Louis LAmour - Trouble Shooter: Hopalong Cassidy Series

Contents

CHAPTER 1

MYSTERIOUS AMBUSH

T OTE BROWN COULD afford to wait. A man with a Winchester at two hundred yards has all the advantage over a man armed only with a pistol, and Tote intended to give his man plenty of time to get away from his horse and the rifle in its scabbard.

The horse was tied to a willow bush within fifty yards of Totes concealment, and the rider was working his way farther and farther from the horse. To get his rifle he would have to run toward Tote and right into the muzzle of his Winchester.

Why the man was to be killed Tote neither knew nor cared. But he did not know who had employed him for the job, and that he did not like. He only knew that he had been directed to a secret hiding place where he had found two hundred and fifty dollars and a message made of words cut from a book. The same amount was to come later, if he killed his man.

Tote wiped the tobacco juice from his mouth and settled himself more comfortably into the grass. This was better than the old days when he had been hired to kill rustlers and nesters by the Atley outfit; they had always paid him in the same way, but that had been far from here. The fact that somebody nearby knew him from those days was obvious, but in the past he had received only one hundred dollars per man. Five hundred was more like it.

Of the present case he knew nothing. He had been told the man would be here, near this place, at approximately this time, and if he refused the job he would be letting himself in for trouble. The message from the hollow tree had been very explicit. The words were simple but expressive. Deal McCarty is still alive.

One of Totes last killings had been a McCarty, and Deal was the wily, gunfighting father of the dead man, a very forthright individual who, if he knew where Tote was, would waste no time in killing him. The implication of the note was obvious, and Tote chose to obey orders and take the money.

He rolled his quid in his jaws and spat. The man below was not more than twenty-five, sandy-haired and well dressed for a cowhand. He wore a gun like he knew how to use it, but what he was doing in this lonely valley of the Picket Fork, Tote had no idea.

Obviously the man was searching for something. He had taken a sight on a hill, then walked across to a grove. Now he was studying the valley again, and his puzzled attitude was plain to the watcher. Tote sighted his rifle again, but as yet the stranger was not in the right spot. Moving as he now was, the fellow would soon be crossing a clearing near a lightning-wrecked cottonwood that was somewhat less than two hundred yards away and in the open. If Tote missed, the following shots would be easy, for there would be no cover. Tote Brown did not intend to miss.

Twice the young man knelt and examined the ground. He pulled grass and looked at the roots. Curious, Tote watched with interest. Finally the fellow approached a huge old tree and examined it and the ground around it. Then he paced off an area and looked around again.

What was he looking for? This was not gold country, although it might be buried gold. Possibly something buried here had been found, and the finder did not want this man to know. From his previous inspection of the terrain, Tote was quite sure this man had been here before in the past few days. There were a good many tracks made by this horse and another. That could be the reason. Perhaps the continued search was worrying whoever wanted him killed.

Again and again the man returned to one particular tree. Through his glasses Tote could see the young man muttering to himself, could see his puzzled, worried expression. Suddenly the sandy-haired man pulled his hat down and stared right across the clearing toward Tote!

The Winchester lifted and Brown moved his left elbow forward, setting it firmly in the earth under the rifle barrel. He looked along the barrel at the man striding toward him. It was going to be easy, mighty easy. As the man advanced, the sights moved up his body. When it reached his heart, Tote Brown would fire. As he cuddled his cheek lovingly against the rifle stock, his finger moved to the trigger.

Suddenly fire lashed along his ribs. Involuntarily he jerked aside and his rifle leaped in his hands, fired by the tightening of his grip, a spasmodic, unplanned move that sent the bullet splintering off through the high branches of the cottonwoods, the two reports, his own and that from the mysterious shot fired at him, blending into one.

Lunging to his feet, Tote plunged into the brush, shocked into blind panic and knowing only that he wanted to be somewhere else. He hit his saddle on the run, and the frightened horse took off at breakneck speed with Tote fighting for the off stirrup. Within a mile he had recovered his sense, but his heart still pounded. Hastily he rode into the Picket Fork and began to double and weave like a dizzy rattler to lose any pursuers there might be.

He had been seen. Someone had glimpsed him just as he was about to fire, and had fired first. His ribs burned fiercely, and he could feel the dampness of blood, yet the shock of the bullet was as nothing to the shock of realization that he had been caught in the act of killing. Slowing down, he opened his shirt and stared at the ugly wound. It was wicked in appearance, but the shot had only ripped open the skin along his ribs on the right side.

Tote Brown glanced back over his shoulder. If recognized, he had only two courses: to leave the country or be lynched. The cattle country had no liking for dry gulchers. He began to take his time, the panic wearing off, trying to lose his trail in the maze of boulders or in the Picket Fork itself.

He did not believe he had been recognized, but I worried him that he did not know who had fired that shot, or who the sandy-haired stranger might be. He would investigate both questions, and when he knew, he would take care of the man who fired that shot. Hed show him! Viciously he jabbed the spurs into the cayuse and started to gallop. Hed show him!

R IG TAYLOR STARED after the man in astonishment. He could not make up his mind whether he had heard one shot or two, but whoever had been lying there in the grass had sure snapped out of it. Walking forward, he looked around. Obviously, from the crushed grass, the man had been lying here for some time, evidently watching his every move. But why?

The sound of a walking horse turned him swiftly his hand poised above his gun. A tall, well-built man in a rumpled duster sat astride a magnificent white horse facing him. The mans hair showed silver under the brink of his dark hat and his blue eyes were friendly. Your friend lit out in a hurry, he said. What was he gunning for you for?

Ive no idea why anybody would be gunning for me, Rig Taylor said. Im not even known around here, and where I came from Ive no enemies that matter much.

Stranger, are you? The silver-haired man smiled. Well, so am I. I rode down to look up an old friend of mine. We punched cows together down in Texas.

Reckon you saved my neck, Taylor admitted. Im Rig Taylor, from Kansas. I came out here with my boss to ramrod a ranch for her, but now we cant find the ranch.

Thats something to lose. Hopalong Cassidy shoved his hat back on his head and looked around. Is that what you were hunting?

Look, Taylor said, this heres the valley of the Picket Fork. The river lies right over yonder. The description Pete Melford sent my boss would put the ranch right where we stand, and the house should set right there where that big old tree stands, but theres no sign of any ranch or sign there ever was one. I reckon the old coot was crazy.