Free Collection 1988 - Lonigan (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

after sweeping several square yards of snow, he found where the wounded man had leaped from the buckboard, then the spot where he had gone to his knees. It was all there, frozen into the earth by the fierce norther.
    And there, where the ambushed man had fallen, were boot tracks! Con Fargo knelt quickly. This was what he had been looking for. With his hunting knife he dug carefully around each track, then lifted the circles of frozen earth from the ground. He concealed them in another hollow in the rocks.
    He mounted again and taking a cutoff through the mountains, rode into Sulphur Springs. From there he sent two messages, then strolled over to the livery stable. While he watered the mustang, he talked idly with the graybeard who worked around. “Got ary a buckboard for hire?” he asked.
    â€œYep! Only one, though. Young feller come in here few days ago and borrowed one. Hired her for a week. Pair of grays. Had some business over to Black Rock, I reckon. Somethin’ about a ranch.”
    â€œDidn’t say who he was, did he?”
    â€œNope. Wasn’t very talkin’. Yank, by the sound of him. But he could handle them horses! Had him an old-time gun. One of them Patersons like the Rangers used years ago.”
    CHAPTER 2
    Saloon Brawl
    A RAW, COLD wind blew over the desert when he rode down off the mountains and skirted the wastelands, heading home. There was a light in his windows when he neared the cabin. Slipping from his horse, he crept across to the nearest window. What he saw inside brought a slow grin to his lips.
    When his mustang was stabled he went up and pushed the door open.
    â€œHowdy!” he said, grinning. “How’s Texas?”
    Two men sprang to their feet, then seeing his face, they began to grin.
    â€œCon! By all that’s holy! Glad to see you, boss!”
    Bernie Quill, a slim youngster with a reckless face and blue eyes, shoved the plate of ham and eggs at Fargo.
    â€œSet, and give us the lowdown. We come up here for a fight. Now don’t tell us you’ve wound it all up!”
    Briefly, he explained. José Morales rolled a cigarette and listened carefully.
    â€œThen, señor,” he said at last, “we do not know
who
we fight?”
    â€œThat’s about it,” Fargo agreed. “Tex cashed in before I got to him. Who killed him, I don’t know. Putney and Gomez were probably in the gang, but they are dead. Still, I got some ideas.
    â€œThis place is in a notch of mountain, and Kilgore had control of twenty thousand acres of good grazing land north of the mountains. The Bar M and Lazy S control almost everything south of the mountains except the townsite of Black Rock.
    â€œTex come in here and found the pass that leads through the mountains from Black Rock. Those mountains look like a wall that a goat couldn’t cross, but there’s this one pass. So he moved in and took all the land north of the mountains over to the Springer Hills. The joke on the Lazy S and Bar M was that most of the rain falls north of the mountains.
    â€œThe Bar M is owned by an eastern syndicate, but all they ask is returns. The Lazy S is owned by Springer Bob Wakeman, old-timer, who made his and went back east to live. The Bar M is managed by Art Brenner, the Lazy S by Butch Mogelo.”
    â€œButch Mogelo?”
Quill’s eyes narrowed. “Is he the hombre that killed Bill Priest down in Uvalde?”
    â€œSame one,” Fargo agreed. “Art Brenner is a big, handsome fellow, and from all I can figure out, a pretty smooth operator. I couldn’t tie Putney or Gomez to either of them.”
    Yet the mention of Bob Wakeman’s name started some pulse of memory throbbing. Something that wouldn’t quite boil up into his consciousness was working in his mind. Springer Bob had been a friend of Fargo’s back in the old trail-herding days. Once they had fought Comanches together down in the Nation. Con had been a boy of seventeen