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"Sure it's Galloway's work and not just the Kid's?" "Yes. Only a couple of hours ago a lot of Galloway's crowd was gathering up in the mountains. They've gone to his cache for the rifles. I have sent word for Brocky Lane and his and my cowboys. It begins to look as though he were up to something bigger than we've been looking for.
"Ah, yes; Ah got yo' letter long, long ago, Mistah Brocky. It nigh broke my heart. Ma lil' Miss Laura! But, glory!" and she turned suddenly to Janice, "here she is ober again!" "I know it," said Broxton Day, wiping his eyes. "Come in and sit down, Mammy. Janice does not remember you, I suppose. But I remember well enough that we never had any housekeeping troubles when Mammy Blanche was on hand."
"Sho' not! Sho' not," chuckled the old woman. "And Mammy Blanche jest as spry now, an' able to do for you, as she used to be." "What? Have you come to stay with us awhile, Mammy Blanche?" asked Broxton Day. "Your brother?" "Esek is daid. His wife's gone back to her own people. Ah ain't got nobody, nor nohin' of mah own in dis here worl' Mistah Brocky, onless dey is under dis here roof.
"I did a dozen years ago," answered Steve absently. "Where's your horse?" "You're Steve Packard, ain't you? You done Brocky a favor when you was a kid, didn't you? Brocky told me. Brocky's done me a favor. I'm doin' you a favor. That squares us up all 'round. Like a circle, all in a ring, sort of; get me?"
He watched her probe the wound, saw her eyes narrow, knew that she had made her diagnosis. As she washed the ugly hole in the flesh and made her own bandage Brocky Lane was wincing, his eyes again open. Both men were watching her now, the same look in each eager pair of eyes.
A fierce-mustachioed, black-browed man thrust a rifle toward his breast and pulled the trigger and screamed out his curses as Norton put a revolver bullet through him. A slender, boyish form sprang up upon a rock recklessly, training his rifle upon Brocky Lane. It was the Kid. But the Kid had met a man quicker, surer, than himself, and Brocky fired first. Kid Rickard spun and fell.
But, from the word Cutter brings, poor old Brocky is pretty hard hit, and I couldn't take any chances with his life even though it means taking chances in another direction." He might have been a shade less frank; and yet she liked him none the less for giving her the truth bluntly.
"I haven't a rifle, just a cursed revolver. Who will ..." Again Norton interrupted sternly. "Let's have it straight, Elmer," he commanded. "Brocky and his men are along the arroyo, you say? And they're trying to keep between del Rio and the Kid's crowd and the other crowd? Some of the others are still on the mountain, then?" "The mountain is full of them.
Roberts will simply hold Moraga on some trifling charge, and see that he keeps his mouth shut until we are ready for him to talk." "Then Brocky Lane and Tom Cutter were together on Mt. Temple?" "Near enough for Tom to hear the shooting." They grew silent again. Clearly Norton had done what explaining he deemed necessary and was taking her no deeper into his confidences.
And she knows her business a whole lot better than Patten does, besides." "Will you get the fire started immediately, Mr. Norton?" asked Virginia somewhat sharply. "Mr. Lane has waited long enough as it is." "I'll be damned!" said Brocky Lane weakly.
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