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Updated: June 8, 2025
"That's very evident, madame, and between you and me I wish you didn't," returned Hankinson, somewhat relieved to hear the ghost talk, even if her voice did sound like the roar of a conch-shell with a bad case of grip.
The horse was growing dimmer in the gloom, and, unless checked, would quickly be beyond reach of the Winchester still levelled at him. Nothing was easier than to drive a bullet through his brain and then have it out with the Indian. Possibly the single bullet would end the career of both. Budd Hankinson called out something, but Grizzly Weber did not catch it.
"You said as 'ow I must keep sober, and 'ow could I do hotherwise hunless I swallered some spirits?" Terwilliger laughed. He thought it was a pretty good joke for a ghost especially a cook's ghost and then, having agreed on the hour of midnight one fortnight thence for the next meeting, they shook hands and parted. "What was it, Hankinson?" asked Mrs.
Terwilliger, drowsily, as she opened her eyes and saw her husband preparing for the fray. She no longer called him Hankinson, not because she did not think it a good name, nor was it less euphonious to her ear than Judson, but Judson was Mr. Terwilliger's middle name, and middle names were quite the thing, she had observed, in the best circles.
They include the best riders and the best shots in the cattle business. They do not know what fear is, and in the year named became strong enough to elect one of their own number sheriff. The full moon was shining on the second night succeeding the conflict which Budd Hankinson described between the rustlers and the cowmen of Whitney's ranch.
"Well, perhaps you're right," returned Hankinson. "I can't say I blame you for not perjuring yourself, particularly since you've been dead long enough to have discovered what the probable consequences would be. But I do wish there was some other way out of it. I couldn't pay you all that money without losing a controlling interest in the shoe company, and that's hardly worth my while, now is it?"
Keener of wit than Larch Cadmus, he suspected the truth at once, though he knew nothing of the proximity of the stockmen. Before making the attack and attempt to burn the building he sent out two of his best mounted men in the direction taken by her, to investigate. They did so with such skill that neither Budd Hankinson nor any of the stockmen suspected them.
"Then it's time you moved, unless perchance you are the ghost of a mediaeval porker," Hankinson said, his calmness returning now that he had succeeded in plastering his iron-gray lock across the top of his otherwise bald head. "Of course, if you are a spook of that kind you want the earth, and maybe you'll get it." "H'I'm no porker," returned the spectre.
Although Budd Hankinson and Grizzly Weber were removed from the scene of the events described, the night was not to pass without their becoming actors in some stirring incidents. Ordinarily they would have spent the hours of darkness at the ranch of their employer, for the immense herds of cattle, as a rule, required no looking after.
To the southward, whence Budd Hankinson had ridden, several horsemen were in sight, coming from the direction of the cattle-ranges. They were approaching at a walk, something they would not do unless serious cause existed. The messenger had been sent ahead to break the news to the sad and anxious hearts. "Budd," she said, "you have not told us about father."
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