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The opening of that big basket was an event. Poor, starved little beggars! I went out on the porch to get away from them. My feelings seemed too easily aroused. Hard indeed would it have gone with Jim Hoden's slayer if I could have laid my eyes on him then. However, Miss Sampson and Sally, after the nature of tender and practical girls, did not appear to take the sad situation to heart.
The ranger was about to speak again when the clatter of hoofs interrupted him. Horses halted out in front. A motion of Steele's hand caused me to dive through a curtained door back of Hoden's counter. I turned to peep out and was in time to see George Wright enter with the red-headed cowboy called Brick. That was the first time I had ever seen Wright come into Hoden's. He called for tobacco.
Later that day I met Steele at Hoden's and was with him when he looked at the body and the written message which spoke so tersely of the enmity toward him. We left there together, and I hoped Steele would let me stay with him from that moment. "Russ, it's all in the dark," he said. "I feel Wright's hand in this." I agreed. "I remember his face at Hoden's that day you winged him.
As Miss Sampson and Sally had no inclination to ride, I had even more freedom. I went down to the town and burst, cheerily whistling, into Jim Hoden's place. Jim always made me welcome there, as much for my society as for the money I spent, and I never neglected being free with both. I bought a handful of cigars and shoved some of them in his pocket. "How's tricks, Jim?" I asked cheerily.
"What's this I hear about you, Bud? Get up and speak for yourself," said Sampson, gruffly. Snell got up, not without a furtive glance at Steele, and he had shuffled forward a few steps toward the mayor. He had an evil front, but not the boldness even of a rustler. "It ain't so, Sampson," he began loudly. "I went in Hoden's place fer grub.
The justice of that call doesn't bother me. It was Steele's nerve that got me. That'd warm any man's blood." There was a little red in Hoden's pale cheeks and I saw him swallow hard. I had struck deep again. "Say, don't you work for Sampson?" he queried. "Me? I guess not. I'm Miss Sampson's man. He and Wright have tried to fire me many a time." "Thet so?" he said curiously. "What for?"
There were twenty or more men on Hoden's list, but Steele didn't want so many." "We don't need any more. Morton, can you give me any idea where Steele is?" "Not the slightest." "All right. I'll hunt for him. If you see him tell him to hole up, and then you come after me. Tell him I've got our men spotted." "Russ, if you Ranger fellows ain't wonders!" exclaimed Morton, with shining eyes.
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