Bar-20 - Clarence E. Mulford (best e books to read .txt) 📗

of my guns yu’ll shore get in th’ way of a slug.

 

Yu an’ yore gang wants to browse on th’ far side of th’ range or yu’ll miss a sunrise some

mornin’. Scoot!”

 

Hopalong turned to his companion and smiled. “What’d he say?” he asked

genially.

 

“Oh, he jest shot off his mouth a little. They’s all no good. I’ve collided with lots

of them all over this country. They can’t face a good man an’ keep their nerve. What’d yu

say to th’ marshal?”

 

“I told him what he was an’ threw him outen th’ street,” replied Hopalong. “In

about two weeks we’ll have a new marshal an’ he’ll shore be a dandy.”

 

“Yes? Why don’t yu take th’ job yoreself? We’re with yu.”

 

“Better man comin’. Ever hear of Buck Peters or Red Connors of th’ Bar-20,

Texas?”

 

“Buck Peters? Seems to me I have. Did he punch fer th’ Tin-Cup up in Montana,

`bout twenty years back?”

 

“Shore! Him and Frenchy McAllister punched all over that country an’ they used

to paint Cheyenne, too,” replied Hopalong, eagerly.

 

“I knows him, then. I used to know Frenchy, too. Are they comin’ up here?”

 

“Yes,” responded Hopalong, struggling with another can while waiting for the fire

to catch up. “Better have some grub with me-don’t like to eat alone,” invited the cowboy,

the reaction of his late rage swinging him to the other extreme.

 

When their tobacco had got well started at the close of the meal and content had

taken possession of them Hopalong laughed quietly and finally spoke

“Did yu ever know Aristotle Smith when yu was up in Montana?”

 

“Did I! Well, me an’ Aristotle prospected all through that country till he got so

locoed I had to watch him fer fear he’d blow us both up. He greased th’ fryin’ pan with

dynamite one night, an’ we shore had to eat jerked meat an’ canned stuff all th’ rest of that

trip. What made yu ask? Is he comin’ up too?”

 

“No, I reckons not. Jimmy, th’ bartender, said that he cashed in up at Laramie.

 

Wasn’t he th’ cuss that built that boat out there on th’ Arizona desert because he was

scared that a flood might come? Th’ sun shore warped that punt till it wasn’t even good

for a hencoop.”

 

“Nope. That was Sister-Annie Tompkins. He was purty near as bad as Aristotle,

though. He roped a puma up on th’ Sacramentos, an’ didn’t punch no more fer three

weeks. Well, here comes my pardner an’ I reckons I’ll amble right along. If yu needs any

referee or a side pardner in any ruction yu has only got to warble up my way. So long.”

 

The next ten days passed quietly, and on the afternoon of the eleventh Hopalong’s

miner friend paid him a visit.

“Jake recommends yore peaches,” he laughed as he shook Hopalong’s hand. “He

says yu boosted another of that crowd. That bein’ so I thought I would drop in an’ say that

they’re comin’ after yu tonight, shore. Just heard of it from yore friend Jimmy. Yu can

count on us when th’ rush comes. But why didn’t yu say yu was a pard of Buck Peters’?

Me an’ him used to shoot up Laramie together. From what yore friend James says, yu can

handle this gang by yore lonesome, but if yu needs any encouragement yu make some

sign an’ we’ll help th’ event along some. They’s eight of us that’ll be waitin’ up to get th’

returns an’ we’re shore goin’ to be in range.”

 

“Gee, it’s nice to run across a friend of Buck’s! Ain’t he a son-of-a-gun?” asked

Hopalong, delighted at the news. Then, without waiting for a reply, he went on: “Yore

shore square, all right, an’ I hates to refuse yore offer, but I got eighteen friends comin’ up

an’ they ought to get here by tomorrow. Yu tell Jimmy to head them this way when they

shows up an’ I’ll have th’ claim for them. There ain’t no use of yu fellers gettin’ mixed up

in this. Th’ bunch that’s comin’ can clean out any gang this side of sunup, an’ I expects

they’ll shore be anxious to begin when they finds me eatin’ peaches an’ wastin’ my time

shootin’ bums. Yu pass th’ word along to yore friends, an’ tell them to lay low an’ see th’

Arory Boerallis hit this town with its tail up. Tell Jimmy to do it up good when he speaks

about me holdin’ th’ claim-I likes to see Buck an’ Red fight when they’re good an’ mad.”

 

The miner laughed and slapped Hopalong on the shoulder. “Yore all right,

youngster! Yore just like Buck was at yore age. Say now, I reckons he wasn’t a reg’lar

terror on wheels! Why, I’ve seen him do more foolish things than any man I knows of, an’

I calculate that if Buck pals with yu there ain’t no water in yore sand. My name’s Tom

Halloway,” he suggested.

 

“An’ mine’s Hopalong Cassidy,” was the reply. “I’ve heard Buck speak of yu.”

