riding one day and come durned near trippin' him. He was a hottempered hombre, and when he drawed iron, I did, too.

Before he could shoot, I said, and I was standin' behind him, "You kill that dog, Riding, and I'll kill you!"

His face got red, and then white. His back was half toward me, and he knowed he didn't have a chance. "Someday," he said, his voice ugly, "you'll b.u.t.t in at the wrong time!"

Jackie saw me, and so did his sister, and after the way they thanked me, I figgered it would have been cheap even if I'd had to kill Riding.

White Hills was an outlaw town. Most of the men in town were wanted somewheres, and while it wasn't doin' any deputy much good to come in here, the town was restless now. That was because the bank over to Pierce had been stuck up and ever'body in White Hills figgered the rangers would come here lookin' for him. That was why they'd looked so suspicious when I rode into town.

It didn't take no fortune-teller to guess that Harvey Kinsella had put Bill Riding to watchin' me. Kinsella was the boss o' that town, and he knowed everythin' that went on around. Riding wasn't the only one had an eye on me, I knowed that. Kinsella had posted two or three other hombres for the same reason. Still, I stuck around. And part of the reason I stayed was Ruthie Belton.

The hombre with the high-crowned sombrero leaned against the bar and let those slow green eyes of his take in the place. They settled on Riding, swung past Shorty Duval, and finally settled on me. They stayed there the longest, and I wasn't surprised none. We were the two biggest men in the place, me and him. Maybe I was a mite the bigger, but that hat made him look just as tall. His eyes didn't show what he was thinkin', but knowin' how a man on the dodge feels, I knowed what it was.

He had me sized up like I had him. Me, I growed up under the Tonto Rim, and when I wanted to ride the cattle trails, I had to ride east to git to 'em. I'd punched cows and dealt monte in Sonora, and I ain't braggin' none when I say that when I rode through New Mexico and hung around Lincoln and Fort Sumner and Sante Fe, not Billy the Kid nor Jesse Evans wanted any part of what I had to give. Not that I wanted them, either.

There wasn't no high Mex hat on me. Mine was flat crowned and flat brimmed, but my guns was tied down, and had been for more than a little while. My boots was some down at the heel, and I needed a shave, but no man in that place had the power in his shoulders I had, and no man there but me could bust a leather belt with his chest expansion.

He didn't need no second sight to tell him I was ridin' a lone trail, either. They never cut my hide to fit no Kinsella frame. Anyway, he looked at me, and then he says, "I'll buy you a drink." An' the way he laid that "y" in there was like layin' a whip across the face of ever' other man in the saloon. Bill Riding jerked like he'd been bee-stung, but Kinsella wasn't there, and Bill sat tight.

Me, I walks over to the bar and bellies up to it. Amigo, it done me good to look in that long mirror and see the two of us standin' there. You' can ride for miles and never find two such big men together. Maybe I was a mite were' thicker'n him through the chest, but he was big, amigo and he was mean.

"They call me Sonora," he said, lookin' at the rye in his gla.s.s.

"Me, I'm Dan Ketrel." I said, but I was thinkin' of be what the descriptions of the bandit who robbed the bank at Pierce said. A big man, the descriptions said, a very big man, wearin ' two guns. Sonora was a big man, and he wore two guns. For that matter, I did, too. There was even another big man in town who wore two guns.

The boss, it was, Harvey Kinsella. We looked at each other right then, and neither of us was fooled a mite. He knowed what I was here for, and I knowed what he was here for, and neither of us was in friendly country. Bill Riding didn't like me bein' here. It was chokin' up in him like a thunderstorm chokin' up a canyon with cloud. It was gittin' in his throat, the meanness of him, and I could see trouble was headin' our way.

For that matter, I'd knowed it was comin', soon or late. I knowed it was comin' because I knowed I was goin' to b.u.t.t into somethin' that wasn't rightly my business. It had been buildin' for days, ever since I got the lay of the land, hereabouts. I was goin' to tear down the fence that kept Ruth Belton's cows from grazin' in Reefer Canyon, where the good gra.s.s was.

