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His stage was singled out and ridden at times both by Sandusky and Logan the really dangerous men of the Spanish Sinks and by Gale Morgan and Sassoon to stir up trouble. But old Frank Elpaso was far from being a fool. A fight with any one of these men meant that somebody would be killed, and no one could tell just who, Elpaso shrewdly reckoned, until the roll-call at the end of it.
"If this was Henry de Spain," muttered Elpaso, when Lefever rejoined his companions, "he won't care whether you join him now, or at ten o'clock, or never." "That is not Henry," asserted Lefever with his usual cheer. "Not within forty rows of apple-trees. It's not Henry's gun, not Henry's heels, not Henry's hair, and thereby, not Henry's head that was hit that time.
Sassoon, however, owing to the indignity now put upon him, also nourished a particular grievance against the meditative guard, and his was one not tempered either by prudence or calculation. His chance came one night when Elpaso had unwisely allowed himself to be drawn into a card game at Calabasas Inn. Elpaso was notoriously a stickler for a square deal at cards.
As they approached Sassoon's place, Elpaso, riding ahead, drew up his horse and sat a moment studying the trail and casting an occasional glance in the direction of the ranch-house, which lay under the brow of a hill ahead. When Lefever rode up to him, he saw the story that Elpaso was reading in the roadway.
"If you take that tack for your new management, we'll see how you get along running stages down in this country." "We will run them peaceably, just as long as we can," smiled de Spain. "We will get on with everybody that gives us a chance." Morgan pointed a finger at him. "I give you a chance, de Spain, right now. Will you discharge Elpaso?" "No." Morgan almost caught his breath at the refusal.
But," he coughed slightly, as if in apology, "if Henry shouldn't turn up all right, we'll ahem be back." None of his companions needed to be told how to get prudently away. At a nod from Lefever Tommie Meggeson, Elpaso, and Wickwire wheeled their horses, rode rapidly back to the turn near the hill and, facing about, halted, with their rifles across their arms.
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