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He had been popular, especially as he was then the quickest man with a gun they had ever honored with their patronage. Also, the Gophertown folk had recently received a warning letter from the superintendent of a transcontinental railroad. They were not interested in Saunders's proposal. Saunders, coming from the saloon, was not a little surprised to see a band of horsemen far out on the desert.
"Shall I ask 'em in, Saunders?" queried Overland, his voice edged with a double meaning. "Not on my account," said Saunders over his shoulder. "All right. Let's have a drink, boys." Even "Go-Light" Sago, the vilest of the Gophertown crew, admired Overland's coolness in turning his back on Saunders and facing the bar. For a second Saunders's fingers twitched. He glanced up.
Others, more aspiring, "roost" in the hills. Gophertown squatted on the desert at the very edge of a range of barren foothills. Its principal street was not much more than a bridle-trail that led past eleven ramshackle cabins, derelicts of the old mining days when Gophertown knew gold. The population of Gophertown was of an itinerant order. This was not always due to internecine disputes.
Overland shifted his position, standing beside him the Winchester that had lain across his knees, and pulling his sombrero over his eyes. The notch made an excellent background for an object over the sights of a rifle, even at night, so long as the moon shone. Gophertown riders would never venture that far up the cañon with horses.
He had every reason to be grateful to them, but he was just a step or two above them in criminal artistry. He had been a "killer." Like the lone wolf that calls the pack to the hunt, he turned instinctively to Gophertown, a settlement in the hills not unknown to a few of the authorities, but unmolested by them. The atmosphere of Gophertown was not conducive to long life.
You see, the Gophertown outfit are all what you'd call good with a gun, but it was kind of a surprise, the spreadin' of the thing from Red's little private deal to a six-hand game. We sure was lucky." "And Collie?" Williams shook his head. "I don't know. We thought he had crossed over. Seems he took a new holt. The doc and Winthrop brung him to Los in the automobile. He's at the hospital.
The Moonstone boys wheeled their ponies and rode toward him. Williams pointed up the cañon. Down it rode a group of men who seemed to be undecided in their movements. They would spur forward and then check and circle, apparently waiting for their friends to come up to them. "It's the rest of the Gophertown outfit. We might as well beat it," said Williams.
When Williams did introduce him, they were rather silent, asking after Collie in monosyllables. They seemed strangely reticent. Both Williams and Overland felt an inexplicable tensity in the situation. Miguel, the young Mexican vaquero, broke silence. "How long you call it to this Gophertown place, I think?" "Thirty miles," said Overland. "Walkin' backwards like Miguel's talk," said Billy Dime.
"Fool's luck," muttered Overland. "Wonder the Gophertown outfit didn't find him and fix him. But come to think of it, they ain't so anxious to cross over to this side of the range and get too clost to a real town, and get run in or shot up. Fool's luck," he reiterated, coolly rolling a cigarette and gazing about with a critical eye. "They's another trail into this cañon that the prospector knowed.
"When things comes as easy as this, you want to watch out for a change in the weather. We ain't through with the bunch yet." The Easterner, making the evening fire, nodded. "How are we to get provisions?" he asked. "First, I was thinkin' of packin' 'em in from Gophertown, over yonder. She's about thirty miles from here, across the alkali. 'T aint a regular town, but they got grub.
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