Free The Ysabel Kid by J. T. Edson Page A

for him by sending him for the sheriff.
    The Kid stared his unbelief at Dusty, wondering what he was letting himself in for. He could see the inhospitable cell doors slamming on to him even now.
    Dusty looked across the room at Alden who got to his feet and rubbed his hips. “Egad, that’s the second time you’ve saved me from a serious and perilous position, Dusty, These men are French.”
    “Why sure,” Dusty agreed, then went on in French. “who are you?”
    “Major Harmon, Blue Hussars,” the wounded man gritted through his teeth.
    “Attend to the Major,” Dusty ordered the other two. “Lon, get their guns.”
    The Ysabel Kid did as he was ordered, moving behind the men and substituting his knife for the gun as he went in close. He removed the guns and then went back to stand by his friend.
    The sheriff and the town marshal both arrived at once. Tim Farron stopped and looked over the scene, his eyes were distinctly unfriendly as he looked the Kid over or that was the impression Loney Dalton Ysabel got.
    “All right, what happened here?” he asked.
    The Kid looked at Dusty and groaned inwardly. They would soon be in jail and he didn’t like the idea of being cooped up in a cell. It was Dusty who answered:
    “Howdy Uncle Tim. These three killed a Mexican. His body is on the edge of the Brownsville trail.”
    Farron gave his illustrious young nephew a warm smile. “Howdy, Dusty. You sure about it?”
    “Sure enough,” Dusty replied and told of the finding of the body. “Lon here cut their sign and followed it to the slope. You’ll find the same soil as the slope on one of the stirrup irons.”
    The Ysabel Kid had been trying to efface himself from sight and felt very uneasy as Tim Farron turned round. A big hand reached out to him and Farron grinned warmly. “Howdy, boy. How’s your pappy?”
    The Ysabel Kid was still dazed after Tim Farron left with his three prisoners for he could not believe that not only was he still free but that Tim Farron had actually shaken hands with him and been friendly. Dusty went out of the saloon with his uncle and told something of his reason for being down this way. Farron could not even offer to help locate the man from Washington for the town was filled with a floating population.
    Alden and the Kid were seated together at a table in the saloon when Dusty returned. The big man looked worried and there was something like relief in his eyes as Dusty came up.
    “This puts me on the horns of a dilemma,” Alden remarked. “As I was just telling the Kid here. Look, would you care to come along the street with me?”
    “Why sure, we’ve got nothing more to do for a spell.”
    The three men left the saloon and went along to a small wooden building. Alden unlocked the door and waited for the two Texans to leave their horses, then led the way in.
    There was only one room, small, square and windowless. Alden lit a lamp and the other two found themselves looking at boxes which crowded the place out almost to where they stood. Some of the wooden boxes were small and square, the others long and oblong in shape. All bore the stencilled words. “Winchester Repeating Firearms Company, New Haven.”
    Alden went to the nearest of the long boxes and took out a rifle, coming back to the others and asking, “What do you think of this?”
    “A Henry rifle,” the Kid breathed out the words almost reverently. “Man, with one of these you can load on Monday, shoot Yankees all week and still have lead to go coon hunting on Sunday.”
    Dusty did not show the same enthusiasm for he’d handled several Henry rifles. “They’re not bad, nigh as good a repeater as you could buy these days. But I found the extractor a mite weak and the magazine slot got clogged up with dirt easily, gets dented and jammed real easy too.”
    “A discerning eye, I see,” Alden replied. “They were structural defects in the earlier Henry rifles which we’ve almost eradicated in these. They make a good