The Floating Outfit 50 by J.T. Edson

Author:J.T. Edson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: louis lamour, revenge story, piccadilly publishing, the floating outfit, ebook westerns, jt edson westerns, texas westerns, westerns 1880s, the waco kid
Publisher: Piccadilly

Chapter Nine

The Fight at Wilben’s

The Wilben house was built on the same lines as most other such places. The front of the house was one big room which served as dining and sitting-room. Behind this was a passage and on the other side of this, kitchen and bedrooms. Red did not need to be shown the rest of the house. One could guess what it was like. In his run down the slope he’d seen enough to know that only from the front, on the slope could any serious attack develop. The land at the back and the sides was too open and did not offer any cover for the attacking men.

The next thing to occupy Red’s attention was the state of defense the place was in. He saw they were not as well off as they might be. Wilben was holding a Henry rifle and his wife laid a box of .44 rimfire bullets out for him. This appeared to be his only weapon, apart from a long, old but beautifully chased, Kentucky rifle which hung on pegs over the fire. A powder horn scraped so thin that the level of the powder could be seen through the sides, and with a measure fitted to the top; and a bullet bag, hung over the gun. Red gave the old muzzle-loading gun little attention; he was thinking of cartridge weapons. He and Larry only carried their revolvers with them. Red cursed the inspiration which made him leave his old Spencer carbine behind. He was a good enough shot with either hand to make his Colts dangerous to the men if they came into anything like pistol range. They were armed with rifles and knowing the kind of men they were Red did not think they would take a single chance unless they were forced to do so.

A bullet slapped into the wall and Red flattened himself to look out of the window. The gunmen were settling down with their rifles at about sixty yards which was beyond anything like the range of their Colt guns. It was also beyond the range at which the old Henry would be anything like accurate. The Henry was a fairly reliable repeating weapon and in its day was the best money could buy. However, even its most ardent supporters could not claim it was accurate over any range. The combination of the flat-nosed, two hundred and sixteen grain bullet and the weak, twenty-six grain powder charge made accuracy at ranges of over fifty yards uncertain to say the least.

The men on the slope were not much better off for most of them appeared to be armed with Winchester Model 73’s. These were a better all-round rifle than their grandfather, the Henry, but still did not have enough power to drive a ball through the thick log walls of the house.

‘Get your lady into the back of the house. Send your boy. He’s hurt and can’t help us any,’ Red said to Wilben, watching the slope all the time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.