You'd think, maybe, that tearin' down one fence wouldn't do no good. You'd think maybe they'd put it right up again. You'd be wrong. If'n I tore down that fence once, it was goin' to stay down, because after I tore it down, I'd have to kill Harvey Kinsella and Bill Riding. They was the ones out to break Ruthie Belton.

When her old man was alive, they left him strictly alone. He was old, but he was a ring-tailed wolf on the prowl, and they knowed it. Then he got throwed from a bad hoss, and they started to move in on the Bar B.

It wasn't none of my business. Me, I was up here for were a purpose, and rightly I shouldn't think of anythin' else, but sometimes a man stumbles into a place where, if he's a man, he's got to show it. And me, I was a fixin' to tear down that fence. It would mean shootin', and Kinsella was poison mean, and Riding d.a.m.n' near as bad. That was sayin' nothin' o' the rest of that outfit. But I had me a plan now, and that be plan was buildin' around a certain tall hombre in a highcrowned hat, a man that rode a brown-legged mule and packed two Walker Colts.

Bill Riding got up and walked over to the bar. He was spoilin' for trouble. As big a man as Kinsella in weight, he was a mite shorter than either of us, but nearly as broad as me. A big-handed man, and a dirty fighter in a rough and tumble.

"Stranger," he says, starin' at Sonora, "y' seem kind of limitin' in your offer of a drink. Maybe you' think you're too durned good to drink with us?"

Sonora had his elbows on the bar right then, and he didn't straighten; he just turned his head and let those cold eyes take in Riding, head to foot; then he looked back at his drink. Riding's face flamed up, and I saw his lips tighten. His hand shot out, and he grabbed Sonora by the shoulder. Bill just had to be top dog, he just had to have ever'body believin' he was a bad hombre, but he done the wrong thing when he laid a hand on Sonora.

The man in the high-crowned hat back-handed his fist into Bill's unprotected midsection. It caught Bill unsuspectin', and he staggered, gaspin' for breath. Then Sonora turned and slugged him. Bill went back into a table, upset it, and then he crawled out of the poker chips with a grunt and started for Sonora.

Just then Harvey Kinsella stepped into the room, and me, I slid back two quick steps and palmed a six-gun. "Hold it," I said, hardlike. "Anybody b.u.t.ts into this sc.r.a.p gets a bellyful of lead!"

Kinsella looked at me then, the first time he ever seemed to see me. "If you didn't have that gun out," he said, "I'd kill you!"

Me, I laughed. If'n it hadn't been for Sonora, who was goin' to town on Riding, I'd have called him. Bein' around like I have, I've seen some men take whippin', but I never saw any man get a more artistic sh.e.l.lackin' than Sonora give Bill Riding. He started in backslash on him, and he used both hands. He cut him like you'd chop beef. He sliced his face like he had a knife edge across his knuckles.

Me, Dan Ketrel, I slug 'em, and Pap always said I had the biggest fists he ever seen on a man, but Sonora, he went to work like a doc. He raised b.u.mps all over Riding and then lanced ever' one o' them with hill knuckles. Riding wanted to drop, but Sonora wouldn't let him fall. He just kept him on his feet until he got so b.l.o.o.d.y, even I couldn't take it. Then Sonora hooked one, high and hard, and Bill Riding went down into that sawdust. Sonora looked over at me, standin' with a gun in my fist.

"Thanks," he said, grinnin' a little. We understood each other, him and me.

Harvey Kinsella looked at Riding lying on the floor; then he looked from Sonora to me. "I'll give you until sundown," he said. Then he turned to go.

"I like it here," I said.

"I've told you," he replied.

Sonora and me walked outside. Me, I figgered it was time to talk.

"There's been talk," I said, "of a ranger comin' in here after that hombre what done that Pierce bank job. Don't let it worry you none. Not for right now.