 

“Has yu? Well, don’t it beat all how little this world is? Somebody allus turnin’

up that knows somebody yu knows. I’ll just amble along, Mr. Cassidy, an’ don’t yu be

none bashful about callin’ if yu needs me. Any pal of Buck’s is my friend. Well, so

long,” said the visitor as he strode off. Then he stopped and turned around. “Hey,

mister!” he called. “They are goin’ to roll a fire barrel down agin yu from behind,”

indicating by an outstretched arm the point from where it would start. “If it burns yu out

I’m goin’ to take a band from up there,” pointing to a cluster of rocks well to the rear of

where the crowd would work from, “an’ I don’t care whether yu likes it or not,” he added

to himself.

 

Hopalong scratched his head and then laughed. Taking up a pick and shovel, he

went out behind the cabin and dug a trench parallel with and about twenty paces away

from the rear wall. Heaping the excavated dirt up on the near side of the cut, he stepped

back and surveyed his labor with open satisfaction. “Roll yore fire barrel an’ be dogged,”

he muttered. “Mebby she won’t make a bully light for pot shots, though,” he added,

grinning at the execution he would do.

 

Taking up his tools, he went up to the place from where the gang would roll the

barrel, and made half a dozen mounds of twigs, being careful to make them very flimsy.

 

Then he covered them with earth and packed them gently. The mounds looked very

tempting from the view-point of a marksman in search of earth-works, and appeared

capable of stopping any rifle ball that could be fired against them. Hopalong looked them

over critically and stepped back.

 

“I’d like to see th’ look on th’ face of th’ son-of-a-gun that uses them for cover-won’t he be surprised” and he grinned gleefully as he pictured his shots boring through

them. Then he placed in the center of each a chip or a pebble or something that he

thought would show up well in the firelight.

 

Returning to the cabin, he banked it up well with dirt and gravel, and tossed a few

shovelfuls up on the roof as a safety valve to his exuberance. When he entered the door

he had another idea, and fell to work scooping out a shallow cellar, deep enough to

shelter him when lying at full length. Then he stuck his head out of the window and

grinned at the false covers with their prominent bull’s-eyes.

 

“When that prize-winnin’ gang of ossified idiots runs up agin’ these fortifications

they shore will be disgusted. I’ll bet four dollars an’ seven cents they’ll think their

medicine-man’s no good. I hopes that puff-eyed marshal will pick out that hump with th’

chip on it,” and he hugged himself in anticipation.

 

He then cut down a sapling and fastened it to the roof and on it he tied his

neckerchief, which fluttered valiantly and with defiance in the light breeze. “I shore

hopes they appreciates that,” he remarked whimsically, as he went inside the hut and

closed the door.

 

The early part of the evening passed in peace, and Hopalong, tired of watching in

vain, wished for action. Midnight came, and it was not until half an hour before dawn

that he was attacked. Then a noise sent him to a loophole, where he fired two shots at

skulking figures some distance off. A fusillade of bullets replied; one of them ripped

through the door at a weak spot and drilled a hole in a can of the everlasting peaches.

 

Hopalong set the can in the frying pan and then flitted from loophole to loophole,

shooting quick and straight.

 

Several curses told him that he had not missed, and he scooped up a finger of

peach juice. Shots thudded into the walls of his fort in an unceasing stream, and, as it

grew lighter, several whizzed through the loopholes. He kept close to the earth and

waited for the rush, and when it came sent it back, minus two of its members.

 

As he reloaded his Colts a bullet passed through his shirt sleeve and he promptly

nailed the marksman. He looked out of a crack in the rear wall and saw the top of an

adjoining hill crowned with spectators, all of whom were armed. Some time later he

repulsed another attack and heard a faint cheer from his friends on the hill.

 

Then he saw a barrel, blazing from end to end, roll out from the place he had so

carefully covered with mounds. It gathered speed and bounded over the rough ground,

flashed between two rocks and leaped into the trench, where it crackled and roared in

vain.

 

“Now,” said Hopalong, blazing at the mounds as fast as he could fire his rifle,

“we’ll just see what yu thinks of yore nice little covers.”

 

Yells of consternation and pain rang out in a swelling chorus, and legs and arms

jerked and flopped, one man, in his astonishment at the shot that tore open his cheek,

sitting up in plain sight of the marksman. Roars of rage floated up from the main body of

the besiegers, and the discomfited remnant of barrel-rollers broke for real cover.

Then he stopped another rush from the front, made upon the supposition that he

was thinking only of the second detachment. A hearty cheer arose from Tom Halloway

and his friends, ensconced in their rocky position, and it was taken up by those on the hill,

who danced and yelled their delight at the battle, to them more humorous than otherwise.

 

This recognition of his prowess from men of the caliber of his audience made him

feel good, and he grinned: “Gee, I’ll bet Halloway an’ his friends is shore itchin’ to get in

this,” he murmured, firing at a head that was shown for an instant. “Wonder what Red’ll

say when Jimmy tells him-bet he’ll plow dust like a cyclone,” and Hopalong laughed,

picturing to himself the satiation of Red’s anger. “Old red-headed son-of-a-gun,”

murmured the cowboy affectionately, “he shore can fight.”

 

As he squinted over the sights of his rifle his eye caught sight of a moving body of

men as they cantered over the flats about two miles away. In his eagerness he forgot to

shoot and carefully counted them.

 

“Nine,” he grumbled. “Wonder what’s th’ matter? “Fearing that they were not his

friends. Then a second body numbering eight cantered into sight and followed the first.

 

“Whoop! There’s th’ Red-head!” he