FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  
I--it wasn't the money. I was afraid to stick with my game any longer." The long rider had already turned towards the door, making no effort to keep his face to the agent. The latter, flushing again, moved his hand towards his hip, but stopped the movement. The last threat of Silent carried a deep conviction with it. He knew that the faith of lone riders to each other was an inviolable bond. Accordingly he followed at the heels of the other man into the outside room. "So long, old timer," he called, slapping Silent on the shoulder, "I'll be seein' you agin before long." Calder's men looked up with curious eyes. Hardy watched Silent swing onto his horse and gallop down the street. Then he went hurriedly back to his office. Once inside he dropped into the big swivel-chair, buried his face in his arms, and wept like a child. CHAPTER XII PARTNERS Dust powdered his hat and clothes as Tex Calder trotted his horse north across the hills. His face was a sickly grey, and his black hair might have been an eighteenth century wig, so thoroughly was it disguised. It had been a long ride. Many a long mile wound back behind him, and still the cattle pony, with hanging head, stuck to its task. Now he was drawing out on a highland, and below him stretched the light yellow-green of the willows of the bottom land. He halted his pony and swung a leg over the horn of his saddle. Then he rolled a cigarette, and while he inhaled it in long puffs he scanned the trees narrowly. Miles across, and stretching east and west farther than his eye could reach, extended the willows. Somewhere in that wilderness was the gang of Jim Silent. An army corps might have been easily concealed there. If he was not utterly discouraged in the beginning of his search, it was merely because the rangers of the hills and plains are taught patience almost as soon as they learn to ride a horse. He surveyed the yellow-green forest calmly. In the west the low hanging sun turned crimson and bulged at the sides into a clumsy elipse. He started down the slope at the same dog-trot which the pony had kept up all day. Just before he reached the skirts of the trees he brought his horse to a sudden halt and threw back his head. It seemed to him that he heard a faint whistling. He could not be sure. It was so far off and unlike any whistling he had ever heard before, that he half guessed it to be the movement of a breeze through the willows, but the win
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82  
83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Silent
 

willows

 

turned

 
whistling
 
Calder
 
hanging
 

movement

 

yellow

 

stretching

 

narrowly


scanned
 
Somewhere
 

farther

 

extended

 

wilderness

 

stretched

 

breeze

 

bottom

 

drawing

 

highland


halted
 

cigarette

 

rolled

 
inhaled
 

saddle

 
unlike
 
guessed
 

concealed

 

elipse

 

clumsy


started

 

bulged

 
crimson
 
skirts
 

reached

 
brought
 

sudden

 

calmly

 

discouraged

 

utterly


beginning

 

search

 
easily
 

rangers

 
surveyed
 
forest
 

patience

 

plains

 
taught
 

inviolable