"Down the road a piece there's a girl, name of Ruth Belton. Her old man was a he-wolf. He's dead. This here Kinsella, he's tryin' to run her off her range. Scared to tackle it when the old man was alive. He's done put up a fence to keep her cows from the good gra.s.s. I aim to cut that fence."

He stood there, his big thumbs in his belt, listenin'. Me, I finished rollin' my smoke. "When I cut that fence, there's goin' to be some shootin', but I aim to cut it and aim to kill Harvey Kinsella. He's got word out that ary a hand on that fence and his guns talk loud.

"I aim to cut it. I aim to kill him so's he won't never put it up again. But he's got a sight of boys ridin' for I him. One or two, I might git, but I don't want nothin' botherin' me when I go after Kinsella."

"Where's the fence? he asked quietly.

"Down the road a piece." I struck a match on my pants. "I reckon if'n we was to ride that way, Ruthie would fix us a bait o' grub. She's quite some shakes with a skillet."

Me, I walked out and swung onto the hurricane deck I of that big blue horse o' mine. Sonora lit his own shuck and then boarded his mule. He went down the street and I took the trail for Ruthie Helton's place. Neither of us said no words all the way until we got up to Ruthie's place and could see the flowers around her door, and Ruthie waterin' 'em down.

"I reckon," Sonora said then, "that ranger could hold off doin' what he has to do till a job like this was over. Don't reckon he'd wait much longer, though, would he?"

"Don't reckon so," I said grimly. "A man's got his duty. Still," I added, "maybe this ranger never seen the hombre he's lookin' for. Maybe he ain't sure when he does see him, so maybe he rides back without him?"

"Wouldn't do no good," Sonora objected. "Too many others lookin', and he'd be follered wherever he'd go."

Ruth looked up when she heard our horses and then turned to face us, smiling. She looked up at me, and when I looked down into those blue eyes, I figgered what a fool a man was to go lookin' into guns when there was eyes, soft like that.

"You're the man," she declared, "who protected Shep!"

Me, I got red around the gills. I ain't used to palaverin' with no womenfolk. "I reckon," I said.

"Won't you get down and come in? We were just about to eat."

We got down, and Sonora sweeps off that high-crowned hat and smiles. "I've heard some powerful nice things about the food you cook, ma'am," he said, "and thank you for a chance to try it."

We went inside, and pretty soon Jack come in. He smiled, but I could see he was plumb worried. It didn't take no mind reader to figger why. Those cows we'd seen was lookin' mighty poor. It wouldn't take much time for them to start dyin' off, eatin' only the skimpy dry, brown gra.s.s.

When she had the food on the table, Ruthie looked at me, and I could feel my thick neck gettin' red again. "You boys just riding, or are you going some particular place?"

Sonora looked over a forkful of fried spuds. "Dan here, he figgered there was a fence up here needed cuttin', and he 'lows as how he'll cut it. I'm just sort of ridin' along, in case."

Her face whitened. "Oh no! You mustn't! Harvey Kinsella will kill anybody who touches that fence, he warned us!"

"Uh-huh." I picked up my coffee cup. "We ain't got much time here, ma'am. I got a little job to do, and I reckon Sonora has, too. We sort of figgered we'd take care o' this and Kinsella, too. Then when we rode off up the trail, you'd be all right."

When we finished, I tipped back in my chair. It was right homey feelin', the sort of feelin' I ain't had since I was a kid, me bein' a roamin' man and all. I got up after a bit and saw Sonora look at me. That mule-ridin' man never had a hand far from a gun when we were together. For that matter, neither did I. It wasn't that we didn't trust each other. We both had a job to do, him and me, but we were the cautious type.

I walked over and picked up the water bucket, then went to the spring and filled it. When I come back, I split a couple of armsful of wood and packed it inside. Sonora, he sat there on the porch, sleepylike, just a-watchin' me. The door had a loose hinge, and I got me a hammer and fixed it, sort of like I used to when I was a kid, and like my pa used to do. It gives a man a sort of homey feelin', to be fixin' around.

