“I dropped my knife in that grave,” Long Sam said gruffly. “Yuh’d better find it, cut the ropes off your ankles, and skin out of here. Blanco and his bunch didn’t get the forty thousand. I’ve got it, right here in my shirt. I only shot at the legs of that bunch, because I wouldn’t shoot even their kind in the back. Dark as it is, I couldn’t line my sights, so I doubt if any of ’em are hurt much. They’ll remember this money, and be comin’ back. Yuh better be gone when they get here.”
“Bull!” Fry growled. “Yuh’re not pullin’ the wool over my eyes, Littlejohn. You made this grandstand play, hopin’ I’d be fool enough to think you actually saved my hide and, lay off huntin’ you, through gratitude. Yuh’re the brains of this El Diabolo Blanco gang, just as I’ve been tryin’ to tell that fat-headed sheriff, Rod Varney, down yonder at Foxfire!”
* * * *
Long Sam got out of there, knowing he would lose his temper if he listened to much more. He walked across the clearing and into the brush, so angry he had the shakes as he crawled up into the hand-tooled black saddle on Sleeper’s back.
“Some day, that glory-drunk runt will make me so mad I’ll do him a meanness,” the outlaw growled. “Rattle them big hoofs, Sleeper.”
Sleeper snorted at the touch of spurs and headed down a winding stock trail that went generally south through the towering, thorn-armored walls. Long Sam rode fast, taking trails known to very few men. It was a little after midnight when he pulled Sleeper in at the base of a gentle slope, where a cluster of buildings marked the headquarters of old Bart Rowland’s vast Rocking R spread. But, late as it was, there were lights blazing in the main ranch-house and other buildings, and Long Sam could see lanterns bobbing around corrals and barns and sheds.
“Somethin’ sure has that outfit in a stir,” the outlaw figured. “Maybe if I watch where I’m puttin’ my big feet, I can—”
“You can elevate, or I’ll salivate you,” a sharp voice interrupted his thoughts.
Long Sam stiffened up in the saddle, for the voice was unquestionably that of a woman. And she was in a huge moss-hung oak, smack over his head.
“Nina, that you?” he made a guess, his voice tight with uneasiness.
“Oh, fiddle!” came the peevish reply. “I never get by with grabbing any glory. Here I thought I’d nabbed El Diabolo Blanco, or one of his gang, at least. Who are you?”
“I’m just a bounty-plastered owlhooter named Littlejohn,” Long Sam chuckled.
“Long Sam!” came the excited cry. “Gollies, it’s been ages since you came to the Rocking R. Here, take my rifle.”
Long Sam grinned, took the rifle that was thrust at him. Then a slender hand touched his arm, slid to his shoulder, and with a recklessness he had forgotten to be on guard against, Nina Rowland, old Bart Rowland’s daughter, came down behind Sleeper’s saddle.
“Yipee!” Nina squealed, and her arms shot around Long Sam as Sleeper bogged his head, bawled in rage, and swapped ends in the air.
Long Sam cussed under his breath, fought the reins with one hand, and groaned in dismay when Sleeper sunfished, came down in a series of fence-row pitches, then cannily took to the air in a mighty leap. Again the wise old roan swapped ends in mid-leap, and Nina Rowland’s reckless laughter mingled with Long Sam’s sizzling remarks as they spilled down on the hard earth.
“I ought to use the stock of this rifle for a paddle, and just naturally set you on a fire, Nina,” Long Sam beefed. “When in thunderation will you grow up, anyhow?”
“Did Grandpa Littlejohn get his rheumatiz jolted?” Nina chuckled.
She was already on her feet, slipping her hands under Long Sam’s armpits, mocking his grumpiness with a pretense of helping him up. He laughed suddenly, came to his feet, and pushed the girl’s rifle into her hands. Nina was taller than the average girl, and, to Long Sam’s notion, a whole lot a more attractive. He had known her for a dozen years, and had seen her grow from a leggy youngster into a lovely, dark-eyed young woman. Nina had always been gaily tomboyish, a cover-up, Long a Sam suspected, for hurts her father had unwittingly brought her by constantly bemoaning the fact that his only child had not been a boy.
“It’s a wonder you haven’t broken your lovely neck, Nina,” Long Sam chuckled now. “Yore mother and father couldn’t stop your tomboyishness, I know. But didn’t marrying settle you down any?”
Nina chuckled. “Marrying? I’m not married, Sam.”
“Last time I came visitin’ at the Rockin’ R you and Clay Foley were plannin’ to travel in double harness,” the gaunt outlaw said cautiously.
“Clay was planning on it, with the help of Mom and Dad,” Nina said soberly. “I was five years old, Sam, when mother and Dad took Clay Foley in. He was nine then, and had been deserted by his parents. So far as I’m concerned, Clay is my brother. That’s the only feeling I’ve ever had towards him.”
“Come to think of it, more than two years have passed since I visited you folks,” Long Sam said quietly. “I hadn’t heard that you and Clay Foley had married, but took it for granted that you had, since you were engaged, last time I was here. Some buckaroo come along and beat Clay’s time?”
“No one beat Clay’s time, Sam,” the girl answered. “I just don’t love Clay, and never did. Mother and Dad wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell them that. They hammered at me until I finally accepted Clay’s ring in order to have a little peace. But I was twenty-one, shortly after you visited us, the last time. When I came of age, I gave Clay’s ring back to him, and told Mother and Dad to stop meddling unless they wanted me to move out.”
“How did Clay Foley take it?” Long Sam asked, making his tone casual.
“Clay took my refusing to marry him the way your too-casual tone tells me you suspect,” Nina replied. “Clay’s a stinker, Sam, as you darned well know. Dad wanted a son instead of a daughter, and has spoiled Clay badly. Since the day I handed his ring back, Clay has been sullen and bad-tempered. He frightens me at times, for there’s something furtive in his manner. If I told Mother and Dad that, I’d catch what-for, so forget that I said it.”
“I’m not gabby, Nina,” Long Sam reassured her. “Besides, I’m plumb on your side of the argument. Clay Foley always was too cocky, to suit me. He hittin’ the booze and raisin’ Cain, since you denied him eventual ownership of the Rockin’ R by bein’ too intelligent to marry him?”
“Gollies, Sam, those words are salve in sore wounds,” Nina cried. “No, Clay doesn’t drink or gamble or do any open cavorting. He’s too shrewd for that. But he does have some scheme in his head, I’m sure. The way he looks at me sometimes, Sam, I know very well he intends owning the Rockin’ R, even if I have refused to become his means to that end.”
“From what I’ve been hearin’, the Rockin’ R has been pretty hard hit by this El Diabolo Blanco,” Long Sam drawled. “I headed up here soon as I heard that Bart Rowland is about to go bust.”
“You heard the truth, Sam,” Nina said wearily. “Dad is almost ill from worrying. He spread himself out, two years ago, and got into lumbering and the banking business. Then he put Clay in charge of his whole business affairs, just to salve Clay’s feelings after I refused to become Mrs. Clay Foley.”
“Seems to me it’s about time your daddy got straightened out on a few things,” Long Sam said drily. “Any chance of my seein’ him right away, Nina?”
“You can’t go up to the house now, Sam,” Nina said sharply. “Clay and the only three cowhands we keep at headquarters