Range Ghost Read Online Free Page B

which to wash it down, Slade glanced about the Trail End, a typical cow-town saloon only bigger and better appointed than most. There was the usual long bar, a dance floor, roulette wheels, a faro bank, poker tables, and others for diners who preferred leisurely eating to grabbing a snack at the spotlessly clean lunch counter.
    Fletcher downed his drink and said, “I’m going over to the bar with the boys for a little while. You sticking around, Slade?”
    “Yes, for a while, anyhow,” the Ranger replied. “Later I figure to amble about town for a bit. Want to drop down to the lake and see Thankful Yates at his Washout saloon.”
    “That rumhole!” growled the sheriff. “Always something happening thereabouts. Ain’t safe to be alive down there.”
    “But interesting,” Slade replied. “I found it quite so the last time I was here.”
    “That time you had Jerry Norman, old Keith Norman’s niece with you,” the sheriff pointed out. “As you said, she’s a good luck piece.”
    “She sure was that day in the Canadian Valley when the drygulchers jumped us,” Slade said. “If she hadn’t downed the one who was lining sights with me, I wouldn’t be here talking about it.”
    “She’s a real gal, all right,” said Carter. “Hope you get to see her this trip.”
    “I’m sure going to try to,” Slade replied.
    He was destined to, sooner than he expected.
    The sheriff went back to the former subject under discussion—
    “I can’t get over the nerve of that wind spider, riggin’ up that infernal contraption to the post outside, where anybody passin’ by could see him working at it.”
    “Not much traffic on that side street, and it was quite dark,” Slade pointed out. “He worked smooth, all right, didn’t make a sound roping the scattergun to the post. If he hadn’t touched the door knob when he looped the wire over it, he might well have been successful.”
    “And if it wasn’t for you having ears like nobody else has, he would have gotten by with it,” Carter declared. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
    “Perhaps you weren’t listening close,” Slade smiled. The sheriff snorted, and called for another drink. Slade settled for a cup of coffee. After finishing it, he glanced around the room, which was crowded, noisy, but to all appearances harmless enough, so far.
    “Brian,” he said, “I’m going to walk down to the Washout; will be back soon.”
    “Okay,” replied Carter. “Only be careful, it’s a rough section.”
    “I will,” Slade promised and left the saloon.
    The walk to the Washout was uneventful. When he arrived there, Thankful Yates, big, burly, and fiercely mustached as before, spotted him at once and came hurrying with outstretched hand.
    “Mr. Slade!” he exclaimed. “Well, well, it’s fine to see you again. Wait just a minute till I tie onto a bottle of my private stock.” He hustled to the back room.
    Glancing about, Slade’s attention centered on a group of half a dozen or so cowhands standing at the bar who were regarding him intently. As Yatesdeparted, one, a hulking fellow with bristling red hair and truculent eyes, detached himself from the group and swaggered toward Slade, pausing a few feet distant and looking him up and down.
    “Guess you’re the feller I’m looking for,” he said.
    “Yes?” Slade replied, his voice deceptively mild. Thankful Yates, who was approaching with a bottle, made no move to interfere. Only he stared hard at the other cowhands and nodded significantly toward the bar, behind which his head drink juggler stood with a sawed-off shotgun ready for business.
    “Yes,” said the redhead. “Guess you’re the feller who shot the boss in the hand, ain’t you?”
    “Possibly,” Slade conceded, his voice still mild.
    “Guess hitting him in the hand was sorta accident, eh?” said the big fellow.
    “I don’t think so,” Slade replied.
    “I figure it was,” said the redhead, scowling ferociously. “And I figure you ain’t as