Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Sure if I'd won I wouldn't have been sore ha, ha! But I was surprised to hear some one say Longstreth owned the Hope So joint." "He owns considerable property hereabouts," replied Laramie, constrainedly. "Humph again! Laramie, like every other fellow I meet in this town, you're afraid to open your trap about Longstreth. Get me straight, Laramie. I don't care a damn for Colonel Mayor Longstreth.
Duane passed inside himself to learn that supper would soon be ready. At table he found himself opposite the three who had attracted his attention. "Ruth, I envy the lucky cowboys," Longstreth was saying. Ruth was a curly-headed girl with gray or hazel eyes. "I'm crazy to ride bronchos," she said. Duane gathered she was on a visit to western Texas.
His pale eyes glinted like fire in ice, and now his voice fell to a whisper. "Who do you think Fletcher's new man is?" "Who?" demanded Longstreth. Down came Longstreth's boots with a crash, then his body grew rigid. "That Nueces outlaw? That two-shot ace-of-spades gun-thrower who killed Bland, Alloway ?" "An' Hardin."
He tramped on downward, his marvelous faculty for covering rough ground and holding to the true course never before even in flight so keen and acute. Yet all the time a spirit was keeping step with him. Thought of Ray Longstreth as he had left her made him weak.
"Now you've done your work laid the trap is this strange move of yours going to be fair to Miss Longstreth?" asked MacNelly, in significant low voice. Like a great tree chopped at the roots Duane vibrated to that. He looked up as if he had seen a ghost. Mercilessly the ranger captain went on: "You can win her, Duane! Oh, you can't fool me. I was wise in a minute.
The way he packed his guns, the way he walked an' stood an' swung his right hand showed me what he was. You can't fool me on the gun-sharp. An' he had a grand horse, a big black." "I've met your man," said Longstreth. "No!" exclaimed Knell. It was wonderful to hear surprise expressed by this man that did not in the least show it in his strange physiognomy.
Longstreth looked surprised and angry, and he spoke with force; but Duane could not hear what it was he said. The fellow laughed, yet somehow he struck Duane as sullen, until suddenly he espied Miss Longstreth. Then his face changed, and he removed his sombrero. Duane went closer. "Floyd, did you come with the teams?" asked Longstreth, sharply. "Not me.
Floyd taunted him with a name." "What name?" queried Duane. "It was Cheseldine." "CHESELDINE! My God! Miss Longstreth, why did you tell me that?" "What difference does that make?" "Your father and Cheseldine are one and the same," whispered Duane, hoarsely. "I gathered so much myself," she replied, miserably. "But Longstreth is father's real name."
In the mean time he must plan to arrest Longstreth. It was a magnificent outline, incredible, alluring, unfathomable in its nameless certainty. He felt like fate. He seemed to be the iron consequences falling upon these doomed outlaws. Under the wall the shadows were black, only the tips of trees and crags showing, yet he went straight to the trail.
"Any of your men down here?" queried Duane, sharply. "No. They're up-town." "Come. MacNelly, you walk with him. We've ladies in the party. I'll come behind with them." They set off up-town. Longstreth walked as if he were with friends on the way to dinner. The girls were mute. MacNelly walked like a man in a trance. There was not a word spoken in four blocks.
Word Of The Day