Free Dutchmans Flat (Ss) (1986) by Louis L'amour Page A

down, coughing and muttering. Starr backed through the swinging doors of the saloon and sat down hard in the sawdust.
    Tack stared at him. "What the-"
    The tall young lawyer came down the steps. "Fooled them, didn't I? They tried to get me once too often. I got their man with a shotgun in the face. Then I changed clothes with him and lit out for Austin. I came in with the Rangers and then left them on the edge of town. They told me they'd let us have it our way unless they were needed."
    "Saves the state of Texas a sight of money," one of the Rangers drawled. "Anyway, we been checkin' on this here Hardin. On Olney, too. That's why they wanted to keep things quiet around here. They knowed we was checkin' on 'em."
    The Rangers moved in and, with the help of a few of the townspeople, rounded up Hardin's other followers.
    Tack grinned at the lawyer. "Lived up to your name, pardner," he said. "Yuh sure did! All yore sheep in the fold, now!" "What do you mean? Lived up to my name?" Anson Childe looked around.
    Gentry grinned. "And a little Childe shall lead them!" he said.
    Billy Hamilton, mountain man, trapper, and more, tells of a shooting contest at a rendezvous at Brown's Hole. "Three posts were set in the ground about 25 yards apart.
    They stood six feet out of the ground and were ten inches in diameter. The top of the post was squared for a distance of about twelve inches. The arms to be used were Colt six-shooters. Horses were to be put at full speed, passing the posts not closer than ten feet and the contestant was to fire not less than two shots at each post.
    "Some of our party put two bullets in each post and all at least one. I tried it twice and was somewhat surprised to find the best I could do was to place one bullet in each post."

Dutchmans Flat (ss) (1986)

    *
    Dusty .
    Barron turned the steel-dust stallion down the slope toward the wash. He was going to have to find water soon or the horse and himself would be done for. If Emmett Fisk and Gus Mattis had shown up in the street at any other time it would have been all right.
    As it was, they had appeared just as he was making a break from the saloon, and they had blocked the road to the hill country and safety. Both men had reached for their guns when they saw him, and he had wheeled his horse and hit the desert road at a dead run. With Dan Hickman dead in the saloon it was no time to argue or engage in gun pleasantries while the clan gathered.
    It had been a good idea to ride to Jarilla and make peace talk, only the idea hadn't worked. Dan Hickman had called him yellow and then gone for a gun. Dan was a mite slow, a fact that had left him dead on the saloon floor.
    There were nine Hickmans in Jarilla, and there were Mattis and three Fisk boys. Dusty's own tall brothers were back in the hills southwest of Jarilla, but with his road blocked he had headed the steel-dust down the trail into the basin.
    The stallion had saved his bacon. No doubt about that. It was only the speed of the big desert-bred horse and its endurance, that had got him away from town before the Hickmans could catch him. The big horse had given him lead enough until night had closed in, and after that it was easier.
    Dusty had turned at right angles from his original route. They would never expect that, for the turn took him down the long slope into the vast, empty expanse of the alkali basin where no man of good sense would consider going.
    For him it was the only route. At Jarilla they would be watching for him, expecting him to circle back to the hill country and his own people. He should have listened to Allie when she had told him it was useless to try to settle the old blood feud.
    He had been riding now, with only a few breaks, for hours. Several times he had stopped to rest the stallion, wanting to conserve its splendid strength against what must lie ahead. And occasionally he had dismounted and walked ahead of the big horse.
    Dusty Barron had only the vaguest idea of what he was heading