The Heart of the Range Part 19

Thus did Swing Tunstall come up to the scratch right n.o.bly. Racey could have hugged him. Instead he bit him. This in order that Swing should pull his hand away in a natural manner. Having achieved his purpose, Racey smiled sottishly at Luke Tweezy.

"But what's Jack Harpe done?" Luke Tweezy inquired swiftly.

"It ain't what he's done," Racey replied. "It's what he's gug-gonna do. He's out to cuc-colddeck the Bub-bar S, an' they nun-know it."

Whereupon Swing began to shake him severely. "Stop yore ravin!" he commanded, and contrived to bang Racey's head against the wall with a b.u.mp that went a long way toward curing the pain of Racey's bite.

Racey, with real tears in his eyes, looked up at Swing and guggled, "I'm sho shleepy!" Then he laid his head upon his arms and slept. Luke Tweezy did not attempt to awaken him. Swing Tunstall advised against it. Luke Tweezy and he had a parting drink together. Then the money-lender took what was left of the second bottle of whiskey--the first was but a memory--to the bar and endeavoured to chivvy a rebate out of the bartender. But such a procedure was decidedly not the Happy Heart's method of doing business. Luke Tweezy, much to his disgust, for he never drank except in the way of trade, was forced to carry his bottle with him when he went.

Swing, sapient young person, walked casually to the window and watched Luke Tweezy cross the street to Calloway's store. Then he returned to Racey's table. Racey turned his tousled head sidewise and whispered from a corner of his mouth, "Help me out to Tom Kane's stable. He's out o' town, and there won't anybody bother us."

"C'mon, Racey, come alive," urged Swing Tunstall, making a great business of shaking awake his drunken friend. "You don't wanna stay here no longer. I know a fine place where you can sleep it off."

Ten minutes later Racey and Swing were sitting comfortably on a pile of hay in Tom Kane's new stable. Racey pulled off his boots, flopped down on the hay, and clasped his hands behind his head. He wiggled his toes luxuriously and laughed.

"Gawd," said he. "Think o' that old skinflint buying nearly two bottles of whiskey! Bet that'll lay heavy on his mind for as much as a month. What you lookin' at me like that for?"

"Yeah, I'd ask if I was you. I sh.o.r.e would. What was yore bright idea of tellin' Luke Tweezy we were gonna ride for Jack Harpe so's to watch him?"

"So he'd know it."

"So he'd know it! So he'd know it! The man sits there and says '_so he'd know it_'! And you call me a thickskull! Which yore head has got mine snowed under thataway. Can't you see, you droolin' fool, that now they'll know as much as we do?"

"No, oh, no," Racey denied with a superior smile. "Not never a-tall. I ain't saying they mightn't know as much as you do by yoreself. But not while you got the benefit of my brains they won't know as much as we do. 'Tain't possibil."

"And what did you bite me for?" pursued Swing, disregarding the slur.

"h.e.l.l's bells, if you'd bit Luke I wouldn't have a word to say, but why pick on me?"

"Well, you b.u.mped my head so hard I saw sparks, so we're even. Say, stop squallin' about yore hand! I didn't bite you half as hard as I might have. Not half. You can still use the hand all right, can't you?

Yeah. Well, then, you ain't got anything to cry about, not a thing."

"Talk sense, will you? You got us into a fine mess, you have. A fi-ine mess."

"Guess I fooled him, all right," Racey said with irritating complacency.

"What was you trying to do, anyway?" Swing snarled, glaring at his friend. "What was the notion of tearin' off all them confidences about bein' busted and yore dear friends at the Bar S and how you and me was gonna play detective? And to think Providence lets a what-you-may-call-it like you go on living! It ain't reasonable."

"That business of telling Luke we was busted," grinned Racey, "and asking him for a loan was just so I could work up roundabout and natural like to how the Bar S bunch was my personal friends and how we were gonna ride for Jack Harpe and watch him on their account. I wanted him to know those things, and I couldn't slam out and tell him dry so, could I? It wouldn't sound natural. It would make him think the wrong way, you bet. Luke Tweezy ain't a plumb fool, for all he made the mistake of denying he knowed Jack Harpe. That was a bad one."

