Free Robber's Roost (1989) by Zane Grey

the pass between these two spurs of the Henrys.
    This was the main road to Grand Junction, a long fifty miles distant.
    Jim halted to pass the time of day with the cook, a burly fellow busy at the shelf end of his wagon.
    "Howdy! Is this Heeseman's outfit?" asked Jim, civilly.
    "Howdy yourself! Git down an' come in," replied the man, taking stock of Jim. "The boss hasn't rid in yet."
    "Then I won't wait. About grub-time over at Hays' cabin. Will you tell Heeseman I left my respects? Jim Wall, late of Wyoming."
    "Jim Wall, huh? Sure I'll tell him. It's more'n any other of Hays' outfit has done," replied the cook, gruffly.
    "They're an unsociable bunch. We're not that way in Wyoming."
    Jim rode on back through the barnyards, meeting lean-faced riders, mere boys in years, who eyed him askance and whispered among themselves. Upon arriving at the corral near Hays' cabin he unsaddled and turned Bay loose with the other horses there. He left his saddle, too, but took his Winchester.
    Hays greeted him from the porch bench, where he sat among several of his men.
    "Where you been, Jim? Gettin' the lay of the land?"
    "Just taking 'heap look' round, as an Indian would say. Stopped to say hello to Heeseman, but he wasn't in camp."
    "Wal, there's nothin' wrong with your nerve, Jim. I've just been tellin' Brad an' Sparrowhawk here how favorable you hit the boss."
    "Come an' get it before I throw it out for the other hawgs," yelled Happy Jack, cheerfully, from within.
    There ensued a scramble. Jim did not rush. Entering last, he came upon Smoky Slocum just in the act of sitting down on a box seat, at the end of the long table. Jim kicked the box, which moved away just the instant Smoky stooped and sank. He thudded heavily to the floor with a most ridiculously clumsy action. A howl of glee ran from that end of the table up to the head, when Hays, standing aside to see, suddenly roared.
    Smoky slowly got up, feeling of his rear and glowering at Jim.
    "Can't you see where you goin'?" he growled. "Accidents like that have cost damn fools their lives before this."
    "Slocum--I can't lie--about it," laughed Jim. "It wasn't an accident."
    "You dumped me on purpose?" bellowed the little man.
    "I kicked the box. . . . Just couldn't help it. You'd have done the same to me."
    "Wal, I'll be--!" ejaculated Smoky, suddenly animated. "So we've got a trick-player in camp. If you'd lied about thet, Mr. Wyomin'
    Wall, I reckon I'd burned you where you set down. . . . Laugh, all you durned jackasses! But it ain't funny. It jarred my teeth loose."
    Hays laughed longest, evidently taking the incident as another clever move of Jim's, upon whom he beamed. Then he led the assault upon Happy Jack's ample dinner. At the conclusion of the meal he said: "Fellers, we've a pow-wow on hand. Clear the table. Fetch another lamp. We'll lay out the cards an' some coin, so we can pretend to be settin' in a little game, if anybody happens along.
    But the game we're really settin' in is the biggest ever dealt in Utah."
    So it came to pass that Jim Wall sat down with a crew of robbers to plot the ruin of a rich and eccentric rancher.
    "Talk low, everybody," instructed Hays. "An' one of you step out on the porch now an' then. Heeseman might be slick enough to send a scout over here. 'Cause we're goin' to do thet little thing to him. . . . Happy, dig up thet box of cigars I've been savin'."
    "Cigars!" ejaculated Smoky Slocum.
    "Hank, trot out some champagne," jeered Brad Lincoln.
    "Nothin' to drink, fellers," returned Hays. "We're a sober outfit.
    No gamblin' for real money. No arguin' or fightin'. . . . Any of you who doesn't like thet can walk out now."
    They were impressed by his cool force, as well as by the potency of the future. Certainly not one of them moved.
    "All right. Wal an' good. We're set," he went on. "Today I changed my mind about goin' slow with this job. Never mind why."
    Jim Wall had a flash of divination as to this sudden right-about- face. Hays was deeper than