Mendoza was closing his store, shoving out a few hangers-on, as Pete crowded in through the door. Tope followed close upon his heels. Confound Tope! Chase him back up over the border to the boss, would he? And then take up the quarrel. There wasn’t a chance in a thousand that Snake Furgeson would ever find out about the automatic. But Tope would see that he did, to save his own face. That was some more of the old cow¬man’s stiff-necked code.
Mendoza had plenty guns. They were locked in a cupboard, over behind the counter on the right-hand side of his store. Pete picked out a heavy forty-five caliber double-action six-gun; the latest thing out. Tope grunted in disapproval. And, when Pete bought a new open-top holster, he snorted in disgust.
Pete looked at Tope. The old fellow stood leaning slightly against the counter, his eyes hard to the left, watching the front door. And Tope had his gun unholstered, had it pointing toward the door across his front under the counter’s edge. His only intelligible words, while in the store, were to Mendoza, after the purchases were made.
“Wrop ’em up,” Tope told Mendoza, “an’ let us out th’ back way.”
Pete had been about to buckle the holster belt around his waist; but Tope glared him out of that idea and whipped his eyes again to the front door. It wasn’t until after they had slipped out and around behind all of the buildings to their horses that Tope explained.
“Yo’d go bustin’ right out after Snake with that there cannon, huh? When I ’scovered yo’ had a gun an’ hadn’t went for it, I thought mebbe yo’ was—was a bit skeered. But I reckon yo’ just hain’t got no sense ’tall.”
“Where’re you going?” Pete asked as Tope swung into his saddle and wheeled his horse from the hitch-rail.
“Out to th’ cabin, yo’ dingbusted tenderfoot. An’ we’re a-goin’ to stay there, ’til yo’ve had a sight o’ practice. Yo’ couldn’t yank that gun outta that new half-breed holster with both hands ’fore—Why, Snake’d have yo’ drilled three, four times, ’n’ then there wouldn’t be a bit o’ use. Hit that saddle, son.”
Pete Malone grinned in the darkness, but he tied his package to the horn of his saddle and followed Tope. They swung away from the road, a mile out, yet the trail was wide and they rode stirrup to stirrup. Pete’s horse was a raw-boned, sensitive young chestnut. As they rode past a spread of chaparral, the horse leaped into a dead run. Tope had lurched over and lashed it across the rump.
Pete hadn’t seen the red flash of the gun, but he heard the report and knew it had come from the thicket. Tope’s horse was thundering along, close behind. Pete pulled his own horse to a lope.
Tope raced up abreast, bending low in his saddle, hatless. “Rifle,” he bellowed above the pounding of the horses’ hoofs.
“Who—” Pete was pulling in his horse but Tope reached out and lashed it again.
“Snake, yo’ danged idjit! Or one o’ his gang. He knows yo’ bought that hawg-laig. Short cut. Pot shot. Got my best hat. Dang it!”
Pete Malone gritted his teeth. Old Bill might have lost more than his hat—might have been left, lying back there in the road—so might he—and it was all his fault. Then Pete grinned once more into the darkness, as they gave their horses their heads for a ways.
Sime opened one eye and blinked at them from his bunk as old Bill Tope and Pete Malone came into the cabin.
“Somepin’ chasin’ you?” Sime asked, squinting in the light from the lantern.
“Close yo’ trap an’ go to sleep,” Tope growled and made ready for a bit of shut-eye himself, in a manner which choked off any talk.
* * * *
When the Mexican cook routed them out for breakfast the next morning, Pete was surprised to realize that he had been able to go right to sleep the night before. “That’s what comes from having a clear conscience, I s’pose,” he mused and smiled to himself.
“What you grinnin’ at, Petey? If it’s th’ cut uv my—”
“Yo’ shut up and listen, Sime,” Tope growled. As Tope told of the happenings of the evening before, Sime’s face sobered. He looked over Pete’s new gun and holster. “Too danged stiff,” he mumbled, with reference to the holster, and took it and pounded it; then greased it thoroughly on the inside with tallow.
“Put it on, son,” Tope ordered as Pete prepared to go out and relieve Wiggin. “An’ keep it on. An’ yo’ take a few quick shots at somethin’ movin’. Get the feel of that there cannon. But don’t go skeerin’ no cattle.”
Pete Malone wore his new gun continually. He began to feel at home, with its weight thonged against his right thigh, although he was not altogether unfamiliar with a six-gun. He had worn one on the range before. But he grew weary of the paces which old Bill Tope and Sime insisted on putting him through.
Wiggin came into the cabin one rainy day, when the cattle were close in. Tope and Pete were facing each other across the length of the single room. Sime was there, too. Sime had a skillet, and, whenever he banged it against the wall, Tope and Pete would go for their empty guns.
Invariably, Tope’s gun clicked two or three times before Pete’s. Then Tope would shake his head and make some sarcastic remark. Finally, Wiggin asked:
“Whyn’t yo’ let ’im try for th’ cross draw, same as Snake uses, hisself? Strap his gun high up, on th’ left, butt for’ard. He can go for it mo’ ca’less like, then.”
So they tried that. It seemed to be an improvement. The next day, he was sure that his gun had clicked in unison with Tope’s. He tried it with Sime and got the same results. He later tried it with Wiggin and beat him to the click several times. Pete began to smile to himself and to practice, when the others weren’t around, along lines of his own.
“Reckon Snake wouldn’t be so anxious to sight yo’, now, if he knew—”
“He’s sighting me Saturday night,” Pete Malone grinned across their breakfasts at Wiggin, a couple of days later.
“Tomorry night?”
“Yep,” Pete answered. “That’s the Saturday night I’m talking about.”
“Yo’ dangbusted young idjit,” Bill Tope snapped and began to argue.
Arguing didn’t do any good. Bill Tope could fire him, if he wanted to; he was the foreman. But Pete Malone was going into town the next evening.
Secretly, old Bill Tope looked at the slender youngster and began making plans. That Petey boy had guts. He had liked young Petey Malone, ever since the boss had sent him down here.
It was Tope, who grew restless as Saturday evening arrived. A Mexican vaquero had been hired to night-ride the herd, and Sime was sent into town an hour in advance.
Sime was waiting at the hitching-rail, on the near side of the first store building, when old Bill Tope, Pete Malone and Wiggin rode in, shortly after dark.
Sime had been nosing around. Snake Furgeson was in town. And he had a couple of his buddies trailing along with him, close up. But Snake wasn’t in the Silver Spur; he was over at Botler’s corral, dealing for some horses.
“But he’ll be over to th’ Silver Spur, right soon, ’cause he give me an invite to sit in a poker game. Asked me if I was by my lonesome. Course I was—right then.” Sime chuckled as he finished.
“Eh-heh. Kinda s’picious, wasn’t he?” Tope scratched his stubbly chin and gave some orders.
Wiggin was to loaf outside the front door of the Silver Spur; Sime by the side door, through which Snake would probably enter, coming from Botler’s corral. If either saw Snake approaching, he was to step inside quickly. That would give Pete