King of the Range by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2015-07-13T22:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XXIII

THEY were pulling into the station at the small town before them, and it appeared that most of the other passengers in the smoking car dismounted at this place, for they were thronging forward toward the platform, the laborers carrying their blanket rolls. The sheriff took note of a number of buckboards and riding ponies gathered near the station, and in front of the station building were half a dozen men waiting. No doubt they had come to meet the cargo of laborers and take them off to ranches and farms.

Well assured of this, Petersen looked to the other side of the track through the opposite windows and saw that the railroad gate had closed there in the face of another pair of buckboards and a rider or two. When he had seen these things, the sheriff stood up from his seat, dragging his prisoner with him. With a motion of his arm, he gathered the posse about him.

“Now, boys,” he said, “I’m gonna tell you something that’ll explain why I wanted so many of you along to help me guard Chelton here. I ain’t in the habit of needin’ so damn’ many to watch one man, but this here case was different. It wasn’t Chelton that bothered me none, it was Tankerton and his gang.”

This announcement caused the posse to look solemnly at one another.

“We’ve got the news accurate and full,” said the sheriff. “We’ve got it from a inside man. They’re gonna put one man aboard this here train at this here town, right in front of us. And it ain’t gonna do us no good to search for him. Likely he’ll be put aboard on the brake rods and climb up from them, or else he’ll be blind baggage as we pull up into Running Hoss Gulch. There he’ll stop the train, and, when he stops it, they’s gonna be a swarm of crooks charge us out of the brush on each side of the road.” He paused. Then, having examined the faces of his hearers carefully, noting the degrees of resolution or of fear that they showed, he went on: “Some of ’em will probably split for the baggage car. The rest of ’em will come pilin’ straight for us. They want money out of this job, but more than that they want Chelton. They’ll come fast, and they’ll come shootin’, and maybe I don’t have to tell you that Tankerton’s men can shoot straight?”

He stopped again to examine the grim faces of his men before he continued: “They got a new man up there among the Tankertons, and he’s gonna have the charge of this job. That new man is gonna try to win his spurs, as they say, and he’ll fight like a wildcat, for one. Now, boys, I could’ve taken twenty men instead of six. But if I took twenty, probably the Tankertons would’ve heard about us, and they wouldn’t make the charge. As it is, we’ll have a chance to warm up our rifles.

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