Larry and Stretch 12 by Marshall Grover

Author:Marshall Grover [Grover, Marshall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: winchester rifle, colt 45, western pulp fiction ebook, leonard meares, marshall grover, outlaws and lawmen in the old west, larry and stretch westerns
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Six – Hunters North

Thanks to the irony of fate, two members of the Harnsey gang had invaded Circle T range at a time when the spread was virtually undefended. The foreman and the three hired hands had departed several days ago to run seven hundred head of stock to Ackersford, the big town to the west where the cattle buyers visited regularly. Only the rancher and his small family remained—Clara, his stolid, unemotional spouse, Jimmy, their eleven-year-old son, and Ruthy, their salty, headstrong daughter.

“The boy’s too young to send,” Clara calmly informed her husband, “so Ruthy’s on her way.”

“Ruthy already left for Ackersford?” he frowned.

“Right after she brought you home,” nodded Clara. “She guessed you’d want her to report it to the sheriff—the shootin’, the stealin’ of the pinto.”

“Well …” He grimaced uneasily. “I just hope she’ll be safe.”

“It didn’t pleasure me, seein’ her ride off by herself,” shrugged Clara. “Still and all, she’s got plenty savvy, knows how to look out for her own self.”

“She totin’ water and provisions?” he demanded.

“Plenty,” Clara assured him. “Took your long gun along too. The Henry repeater.”

Shumack did some calculating and decided that, by now, his men would have arrived in Ackersford.

“She’ll likely run into Clem and the boys,” he mused, “and travel home with ’em.”

“Bound to,” agreed Clara. “Now rest up and quit your frettin’.”

Ruthy’s father lay back on his pillows and tried to relax, but a new fear had begun plaguing him, one he would never confide to Clara. Might Ruthy encounter those same marauders somewhere along the trail to Ackersford?

Had he but realized it, there was more than an even chance Ruthy would run into them. She was, in fact, following the tracks left by his assailants at this very moment, moving eastward from the scene of the attack, instead of westward along the Ackersford trail. Time enough later for reporting the outrage to old Sheriff Wilkin. Right now, Ruthy’s only concern was for her cherished pinto colt, the animal stolen by the gunhawks. She was realistic enough to acknowledge that she had little chance of defeating two hardened desperadoes in an open fight—but just proddy enough to hope that she might run them to ground and, while they slept, steal back her beloved colt.

She had picked up the horse-tracks of her quarry in the last waning light of sunset and was now headed toward a timbered ridge far to the northeast of Circle T range. In the past, that ridge had provided temporary refuge for marauding bands of rustlers seeking to attack the Shumack spread. It now occurred to her that her father’s assailants may have headed in that direction. Certainly, the tracks suggested this.

But Harnsey and his men had vacated their camp on the ridge a full ninety minutes before sunset. Within ten minutes of Newcombe and Haines rejoining the main party, Harnsey was leading his men northward along the ridge, and luridly cursing Shumack’s attackers.

“I gave you a simple order,” he raged, glaring back at them over his shoulder.

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