"Yeah, but--"

"Lookit, Swing, we know that when Lanpher spoke of a front yard there in the hotel corral he meant the Bar S range. Aw right. While we're sh.o.r.e Jack Harpe wants to hire us to do his dirty work--which means being rubbed out by our own friends likely--would he let us ride for him if he thought the Bar S was paying us to watch him?"

"Not if he knowed what he was doing," admitted Swing.

"That's why I got so greasy and confidential with Mister Luke Tweezy.

So Jack Harpe will know."

"And Luke will tell him?"

"Will Luke tell him? Luke will run to him a-pantin'. I'll gamble Jack Harpe knows the awful worst already. So we'll be safe enough to go to Jack to-morrow morning bright and early and tell him we've decided to give him the benefit of our services."

"But I thought we figured not to ride for him," said the now thoroughly bewildered Swing.

"Of course we ain't. In words of one syllable, Swing, I want to find out if it is the Bar S Jack Harpe's going against. Well, then, we knowing what we know, and Jack Harpe knowing what we know he knows, if he turns us down to-morrow after offering us the job yesterday, it'll not only give us the absolute proof we want, but it'll make him turn his wolf loose P D Q. And that last will be good medicine, because if I'm any judge he ain't ready to start anything yet awhile, and I notice when a gent ain't ready and has to jump anyhow he's a heap likely to fall down and smear himself all over the landscape."

"The man's right," said Swing. "But it's the oddest number alla same I ever did see. All kinds of clues to a crime, and no crime yet."

"It'll come," said Racey Dawson, grimly. "Jack Harpe is one bad actor."

"What you got against him--I mean, anything particular besides yore natural dislike?" Swing Tunstall at times was blessed with flashes of penetrating shrewdness.

"I ain't got any use for him, tha.s.sall." Much emphasis on the part of Racey Dawson.

Swing nodded. "See him at Moccasin Spring?" was his drawled question.

"I didn't say so." Stiffly.

"You didn't have to. And you don't--not now. I see it all. And you yawpin' out real loud how interested you are in seeing how the Bar S gets a square deal, and letting out only a small peep about old Dale, and thinking yo're foolin' Swing to a fare-you-well. Oh, yeah. It's the Dale's li'l ranch that's been worrying you alla time. I know.

Racey's actually got a girl at last. I kind of suspicioned it, but I didn't think it was so heap big serious. Don't you fret, Racey, old-timer, I'll keep yore secret. Till death does--Ouch! Leggo me, you poor hickory! Yo're supposed to be sleeping off a drunk, remember!

G'wan now! Lie down, Fido! Charge, you bad dog!"

"But lookit," resumed Swing Tunstall, when the dust of conflict was beginning to settle and he was poking about in the hay in search of three s.h.i.+rt-b.u.t.tons and his pocket knife, "lookit, Racey, you didn't say anything to Luke about yore being friendly with this Dale party.

Guess you forgot that, huh?"

"Guess I didn't forget it," returned Racey Dawson, placidly. "It ain't good euchre to lead all yore trumps before you have to. I'm saving that about Dale to tell to Jack Harpe after he turns us down. I'm a heap anxious to see what he says then."

"Maybe he won't say anything."

"Maybe he won't turn us down. But will you bet he won't? Give you odds. Any money up to a hundred."

"I will not," said Swing Tunstall, shaking a decided head. "Yo're too lucky. Oh, lookit, lookit!"

CHAPTER X

THE BACK PORCH

Racey's gaze casually and uninterestedly followed Swing's pointing finger. Immediately his eye brightened and he sat up with a jerk.

"I'll shove the door a li'l farther open," said Swing, making as if to rise.

"Sit still," hissed Racey, pulling down his friend with one hand and endeavouring to smooth his own hair with the other. "Yo're all right, and the door's all right. I'm going over there in a minute and if yo're good I'll take you with me."

"Over there" was the back porch of the Blue Pigeon Store. Swing's exclamations and laudable desire to see better were called forth by the sudden appearance on the back porch of two girls. One was Miss Blythe. The other was Miss Molly Dale.