Free the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) by Louis - Hopalong 02 L'amour Page A

wary.
    Pushing open the door, Cassidy entered the long room.
    Men glanced up, then went on with whatever they were doing. Harris would take care of things. He always did. No sense being too efficient.
    "Water," Hopalong suggested, and Harris swept a thick hand to the back bar for a glass, filled it, and shoved it toward Hopalong. Hopalong tasted the water, then drank it all. "Good," he said.
    "Spring water," Harris replied with pardonable pride. "No alkali."
    Poker Harris liked a man who had little to say. The cold blue eyes measured him.
    Harris felt a moment of uneasiness and that disturbed him, for so superb ;was his confidence that he was rarely uneasy about anything.
    Cassidy glanced at the men playing poker. "Any draw players around?"
    Harris's eyes flickered. "Few. I play a few hands occasionally."
    "Like it myself," Hopalong agreed, "if the players aren't too stuffy. I like a fast game," he added, "where a man takes care of hisself."
    Harris shifted on his stool, warming toward this hard-eyed stranger. "I'll break out a new deck." He glanced out the window. "Better put your horse up. Hot out there."
    Turning, Hopalong walked from the saloon, and Poker Harris stared after him, watching the choppy walk, the sloping shoulders. This was a man he should know. He shook his head with disgust. It would come to him. He smiled when the man swung into the saddle instead of merely leading his horse across the street. It was typical of a rider.
    The livery stable was long, wide, and cool inside. The old familiar barn smells and sounds made Hopalong smile. They were smells he would always love and sounds he knew.
    The blowing of a horse, the drone of flies hovering in the shadows, the occasional stamp of a hoof on soft earth and hay. He led the white gelding into a stall and stripped off the saddle and bridle, giving the horse a quick going-over with a handful of hay. Digging around, he found a corn bin and poured a quart of corn into a small feed box in the stall. Then he stepped to the door and, keeping in the shadow and out of the sun, lit a match.
    That he was on dangerous ground he well knew. Poker Harris was a man who would kill and had killed on the slightest provocation. If he got so much as an idea who his new guest was, he might shoot without comment or accusation-and he might not. He was supremely confident, with just reason, in Corn Patch.
    Hopalong strolled aimlessly down the line between the two rows of stalls checking each, wondering if he would find a horse with a blaze on its face and side . . . The horse that he had seen among the riders heading toward the hold up. He quickly ascertained that no such horse was among those present. There might be other barns in town, or a hideout in the hills where horses could be kept. He turned and walked back across the sun-baked street toward the saloon.
    Harris looked around at him. "Well, how about that game? Interested?"
    "Sure am! Blind openers?"
    "My game too." Poker heaved himself from his stool and ambled around the bar to an empty table. He dropped into a huge chair, obviously built for his own comfort, then turned slightly. "Any you boys want in?"
    A surly-eyed black-haired man looked up. "Not with you, I don't! Your game's too fast for my blood!"
    Poker Harris chuckled. "Plays a careful game, that one."
    A narrow-faced man with a petulant, irritable mouth sauntered over. "Name's Troy.
    I'll sit in."
    Two others, a burly cowpuncher named Hankins, with broken, dirty nails and quick, hard eyes, and a tall, gray-haired man with dark eyes and smooth hands. "Blind openers?"
    The gray-haired man smiled. "That can be rough."
    Harris jerked a thumb toward the man. "Name's Drennan. Yours?"
    "Red River Regan." Cassidy smijed. "Cut high for deal?" Harris asked casually. He glanced around the table, not to find if his suggestion was agreeable, but rather to place all his men and fix their positions in his memory. Red River Regan appeared to have a roll, and he was slated for a