"Do you think I want him to believe I was fishing for an invitation? And you shouldn't have mentioned Lola around him, Dad."
Leverage shook his head. "Wimmen beat me. Danged if they don't. Now a kid like you has got to go and join the ranks. Well, we'll stay over then."
"We'll go right home," said Eve, "so I can get into some clothes. Folks don't go to shows in gingham dresses, and there's Mother."
"Imagine that," grinned Leverage. "Well, don't forget that the most important ceremony you been through so far, which was bein' born, didn't call for no clothes at all. And I have et with three Senators and a governor with nothin' better than overalls on which had a red flannel patch in the seat. But you can go home and come back, though Ma won't want to come. I know better'n to argue. Wait till I get Joe Peake to take you in a rig. I got to stay over for the Association meetin'."
Eve smiled at her father and strolled down the street, leaving the porch deserted except for two lackadaisical gentlemen who somehow had witnessed all the recent excitement from the comfortable vantage point of the porch rockers.
"Buck," said Wango, "whut's that brace business which the Englishman was cryin' over?"
"I heard somewhere that those fellas called suspenders braces," replied Meems.
"Hell, ain't that peculiar? And whut's a habadashery, anyhow?"
"Your turn to guess," drawled Meems. "I done my share."
"Well," growled Wango, "he ain't a-gunta git by with no foreign hooch-a-ma-cooch like that around here."
"Lola sure has got pritty," reflected Meems.
"Yeah. Reckon Denver figgers so."
"Shut up," admonished Meems without heat. "Don't drag in dead cats."
"Ain't you a moral son of a gun? Pardon me for chewin' tobacco in yore presence. But what I'm wonderin' is how the stage got through without excitement today. Yuh know, they's supposed to be money in the Wells-Fargo box this trip."
"Don't be mellerdramatic, Wango. Who'd bring money into a joint like Sundown?"
"I heard," said Meems lazily. "Well, mebbe Lou Redmain was asleep at the switch."
Buck Meems rose from the depths of the rocker and stared at his partner with a penetrating eye and said very coldly, "Was I you, Pete, I'd git me some packthread and sew up that four- cornered thing yuh call a mouth."
"Well—"
"Shut up," stated Meems succinctly. "It's too hard to git partners, an' I don't want yuh shot down until I git back what yuh owe me. As for the gent whose name yuh was so careless as to mention out loud—don't do it no more. You don't know him. You never heard of him, see? Let yore betters worry about that business. You and me is humble folks with an itch to keep on breathin'."
"Trouble's comin', nev'less," maintained Wango.
"Comin' hell a-riot," agreed Meems. "That's what the Association is meetin' for. That's why yuh see Dave Denver stalkin' around the streets lookin' about as hard as I ever saw him. But you and me is out of it, see? Or have I got to spell the words?"
"Oh, well," breathed Wango and cast a sidewise glance at his partner. "How about a drink?"
"Thanks for the invite," said Meems, and rose instantly.
"I never said nothin' about an invite—"
"And it was nice of yuh to offer to pay my way," broke in Meems firmly. "Come on."
STORM WARNING
Dave Denver and Al Niland stood at one corner of Grogan's hundred-foot bar and downed an after-dinner whisky neat, as was the custom. The men of Sundown drifted in, took their liquor, and swapped unhurried talk. Denver looked around the room, nodding here and there at ranchers he hadn't seen during the winter. Niland leaned closer.
"Did you see the same fellow I happened to see get off the third stage?"
"Stinger Dann?"
"The same," grunted Niland. "Since when's he taken to payin' fare?"
"Maybe he's run all his good horses to death," suggested Denver.
"Somebody's doin' a lot of night ridin', that's certain," mused Niland. "It's a funny thing how this county reacts to the hint of trouble. All winter we've been quiet. Nothing's happened much. All of a sudden folks get a little skittish and quit talkin' out loud. The underground telegraph starts workin'. Look around the room and see how many men are swappin' conversation real close together and tryin' to appear aboveboard. I never saw the signs fail. Pretty soon something will break loose."
"Which brings us back to Stinger Dann," drawled Denver. "He's enterin' for his liquor. Where's he been the last few weeks?"
Niland spared a short, quick glance at a man with a burly frame and raw-red cheeks cruising toward the bar; Stinger Dann was scowling straight ahead and paying heed to nobody, as was his characteristic way of moving through life.
"Looks nowhere and sees everything," muttered Niland. "I don't know where he's been holin' up, Dave. You tell me where Redmain's been, and I'll tell you where Dann's been. Same place. He's probably here to cover the interests of his beloved chief in the Association meeting."
Dave Denver chuckled. "That would be just the nervy thing Lou Redmain might think of."
"There was some trouble over beyond Sky Peak a week ago. Will Wire's men ran into lead one night when they was crosscuttin' their range for home."
Denver considered the news thoughtfully. "That's gettin' a little closer to Sundown, ain't it? Usually the boys do their stealin' farther off."
"The time may come when we'll have to do some shootin' on our own account," prophesied Niland.
"Let's wait till the wolf howls first. All I seem to hear at present is a lot of bear talk. Enter Mister Steers, looking very sad. Which foot did the horse step on, Steve?"
"Aw, hell," grunted Steve and reached for a bottle.
"Expressive but vague," was Niland's ironic comment. "Somebody must of hurt your feelin's to the extent of offerin' you a job."
The compact, sandy-haired Steve Steers drank his potion and shuddered. "I don't never seem to get a break, men. Consider this item. I shore want to take in the show tonight, just for old time's sake. But Debbie's off up in Mogul country with her folks on a visit so I can't take her. And if I dared go to see Lola Monterey alone I never would hear the last of it. Nossir, I never seem to get a break."
"Wear false whiskers," suggested Niland.
"They'd fall off," mournfully remarked Steve Steers. "That's my luck. And somebody like Miz Jim Coldfoot would see me and go tell Debbie."
"Love," reflected Niland judicially, "is a mighty purifier of mortal man."
Denver,
