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Wingle, Bud Shoop, and several of the men were holding a heated conference with old man Loring when Sundown dashed into the Concho. Trembling with rage and fear he leaped from his horse. "They killed the boss!" he cried hoarsely. "Up there in the woods." "Killed who? Where? Slow down and talk easy! Who's killed?" volleyed the group. "Me boss! Up there on the trail with his head bashed in!
Recourse to his whisky flask only made him the drowsier, until at last he was fain to lie down and roll himself up tightly in his blanket. The next moment he was sound asleep. His horse neighed twice from the summit, but Concho heard him not. Then the brush crackled on the ledge above him, a small fragment of rock rolled near his feet, but he stirred not.
Jack Corliss is at the bottom of it and he's using you. And he'll use you hard. What you goin' to do with the overflow from the water-hole?" "I'm goin' to irrigate me ranch," said Sundown. Loring nodded. "And cut off the water from everybody?" "Not from me friends." "Which means the Concho." "Sure! Jack Corliss is me friend. But that ain't all.
To Valdez, very much against his will, had fallen the task of taking the horses back to Agua Negra Since the track wound round the side of the mountain in such a way as to cover five miles in making the summit from Concho, the young Mexican had ample time to get back to the scene of action before the train arrived.
"If you're headed for Antelope, you might stop by and take him along." Loring glared at the Concho riders, seemed about to speak, but instead clucked to his team. The riders reined out of his way and he swept past, gazing straight ahead, grim, silent, and utterly without fear. He understood the rancher's brief statement, and he already knew of the killing of Sinker.
He saw the ruined furnace; the dark, overhanging masses of rock, the trembling intricacies of foliage, and, above all, the flash of dark eyes under a mantilla at his shoulder. What a fool he had been! Had he not really been as senseless and stupid as this very Concho, lying here like a log? And she had loved that man. What a fool she must have thought him that evening!
Pete rode out of Concho glittering in his new-found glory of shining bit and spur, wide-brimmed Stetson, and chaps studded with nickel-plated conchas. The creak of the stiff saddle-leather was music to him.
"Your mind must be in an awful state." "It is." Two minutes passed silently. "Dr. Cecil's bread is done she gave me a slice as big as your hat, with butter and jelly on it. It was out of sight." The Little Doctor groaned, and rallied. "Butter and jelly on my hat, did you say?" "Not on your hat on the bread. I ate it coming back down the coulee and I sure had my hands full, leading Concho, too."
Plodgitt, who is my hated rival, and your lay figure and model?" "Oh," said Carmen, with a little sigh, "It's only poor Coucho." "And where is Concho?" "Dead?" "Of a verity, very dead, murdered by your countrymen." "I see, and you know him?" "He was my friend." "Oh!" "Truly." "Ghastly, Don Royal. Look you, he sleeps." They were both feeling uncomfortable. Carmen was shivering.
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