about a room for tonight, Pop?” replied a man in rangeland clothes and carrying a warbag, who had just entered the tiny office and was peering up the stairs.
“Yep, I got one left,” said Nance. “Right next to this feller, only he shoots through the wall at gents that snores, just like John Wesley Hardin used to do,” he added with a wink at Slade.
“Never heard myself snore,” answered the new arrival, “so I reckon I can take a chance.” He grinned, revealing crooked teeth badly tobacco-stained, and entered the room Nance pointed out, closing the door behind him.
“Sort of a mangy-lookin’ critter, but you can’t be too choosy in this business,” Nance confided to Slade as they left the building. “Hope he doesn’t snore.”
“Chances are I wouldn’t hear him, the way I sleep when I’m tired,” Slade returned cheerfully. “Where’s a good place to eat?”
“Good chuck at the Dun Cow,” Nance replied. “You don’t want to miss the Dun Cow. Fellers have been known to ride from clean down in the Davis Mountain country just to get a look at the Dun Cow. She’s a lolapaloozer, all right. I’ve been as far west as California—spent quite a while there—and I ain’t never seen anything to equal the Dun Cow, and hope I never will. Shows what kind of place a feller with delirium tremens can build.”
As he turned the corner, Slade saw Deputy Clifton Yates and two other horsemen riding east in the fading light. Behind them rumbled a light wagon. Evidently they planned to bring the bodies back with them.
Slade agreed that the Dun Cow was all his landlord claimed. Before leaving the roominghouse he had gotten a brief resume of the Dun Cow’s history and he chuckled amusedly at old Sam Yelverton’s conceit and his hankering for French windows.
Incidentally, the one old Ben Sutler rode his skewbald through had been replaced.
The French windows did not look so out of place in the new Sotol as they had before the metamorphosis took place. Nor did the big beamed room, nor the mirror blazing back bar crowded with bottles and the cedarwood front bar crowded with gentlemen interested in what the bottles contained.
Slade found a table and was soon eating an appetizing meal, but his eyes were as busy as his teeth. He had not failed to note the interest his entrance aroused in certain elements among the crowd at the bar and the gaming tables. Not an obvious interest—casual, a bit too casual—better described it. The kind of interest shown a stranger by men who were always thinking about what might happen if yesterday should catch up with today. Slade felt that there were quite a few of that sort in the Dun Cow. Yes, it was a salty pueblo, all right, and very likely the Dun Cow was the hub of the wheel.
He noticed that a counter had been rigged up at the far end of the bar, upon which rested a set of delicately-balanced scales. Behind the scales presided a tall, sinewy man with a pleasant face and keen blue eyes. He was good looking, Slade thought, in a steely, polished way, with his alert eyes and think wavy hair of a pale ash color. He reminded Slade of somebody, but whom he could not at the moment recall.
From time to time a man in rough mining clothes would approach the counter and tender the tall man a plumped-out poke or two. The gold the pouches contained would be poured into the scale pan. The owner would be given a receipt which noted the weight of his nuggets and dust. Sometimes a sum in gold coins would also be handed him and the deduction noted on the receipt.
“Crane handles a good deal of the gold that comes out of Jericho Valley,” the waiter who had brought Slade his supper and noticed the direction of his glance remarked. “He ships it to Boraco, where the railroad takes it to the assay offices that buy it. Charges a mite more than the other shippers, but he uses more guards on his wagons and so far his shipments have always gotten through, which is more than can be said of some of the others.”
“Crane?” Slade remarked interrogatively.
“Uh-huh, Crane Arnold. That’s him behind the counter. He’s the owner of this place. Bought it from old Sam Yelverton—that’s Yelverton over at that poker game just this side of the faro bank, the old fat feller with the mustache and whiskers. He sold out to Crane because the place was making too darn much money and interfering with his poker and drinking. Some folks are sure hard to please!”
“Would seem that way,” Slade smiled agreement and favored Yelverton with a keen glance. “Yelverton’s an old-timer hereabouts, I presume?” he observed.
“Just about the oldest, except old Ben Butler, and nobody’s seen Ben for quite a spell now, and I reckon that makes Yelverton the oldest,” the waiter explained. “It was Ben who first discovered the gold in Jericho Valley. Him and Sam were pretty good friends. Sam likes to talk about him when he’s feeling his likker. Reckon he’ll be feeling it before long, now, the way he’s downing it this evening. He’s winning at poker and feeling good. Sociable gent, old Sam.”
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