The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox

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or later he would clash with this Trono and he was willing that the fight should come and be done with. Trono seemed plunged in deep thought, studying Lilly with a long, deliberate glance. Evidently the swart foreman saw something in his adversary that bade him move carefully. Lilly was no half-broken nester. That gun butt was placed in the careful manner of a man who had experience.

      "Well," he muttered, "if yore lookin' fer trouble, they's folks that'll oblige yuh. Personally I'm a peaceable man—" He seemed to feel that he was losing ground, so he finished with a huge roar. "But I'll give yuh twenty-four hours to pull freightl After that I'm shootin' at sight!"

      "A large and clear statement," observed Lilly and turned squared around. It was fifteen feet to the door and at each step he expected to hear a warning shout. None came. He reached the street with mingled regret and relief. "I shore played my cards to the limit that time. Joe Breedlove wouldn't scarcely care for such sword-swallowin'."

      There was another question in his mind and he re-traced his steps to ask it of the roustabout. "Say, tell me somethin' more about this Jim Breck."

      The answer rolled solemnly out of the doorway. "Sooner or later, amigo, he'll cross yore path. An' you won't never fergit it. That's the old Octopus."

      The meeting of Lancelot Stubbins and Theed Trono had been very brief and very private. Only by a moment of carelessness had Stubbins permitted himself to be drawn into the patch of light near the hotel. It was here that Lilly had seen the man's English features, and in turn Stubbins had caught a glimpse of the newcomer. The next moment he had pulled Trono into the helter of the shadows, grumbling at his own negligence. "That was foolish. Well, I'll turn into this alley. Trono, I wish you could hustle things a bit."

      "Tomorrow night is plenty soon, ain't it?"

      "How's Breck now?"

      "Seems like he's losin' his grip faster ner usual. He don't get around like he used to a month back."

      "His kind goes down all in a pile," observed Stubbins. "I don't believe it'll be long now. Then you and I can do what we want to."

      Trono was dubious. "You got to consider the girl, Stubbins. She's a fighter like her daddy."

      Stubbins laughed. "Trono, I've got a way with women. Don't let that worry you. It's only old Jim Breck I'm afraid of. He's stung me too many times when I thought he was licked. We can afford to wait. Tomorrow night, then, at the usual place."

      "Uhuh," said Trono, started toward the saloon. Stubbins looked back toward the hotel and saw Tom Lilly advancing also upon the saloon. But the stranger made no particular impression on Stubbins, whose mind was filled with other things, and thus preoccupied he slipped between buildings and rode from town.

      THE OCTOPUS

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       "This bein' a bad man is shorely a tough job, fer sooner er later they's bound to come a leetle bit badder man who's honin' to shoot off the tie."—Joe Breedlove.

      At false dawn Tom Lilly was away from Powder, heading south toward the Buttes. By sunrise he had crossed the railroad tracks and penetrated a land that boasted neither house nor windmill nor fence. It was strictly cattle country and for the greater part of the morning he traveled across it, marching directly upon the high bluffs and then paralleling them until the road swung sharply upward and passed through a gap into a kind of elevated valley. This, Lilly had discovered from the maps, was Jim's Pass and the only entrance to Pilgrim Valley from the west. He turned his horse up the side of the gap and stopped on a commanding point What he saw caused him to whistle softly and build a cigarette in deep meditation.

      The valley, ringed on three sides by the Buttes and merging into a pine forest far to the south, was a self-contained, almost inaccessible land. No such thing as a fence was needed and since it was a great deal higher than the country outside and below the Buttes it drew more moisture and was visited with a cooler air. The buffalo grass, just turning yellow, covered the valley in a solid mat as far as his eyes could reach. It was an astonishing contrast to the dead area stretching west and north. No wonder Jim Breck, the octopus, wanted to keep out interlopers. The sight of it explained a great many things to Tom Lilly and as his eyes wandered out upon the plain below him he recalled stray gossip he had pumped from the reticent roustabout.

      That road, for instance, which drifted away before it reached Jim's Pass and vanished into the desert. He had learned that it led to the 3Cross, an outfit owned by an Englishman called Stubbins. Stubbins, the roustabout had cautiously implied, ruled the country outside of Pilgrim Valley and had even tried to penetrate the JIB domain. But old Jim Breck had fought him to a standstill, using the heavy-handed methods common to the country. Ever since they had dwelt side by side in an uneasy attitude of peace; just two gents, the roustabout had indicated, trying to cut each other's throat and alike only in the manner they hazed unwelcome newcomers out of the country.

      Lilly pinched out his cigarette and threw it away, turning down into the valley. Five miles farther on he reached a small trail that darted from the road toward the pine forest and this he followed for something like an hour when of a sudden he dipped over a ridge and came upon a shanty nestling between three or four young cottonwoods. The soil had been broken around the house and corn was coming up; a piece of fence had been built and a plow stood idle in the yard. Tom slid from the horse, took his sack of supplies and pushed through the door.

      Typical bachelor's quarters. The dead Hamby had spent very little time in housekeeping. A long row of nails stretched around the walls from which hung most everything capable of being suspended. A pine table, a bunk, a chair, and a stove well filled the place. All there was of food stood on the table and Lilly saw at a glance that the nestcr had allowed himself to get very low before venturing to town. The man must have understood his danger and put off the trip as long as possible. The thought revived Lilly's sulphurous anger and on sight of a riflc hanging above the doorway he walked over and took it down, sliding the bolt thoughtfully.

      "Well, old fellow, I sure can't help you any, but I can show this JIB crew a few things about land rights."

      That reminded him he meant to pay a visit. So, after watering his horse from the spring at the rear of the shanty and eating a can of cold beans, he swung up and rode east. Somewhere beyond the grassy ridges was the JIB home quarters. What he meant to do was state his intentions to the so-called octopus and withdraw. After that it was a case of listening for the thunder to roll across the sky.

      He smiled grimly at the thought of turning nester. Twenty-four hours before he would have taken the idea in great and unbelieving humor. Why, he hardly ever turned around unless on the back of a horse. And as for struggling behind the handles of a plow—"Joe Breedlove shore would laugh," he murmured, closing his eyes against the glare of the day. "Oh, I know I'm hot-headed. It's been proved plenty times enough. But, by the Lord, that shootin' would make a wooden Indian cuss. If this ain't a free land it's high time somebody changed things."

      And as he was thus plunged deep in a study he crossed a ridge and saw the many buildings of the JIB ranch stretched before him. The place took him back forty years to the time of the Indian wars. Once upon a time there had been a stockade stretched around the place, an occasional mark of which still was visible. Within this stockade they had built the dozen or so houses in the shape of a square, with the main house sitting in the middle of the great yard thus formed. All were built of logs and the center house, a single storied structure sixty feet long, had elbows built at each corner with rifle embrasures cut through; atop a sod roof a cupola likewise hewn of logs commanded all angles of the yard. A porch ran the length of the place, upon which at intervals opened heavy oak doors.

      Men moved slowly about. Dust rose out of a remote corral and a horse sunfished upward through the haze with a man weaving perilously in the saddle. At another corner several Indians seemed busy around a fire. As Lilly drew rein before the main house he was hailed by a rumbling voice.

      "Sit an' light."

      Tom had to look around a pine pillar to see the man, and at

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