Free Marauders' Moon by Luke; Short Page B

Walking down the arroyo with Britt and Martha riding dose behind him, Webb raged inside himself. From now on, he swore, there was going to be more scrapping and less submission on his part. If Britt Bannister ever slacked his attention once, from now on, Webb would slug him, take his horse, and jump the country—and the reward posters be damned. He wondered if Britt would go back on his word to the girl and turn him over to the Wintering law. But he did not understand why Martha Tolleston had taken his part, insisting that Britt not give him over to arrest. The only reason he could find was that Buck Tolleston had confided his doubts as to Webb’s guilt to her. And this didn’t seem right.
    At Webb’s horse, Britt dismounted, and, while Martha held the gun on Webb, Britt tied his ankles together beneath the sorrel’s belly. Webb regarded her with curiosity as she stood before him, and she avoided looking at him.
    When all was ready, Britt said to Martha, “Your dad will send out men, after they miss this man, won’t he?”
    Martha nodded.
    â€œThen hold tight and say nothin’. Let them think what they want. The one thing that’ll work for you, Marty, is that you’ve still got your own horse. So they can’t prove you talked to this man, or he’d have taken it away from you.”
    Martha nodded and they rode off, Webb ahead. He was headed for a new kind of prison—and in the very camp of the Bannisters.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    It had been dark for hours when Britt and Webb pulled into the Dollar spread. Instead of approaching it from the north, as would have been natural, Britt circled around to the west, so that he would first go through Mex-town—the district where the adobes of the field hands lay huddled. Webb regarded the place with wonder. Seeing all the lights below, he thought they were about to enter a town. But as they approached, he could see the barns, the corrals, the bulk of the huge house, and now he understood a little more of what Wardecker had told him of Bannister.
    Britt, meanwhile, was having a prolonged argument with his conscience. It would be so much easier to turn this redhead over to the sheriff in Bull Foot tomorrow, and get him out of the way for good. But he had promised Martha he would not. Of course, a man could be held here on the Dollar indefinitely; it had been done before. A man doesn’t walk or ride away from a place where more than a hundred people are watching him night and day. But this was no ordinary case.
    Suddenly Britt decided to play the hunch he had had from the first, and which had led him to enter Mex-town first. Those five hardcases from the north country were putting up in the old bunk house. Not knowing or caring about the Wagon Mound robbery, Britt saw nothing strange in their being there; Wake Bannister always seemed to have a mysterious bunch of strangers around him, usually tough. These would be the men that would guard this man for him.
    The old bunk house—in use when Bannister first took over this place and designed to house the dozen vaqueros which had since been replaced by white hands—lay just behind the Mexican cantina . It had come to be regarded as the place to put up those men whom Bannister did not invite to the main house. Britt ordered Webb past the cantina , and they reined up in front of the long, single-story stone building.
    A man was lounging in the door, a light to his back, and he observed the two men in silence.
    â€œGive me a hand here, will you?” Britt asked him.
    The man came out beside Britt’s horse.
    â€œPut a gun on that man while I untie him.”
    The man complied with a grunt, and Webb was freed, then told to dismount.
    â€œInto the bunk house,” Britt told him.
    The three Montana men playing poker with a Mexican looked up as Webb stepped in. They looked at him a long moment, and finally one of them, the oldest, apparently, said from around a match in the