Once I looked up and saw Ruthie lookin' at me, a sort of funny look in her eyes. Then I picked up my hat. "Reckon," I said, "we better be ridin' up to that fence. It's 'most two miles from here."

Ruthie, she come to the door, her eyes wide and her face pale. "Stop by," she said, "on your way back. I'll be takin' a cake out of the oven."

"Sure thing," Sonora said, grinning. "I always did like fresh cake."

That was a real woman. Not tellin' you' to be careful, not tellin' us we shouldn't. That was her, standin' there shadin' her eyes again' the sun as we rode off up the trail, me loungin' sideways in the saddle, a six-gun under my hand.

"You'd make a family man," Sonora said half a mile farther along. "You' sure would. Ought to have a little spread o' your own."

That made me look up, it cut so close to the trail o' my own thoughts. "That's what I always figgered on." I told him. "Me, I'm through ridin' rough country."

We rode on quietlike. Both of us knowed what was a comin'. If'n we came out of this with a whole skin, there was still the main show. I should say, the big showdown. We both knowed it, and neither of us liked it. In those few hours we'd come to find we was the same kind of hombre, the same kind of man, and we fought the same way. We were two big men, and when we rode that last mile up there to the fence, I was thinkin that here, at last, was a man to ride through h.e.l.l with. And then I had to do to him what I had to do because it was the job I had.

The fence was there, tight and strong. "Give me some cover," I suggested to Sonora. "I'm goin' to ride up and cut her, but good!"

The air was clear, and my voice carried, and then I saw Bill Riding step down from the junipers, a rifle holdin' easy in his hands. His voice rang loud in the draw. "Backslash ain't cuttin' nothin', neither of you!"

Me, I sat there with my hands down. My rifle was in my saddle boot, and he was out of six-gun range. I could see the slow smile on his face as that rifle came up. That move o' mine never lost a rider no quicker in his life. I went off, feet first, and hit the ground gun in hand. I'd no more than hit it before somethin' bellowed like a young cannon, and out of the tail o' my eye I saw Sonora had unlimbered those big Walker Colts. My six-shooter was out, but I wasn't lookin' at Riding. He was beyond my reach, but there was a movement in the junipers close down, on our side of the fence, and I turned and saw Harvey Kinsella there behind us.

He had a smile on his face, and I could almost see his lips tighten as he squeezed off his first shot. When I started burnin' powder I don't know. Somethin' hit Kinsella, and he went back on his heels, his face lookin' sick, and then I started walkin' in on him. It helped me keep my mind on business to walk into a man while I was shootin'. Somebody blazed at me from the brush, and when I tried a snapshot that way, I heard a cry and a rifle rattled on the rocks. But I was walkin' right at Kinsella, and his guns were goin'. I could see flame stabbin' at me from their muzzles, but when I figgered I had four shots left, I kept walkin' in and holdin' my fire.

Behind me them Walkers was blastin' like a couple of cannon from the war between the states. I wasn't worried about Sonora takin' out on me. He was an hombre to ride the river with. Besides, we each had us a job to do. Then Kinsella was down on his face, the back o' his fancy coat stained red. Two other hombres were down, too, and I could hear the rattle of racin' hoofs as some others took off through the brush. Then I turned, thumbin' sh.e.l.ls into my guns, and Sonora was there, leanin' on a fence post, one o' those big guns danglin' from his fist.

Me, I walked over to the fence, haulin' the wire cutters from my belt, the pair I picked up at the girl's ranch. My head was drummin' somethin' awful, like maybe there was still more shootin'. But it wasn't it was deathly still. You' couldn't hear a sound but the loud click o' my cutters. When I finished, I turned toward Sonora. He was slumped over the fence then, and there was blood comin' from somewhere high up on his chest.

I took the gun out of his fingers and stuck it in his holster. Then I hoisted him on my shoulder and started for his mule. That mule wasn't noways skittish. I got Sonora aboard and then crawled up on the moro. When I was in the saddle again, I looked around.

