The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 2 by Louis L’Amour Page A

were serious. “A lion?”
    â€œNo, it was a man on a horse. A tall man with a dead-white face, like a skull.” Gary shrugged sheepishly. “Makes me sound like a fool, but I figured for a moment that I’d seen a ghost!”
    Red Slagle was staring at him, and Jeeter’s face was dead white and his eyes were bulging. “A ghost?” he asked, faintly. “Did you say, a
ghost
?”
    â€œShucks,” Gary shrugged, “there ain’t no such thing. Just some hombre on a big black horse, passin’ through in the night, that was all! But believe me, seein’ him in the lightnin’ up on that hill like I did, it sure was scary!”
    Tobe Langer was getting up, and he, too, looked bothered. Slagle came over to the fire and sat down, boots in hand. Reaching down he pulled his sock around to get a hole away from his big toe; then he put his foot into the wet boot and began to struggle with it.
    â€œThat horse, now,” Langer asked carefully, “did it have a white star between the eyes?”
    Gary was surprised. “Why, yes! Matter of fact, it did! You know him?”
    Slagle let go of the boot and stomped his foot to settle it in the boot. “Yeah, feller we seen down the road a ways. Big black horse.”
    Slagle and Langer walked away from camp a ways and stood talking together. Jeeter was worried. Jim could see that without half trying, and he studied the man thoughtfully. Jeeter Dirksen was a small man, quiet, but inclined to be nervous. He had neither the strength nor the toughness of Slagle and Langer. If Gary learned anything about the cattle it would be through his own investigation or from Jeeter. And he was growing more and more curious.
    Yet if these were Double A cattle and had been stolen, why were they being driven toward the Double A ranch, rather than away from it? He realized suddenly that he knew nothing at all about Red Slagle or his outfit, and it was time he made some inquiries.
    â€œThis Double A,” he asked suddenly, “you been riding’ for them long?”
    Dirksen glanced at him sharply and bent over his fire. “Not long,” he said. “It’s a Salt Creek outfit. Slagle’s segundo.”
    â€œBelieve I know your foreman,” Gary suggested. “I think this was the outfit he said. Hombre name of Mart Ray. Ever hear of him?”
    Jeeter turned sharply, slopping coffee over the rim of the cup. It hissed in the fire, and both the other men looked around at the camp. Jeeter handed the cup to Gary and studied him, searching his face. Then he admitted cautiously, “Yeah, Ray’s the foreman. Ranch belongs to a syndicate out on the coast. You say you know him?”
    â€œUh-huh. Used to ride with him.” Langer and Slagle had walked back to the fire, and Dirksen poured coffee for them.
    â€œWho was that you rode with?” Slagle asked.
    â€œYour boss, Mart Ray.”
    Both men looked up sharply; then Slagle’s face cleared and he smiled. “Say! that’s why the name was familiar! You’re
that
Jim Gary! Son of old Steve Gary. Yeah, Mart told us about you.”
    Langer chuckled suddenly. “You’re the scary one, huh? The one who likes to keep out of trouble. Yeah, we heard about you!”
    The contempt in his tone stiffened Jim’s back, and for an instant he was on the verge of a harsh retort. Then the memory of what lay behind him welled up within, and bitterly he kept his mouth shut. If he got on the prod and killed a man here, he would only have to drift farther. There was only one solution, and that was to avoid trouble. Yet irritating as it was to be considered lacking in courage, Langer’s remark let him know that the story of his fights had not preceded him.
    â€œThere’s no call,” he said after a minute, “to go around the country killin’ folks. If people would just get the idea they can get along without all that. Me, I don’t