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Updated: June 14, 2025
The man above fastened the end of the rope to the roots of a scrub oak and ran down the slope at full speed. In less than half a minute he was standing breathless in front of his prisoner. Already shaken with dread, Roush gave way to panic fear at sight of him. "Goddlemighty! It's Clanton!" he cried. Jim buckled on the belt and appropriated the rifle.
The eyes of the two crossed like rapiers. "Howcome you here? Whad you want?" asked Roush thickly. Already he had made up his mind to kill, but he wanted to choose his own moment. The instinct of the killer is always to take his enemy at advantage. Clanton, with that sixth sense which serves the fighter, read his purpose as if he had printed it on a sign.
"I reckon yore folks will kill the fatted calf for you," jeered Hugh Roush. "They tell me you always been mighty high-heeled, 'Lindy Clanton. Mebbe you won't hold yore head so high now." The girl rode between them down from the hills. Who knows into what an agony of fear and remorse and black despair she fell? She could not go home a cast-off, a soiled creature to be scorned and pointed at.
The enemy for whom he had long sought was delivered into his hands. He ran back to the bronco and untied the reata from the tientos. Deftly he coiled the rope and adjusted the loop to suit him. Again he stole to the rim rock and waited with the stealthy, deadly patience of the crouched cougar. Roush rose. His arms fell to his sides. Instantly the rope dropped, uncoiling as it flew.
They ain't anything goin' to happen, sis. What's ailin' you?" "But if anything does. You'll not hate me you'll remember I allus thought a heap of you, Jimmie?" she insisted. "Doggone it, if you're still thinkin' of that scalawag Dave Roush " He broke off, moved by some touch of prescient tragedy in her young face. "'Course I ain't ever a-goin' to forgit you none, sis. Hit ain't likely, is it?"
"One every two hours till he gets to sleep. I'll come and see him in the morning. You're at the Proctor House, aren't you?" "Yes." "Is Roush goin' to live?" asked Jim. The professional man looked at the boy speculatively. He wondered whether the young fellow was suffering qualms of conscience.
"You're right he will. Good job, too. I hate a sneak like I do a side-winder." Reb turned to his prisoner. "Git a move on you, Roush. I want this job over with. I'm no coyote herder." The Round-Up Dumont had been on the grill for three hours. He had taken refuge in dogged silence. He had been badgered into lies. He had broken down at last and told the truth.
With perfect accuracy the loop descended upon its victim and tightened about his waist, pinning the arms close to the body. Clanton, hauled in the rawhide swiftly. Dragged from his feet, Roush could make no resistance. Before he could gather his startled wits, he found himself dangling in midair against the face of the rock wall.
A memory had flashed to him of the day when he had seen a thirteen-year-old boy named Jim Clanton win a turkey shoot against the best marksmen of the hill country. The army Colt spit out once more at the boy on the ledge. Before the echo had died away the boom of an explosion filled the cañon. Roush pitched forward on his face. Jim Clanton lowered his rifle with an exclamation.
"I'm not comin' till I get ready, Hugh Roush." The wolf snap of the boy's jaw, the cold glitter in his eyes, might have warned Roush and perhaps did. He wondered, too, how this stranger knew his name so well. "Where are you from?" he demanded. "From anywhere but here," "Meanin' that you're here to stay?" "Meanin' that I'm here to stay." "Even if I tell you to git out of the country?"
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