Riding was dead, anybody could see that. He'd been hit more than once, and half his head was blowed off. There was another hombre close beside him, and he was dead, too. As for Kinsella, I didn't have to look at him. I knowed when I was shootin' that I was killin' him, but I walked over to him.

Three times on my way back to Ruthie's I had to stop and straighten Sonora in the saddle, even with his wrists tied to the horn.

Before I got through the gate, Ruthie was runnin' down toward us, and Jack, too. Then I must've pa.s.sed out. When my eyes cracked to light again, it was lamplight, and the room wasn't very bright. Ruthie was sittin' by my bed, sewin'.

"Sonora?" I asked.

"He'll be all right. He'd been shot twice. You men! You're both so big! I don't see how any bullet could ever kill you!"

Me, I was thinkin' it might not take a bullet, but a rope. Kinsella got me once, low down on the side. Just a flesh wound, but from what Jack told me, it must've bled like all get-out.

When it was later, Ruthie got up and put her sewin' away; then she went into another room and to sleep. I give her an hour, as close as I could figger. Then I rolled back the blanket and got my feet under me. I was some weak, but it takes a lot of lead to ballast down an hombre big as me. Softly, I opened the door. Ruthie was lyin' on a pallet, asleep.

Me, I blushes, seein' her that way, her hair all over the pillow like a lot of golden web caught in the moonlight. Easy as could be, I slipped by. Sonora's door was open, and he was lyin' in Jack's bed, a chair under his feet to make it long enough. Well, there he was, the hombre that meant my ranch to me.

I'd strapped on my guns, but as I stood there lookin' down, I figgered it was a wonder he hadn't shot it out already. That reward was dead or alive. Suddenly, I almost jumped out of my skin. Only one o' them big Walker Colts was in its holster! Why, that durned coyote! Lyin' there with a gun under the blanket, and the chances was he was awake that minute. h.e.l.l! I'd go back to bed! It never did a man no good to run from the law, not even in the wild country! Soon or late, she always caught up with him.

In the mornin', I'd just finished splashin' water on my face when I looked up and he was leanin' again' the door post. "Howdy," he said, grinnin'. "Sleep well?"

My face burned. "Well as you did, you' durned possumplayin' maverick!"

He grinned. "Man in my place can't be too careful."

He looked at me. "Ready to ride, or is it a showdown?" Sonora had his guns on, and there was a quizzical light in those funny eyes o' his'n. He was a big man, big as me, and the only man I ever saw I'd ride with.

"h.e.l.l," I said, "ain't you' goin' to eat breaf'st? I'll ride with you because you're too good a man to kill!"

Ruthie was puttin' food on the table, and she looked at us queerly. "What's between you two?" she asked quicklike.

"Why, Ruthie," I said, "this here hombre's a Texas ranger. He figgers I'm the hombre what robbed that bank over to Pierce!"

She stared at me. "Then you're a prisoner?"

"Ma'am," Sonora said, gulpin' a big swaller o' hot coffee, "don't you fret none. I reckon he ain't no crook. Just had a minute or two o' bein' a durned fool! I reckon that bank's plumb anxious to git their money back, and I know this hombre's got it on him because last night,"he grinned, "when he was asleep, I had me a look at his money belt!"

Before I could bust out and say anythin', he adds, "I figger that bank's goin' to be so durned anxious to git their money back, they won't fret too much when I suggest this hombre be sent back here, sort of on good behavior. I'd say he'd make a good hand around a layout like this."

Then I bust in. "Y' got this all wrong, Sonora," I told him. "Y' been trailin' the wrong man! Rather, you' trailed the right man, and then when you' walked into the Chuck Wagon, you' took too much for granted.

"I didn't rob no bank. I'll admit I got to thinkin' about ownin' a ranch, and I rode into town with the money in mind. Then I heard the shootin' and lit out. The man who robbed the bank," I said, "was Harvey Kinsella. I took the money belt off him. His name's marked on it!"