Part 34 (2/2)

”That's the way to say it!” a.s.serted Panhandle, changing front and slapping Posmo on the shoulder. ”We're broke, and who the h.e.l.l cares?”

”Let's have a drink,” suggested Shorty. ”I got a couple of beans left.”

They slouched out from the back room and stood at the bar. Panhandle immediately became engaged in noisy argument with one of the frequenters of the place. Senator Brown's name was mentioned by the other, but mentioned casually, with no reference whatever to stolen horses.

Panhandle laughed. ”So old Steve is down here lookin' for his hosses, eh?”

”What horses?”

The question, spoken by no one knew whom, chilled the group to silence.

Panhandle saw that he had made a blunder. ”Who wants to know?” he queried, gazing round the barroom.

”Why, it's in all the papers,” declared the bartender conciliatingly.

”The Box-S horses was run off a couple of weeks ago.”

Panhandle turned his back on the group and called for a drink.

Shorty was tugging gently at his sleeve. ”Posmo's beat it, Pan.”

”To h.e.l.l with him! Beat it yourself if you feel like it.”

”I'll stick Pan,” declared Shorty, yet his furtive eyes belied his a.s.sertion.

For three days Bartley had tried to find where Cheyenne was staying, but without success, chiefly because Cheyenne kept close to his room during the daytime, watching the entrance to the Hole-in-the-Wall, waiting for Panhandle to step out into the daylight, when there would be folk on the street who could witness that Panhandle had drawn his gun first.

Cheyenne determined to give his enemy that chance, and then kill him.

But thus far Panhandle had not appeared on the street in the daytime, so far as Cheyenne knew.

Incidentally, Senator Steve had warned Bartley to keep away from the Hole-in-the-Wall district after dark, intimating that there was more in the wind than Cheyenne's feud with Panhandle Sears. So Bartley contented himself with acting as a sort of private secretary for the Senator, a duty that was a pleasure. The hardest thing Bartley did was to refuse bottled entertainment, at least once out of every three times it was offered.

On the evening of the fourth day after Pelly had wired the Senator that Sneed and his men had ridden north from Tucson, Posmo, hanging about the eastern outskirts of Phoenix, saw a small band of hors.e.m.e.n against the southern sky-line. Knowing the trail they would take, north, Posmo had timed their arrival almost to the hour. They would pa.s.s to the east of Phoenix, and take the old Apache Trail, North. Posmo had his horse saddled and hidden in a draw. He mounted and rode directly toward the oncoming hors.e.m.e.n.

He sang as he rode. It was safer to do that, when it was growing dark.

The riders would know he was a Mexican, and that he did not wish to conceal his ident.i.ty on the road. He did not care to be mistaken for an enemy, especially so near Phoenix.

Sneed, a giant in the dusk, reined in as Posmo hailed the group. Sneed asked his name. Posmo replied, and was told to ride up. Sneed, separating himself from his men, rode a little ahead and met Posmo.

”Panhandle is give the deal away,” stated Posmo.

”How?”

”He drunk and spend all the money. He do not give me anything for that I make the deal--over there,” and Posmo gestured toward the south.

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