Louis L'Amour Read Online Free Page A

along with, but an honest one. So I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
    “I been up the crick,” I said, because I had. Most ways, I knew my way around.
    “All right.” He held out his hand. “Boys, my name is Jim Fargo—call me Jim. And if you ever want to talk about things, or if there’s anything I can do, call on me.”
    We walked away and left him standing there, and when we had gone several blocks toward the west end of town where we would catch our freight going out, Eddie said to me, “He’s a Pink, Pronto. That’s a Pinkerton man.”
    And it made a lot of sense.… But who was he after? Van Bokkelen?
    They had said Van Bokkelen was wanted for murder, and the Pinks usually only hunted train robbers or the like. I said as much.
    “That Van Bokkelen, maybe he murdered a Pink,” said Eddie.

CHAPTER 3

    W E DROPPED OFF the freight before it reached Miles City station, and walked up Pacific Avenue.
    “This here’s a live town,” I said to Eddie, “and it’s purely cattle.” But after a few steps I amended that. “Now, I better back off on that, for I should say this here is a stock town—there’s folks around who favor sheep.”
    We turned off and went past the cat houses to Main, and kept on to Charley Brown’s saloon. A couple of Hat X punchers were loafing in front of the saloon, and one of them, seeing me packing that gear, commented, “Now lookit there. First time I ever seen Pronto when he had the saddle in the right place.”
    “Least I chase the steers,” I said. “They don’t chase me.”
    Dropping the saddle to the boardwalk, I dug into my pocket for the stub end of the cigar Fargo had given me. They eyed me whilst I lit up, making a great show of it to impress them with my prosperity.
    “Eddie and me,”—I jerked my head to indicate my Negro partner—”are huntin’ a business connection where we can invest our time and my saddle.”
    “You might try the Diamond R,” one of the punchers said, grinning wickedly. “They always seemed ready to take you on.”
    “You can spread the word,” I said solemnly, “those Diamond R bull-whackers are safe. I’m a
ree
formed man.”
    “Now, they’ll be mighty relieved to hear you said that,” the other puncher commented dryly. “Butch Hogan was around on’y last night, sayin’ how dull it was with you out of town. There was nobody around to whip.”
    “He on’y whupped me once.”
    “Sure … you on’y tried him once. You stick around. You can have you another chance tonight.”
    “He still around over at John Chinnick’s?”
    They exchanged a glance. “You surely been gone. Chinnick left out of here one night … by special invite.”
    That was news, but not unexpected. Chinnick’s saloon had been a long-time hangout for the wild bunch. If anything was going on, you could hear of it over to Chinnick’s … if they knew you.
    Big-Nose George and his crowd hung out there when they were in town, and come to think of it, Tom Gatty had a few friends in that outfit. But when I started to ask about Tom, something warned me to hold off. Tom an’ me, we’d been friends, but never saddle partners.
    We went into Charley Brown’s and I led the way to the stove. Charley always kept a big pot of mulligan stew going on the stove, and you could help yourself. Eddie an’ me, we couldn’t afford to pass up a social invitation of that sort.
    “That Butch Hogan,” Eddie said, “did he whup you?”
    “He did that, and good. He’s big and he’s fast, and much as I hate to admit it, he’ll probably do it again.”
    “Then why fight him?”
    Well, I just looked at Eddie, plainly surprised. “He whupped me, and when a man whups me once, he’s got it to do again … and again, if need be, until either I whup him or he leaves the country. A couple of times,” I added, “they’ve done just that. Maybe they just plain got tired of having me to whup every Saturday night.”
    “We get a job together,” Eddie said, “we