Wind River Outlaw by Will Ermine

Author:Will Ermine
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590774175
Publisher: M. Evans & Company
Published: 2016-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

HEART OF GOLD

A MILE below Crazy Woman Pass, with the Basin spread out at their feet, Doc Lantry insisted on stopping to divide the proceeds of the robbery.

“We’ll never be safer, or more to ourselves, than we are right here,” he declared. “These leather bags have got to be burned up, too.”

“What’s the idea?” Reb queried curiously, a thread of amusement in his voice. “Why not go on to the ranch an’ do it?”

“Because I say we do it now!” Lantry snapped.

“Well, don’t bust a cinch about it,” Reb told him lightly.

“I’ll bust whatever I have to, to head off yore damned arguments,” Doc retorted tartly. “We’ll do this thing the way I want it done.”

Perceiving suddenly how the land lay, Reb let it go, content to give Lantry his way in small matters. It was one of the few opportunities Doc had left to save his pride. He didn’t need to be told by this time that any real argument with Reb was unlikely to be won by himself.

The truth was that since the hold-up in Castle Gate, Doc had been struggling to alter the situation between them. Trails were taken because he wanted to; things were done to suit his taste. He believed that Reb’s taking the definite step into outlawry would remove any grounds the latter had for assuming superiority; that it set them on an equal footing, wherein as time went on he could reassert his natural right of authority. Reb read the thought in him. He bided his time, without troubling to correct Doc. Experience, however slow, is a sure teacher.

They divided the money. Doc lit a small fire and burned the paymaster’s leather bags. Then they went on.

Gloomy Jepson was in solitary charge at Ghost Creek when they rode in. One look at his long, dissatisfied face as he followed Doc Lantry’s self-complacent movements about the dugout told Reb why Doc had insisted they split their booty before arriving at the ranch. He did not intend that Gloomy should share in their haul in any way.

Later in the day Reb peeled seven hundred dollars off his roll—his own share amounted to several thousands—and seeking out Gloomy, he handed over the sum.

“This is yore cut, Gloomy,” he said easily.

Jepson took it suspiciously, his melancholy eyes suddenly sharpened. He did not know what to say. “I s’pose Doc—” he began.

“He knows,” Reb put him off, to save his feelings. “Yuh don’t think Doc’d make a haul without lettin’ yuh in on it, do yuh?”

Gloomy did not say what he thought on that head. “Doc’s all right,” he averred defensively. There was a hint of jealousy in his voice as he added: “The money don’t mean so much t’ me. But I shore would’a liked to go ’long—”

“I ain’t got nothin’ against Doc, myself,” Reb assured him, pleased by his loyalty; “but Gloomy, I think I like you better, all the same.”

It was so much like something Gloomy had heard before, yet so much more generously put, that he could not help being struck by the comparison.

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