Oliver Strange - Sudden Westerns 02 - Sudden(1933) by Oliver Strange Read Free Book Online Page B

was
sizing him up, turning over some problem. Presently he straightened as though
he had come to a decision.
                 “Kit
was my foreman,” he said slowly. “Like his job?”
                 The
puncher stared at him in surprise; he had expected an offer to ride for the
ranch, but not to be put in charge. His reply was noncommittal
:
                 “Yore
outfit won’t admire takin’ orders from a stranger.”
                 “Yu
needn’t worry about that; they’re good boys an’ they’ll back my judgment,”
Purdie said confidently. “Yu see, it ain’t just a question o’ runnin’ the
ranch—a’most any one o’ them could do that—but outguessin’ that Burdette crowd
is a hoss of a different brand. I’m gamblin’ yu can swing it—if yo’re willin’
to take the risk.”
                 The
visitor’s jaw hardened. “Here’s somethin’ yu oughts to know,” he said, and went
on to relate the scene he had witnessed in “The Lucky Chance” the previous
evening. The cattleman nodded gloomily.
                 “Yu’ll
be buyin’ into trouble aplenty,” he said. “I dunno as it’s fair to ask yu. Them Burdettes is the toughest proposition. For about a year
past there’s been doin’s–bank robberies, stage hold-ups, cattle-stealin’s,
within a radius of a hundred miles, an’ that gang on Battle Butte is suspected.
They’s a hard lot—half of ‘em ain’t cowmen a-tall, just gun-fighters, an’
there’s twice the number necessary to handle their herds. I sent a writing to
Governor Bleke—rode the range with him when we was both kids tellin’ him how
things was an’ that the Burdettes was a plain menace, but I s’pose he’s a busy
man; I ain’t had no reply.”
                 “I
reckon mebbe I’m it,” Sudden smiled, and went on to tell of the happenings in
Juniper, omitting, however, the name his gun-play had earned for him.
                 The
cattleman’s face shone; his hand came out to grip that of his guest. “I’m
damned glad to meet yu, Green?” he said heartily. “Yu got any plan?”
                 “I’m
takin’ the job yu offered, Purdie,” he said. “But I gotta play ‘possum,
remember; I’m just an ordinary cowpunch who has pulled his picket-pin an’ is
rovin’ round, sabe?” Purdie nodded, and Sudden added irrelevantly, “I don’t
believe that fella Luce did the killin’.”
                 “His
own brothers didn’t deny it,” the old man pointed out.
                 “That’s
so, an’ I can’t quite savvy it,” Sudden admitted. “Allasame,
Luce struck me as bein’ straight.”
                 The
rancher was about to reply when his daughter appeared. Seeing the stranger, she
would have retired again, but her father called her.
                 “Meet
Mister Green, Nan,” he said. “He’s goin’ to be foreman here.”
                 She
shook hands, a kindness in her eyes for which he could not account. Her words
explained it, or at least he thought so.
                 “I
have to thank you for—what you did,” she said.
                 The
new foreman fidgeted with his feet; he would rather have faced a man with a gun
than this dewy-eyed, grateful girl.
                 “It don’t need mentionin’,” he stammered.
                 “Green’s
goin’ to help us find the slinkin’ cur that did it, Nan,” Purdie put in harshly : and to the puncher, “Well, Jim, fetch yore
war-bags along an’ start in soon’s yu like; it’ll be a relief to know yo’re on
the job.”
                 “I’ll
be on hand in the mornin’,” the puncher promised. They watched until a grove of
trees hid him from view, and then the rancher asked a question.
                 “I
like him,” Nan replied. “But isn’t it taking a chance? We know nothing