United States or Kosovo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The unfortunate man had probably fixed it in his mind that a ride from Tower W to Deep Creek in sixteen hours was a physical impossibility. "Stay here? Sure! I want you to stay," said Baggs bluffly. "Looks to me like I seen you down at Crawling Stone, ain't I?" he asked of Karg. Karg was lighting a cigarette. "I used to mark at the Dunning ranch," he answered, throwing away his match.
While they angrily surrounded Karg and Seagrue, Smith slipped from his horse where Bill Dancing lay, lifted the huge head from the dust, and tried to turn the giant over. A groan greeted the attempt. "Bill, open your eyes! Why would you not do as I wanted you to?" he murmured bitterly to himself. A second groan answered him.
But as he keeled from the saddle the last thing that rolled over the saddle, like the flash of a porpoise fin, was the barrel of the rifle, secure in his hands. Karg, on horseback, was already bending over him, revolver in hand, but the shot was never fired. A thirty-thirty bullet from the ground knocked the gun into the air and tore every knuckle from Karg's hand.
The leaders of the party made their way down the curve, and Sinclair, with Karg, met them at the point. McCloud asked questions about the wreck and the chances of getting the track clear, and while they talked Sinclair sent Karg to get the new derrick into action. Sinclair then asked McCloud to walk with him up the track to see where the cars had left the rail.
Face downward, the huge bulk of Bill Dancing was stretched motionless in the road. Karg, crouching beside his fallen horse, held up the bloody stump of his gun hand, and Du Sang, fifty yards away, reeling like a drunken man in his saddle, spurred his horse in an aimless circle.
"Not till we know just how we stand," Sinclair answered insolently. He continued to speak, but McCloud turned to the men. "Boys, go back to your work. Your boss and I can settle our own differences. I'll see that you lose nothing by working hard." "And you'll see we make nothing, won't you?" suggested Karg.
With a bitter denunciation of interlopers, claim agents, and "fresh" railroad men generally, Sinclair swore he would not go back to work, and a case of wine crashing to the ground infuriated him. He turned on his heel and started for the wreck. "Call off the men!" he yelled to Karg at the derrick. The foreman passed the word.
"But I do want him to come here as if it mattered nothing, and I shall try to take care of him. I have a man among your own men, a cowboy named Wickwire, who will be watching Karg, and who is just as quick, and Karg, not knowing he was watched, would be taken unawares. If Wickwire goes elsewhere to work some one else will take his place here.
Karg is Sinclair's spy at your ranch, and you must never feel it or know it; but he is there to keep your cousin's sympathy with Sinclair, and to lure your cousin his way. And Karg will try to kill George McCloud every time he sets foot on this ranch, remember that." "Then Mr. McCloud ought not to be here. I don't want him to stay if he is in danger!" exclaimed Dicksie.
"I'll see that every man in the crew gets twice what is coming to him all except you, Karg. I discharge you now. Sinclair, will you go back to work?" "No!" "Then take your time. Any men that want to go back to work may step over to the switch," added McCloud. Not a man moved. Sinclair and Karg smiled at each other, and with no apparent embarrassment McCloud himself smiled.
Word Of The Day