Clattering Hoofs. William MacLeod Raine

covered the young man. “He’s a cow thief just the same.”

      Ranger strode swiftly after his daughter. “You hard of hearing, Hans?” he snapped. His hand closed on the barrel of the rifle and pushed it down.

      Sloan swung out of the saddle hull heavily. The fingers of one hand held tightly to the horn to steady himself. His head felt strangely light, and the earth tilted up to meet the moonlit sky. For the first time in his life he felt as if he were going to faint.

      But white teeth flashed in a smile defiant and derisive. “Thought I’d better drop in at the rendezvous,” he said. “McNulty and the Dutchman can’t have their hanging without a hangee.”

      6. A Chip on His Shoulder

      RANGER TOOK FIRST THINGS FIRST. “LET’S GET INTO THE house and look at your wound,” he said. “Can you walk?”

      “Learned twenty-six years ago come Christmas,” Sloan replied, a thin grin on his sardonic face.

      He gave up the support of the saddle horn and moved forward jauntily. But his step faltered.

      Sandra slipped an arm around his waist. “Lean on me,” she told him.

      Her father took the other side. “Don’t walk. We’ll carry you.”

      He would not have it that way. “Just a li’l’ knife rip in the shoulder. Nothing to make a fuss about.”

      But he let them steady and help him to the steps, up them, and to the lounge in the parlor, where he promptly fainted from the loss of blood. Life in this rough brush country developed many accidents. John Ranger had doctored broken limbs, gunshot wounds, and knife gashes. Now he gave competent first aid to Sloan.

      “Will he be all right?” Sandra asked him while he was washing his hands in the tin basin outside the house.

      “Ought to be good as new in a few days,” her father said. “A fine clean muscular specimen like he is builds blood fast.” He dried his hands on a none too clean towel. “Now I’ll listen to your story, honey.”

      Nelson had joined them. The two saw that the tale lost nothing in the telling. The stark fact stood out that Sloan had charged four desperadoes, killed one, slammed another unconscious, and driven the other two away.

      “He’s got sand in his craw,” the cattleman admitted. “All the time Pete and Hans were wanting to hang him he was as cool as if they were talking about another fellow.”

      “Hang him!” Sandra cried aghast. “What for?”

      “We trapped him up a cañon where we had driven Scarface. He claims he isn’t one of the gang. I’m beginning to believe it. I hope he is telling the truth.”

      “Of course he is,” his daughter cried in hot indignation. “He’s wonderful, Father. He came down the hill like a tornado. It was all over in ten seconds. I was terribly frightened, but I needn’t have been.”

      “He just banged one of ’em over the head and shot another through the belly quicker ’n scat. The others lit out like the heel flies were after them.” The eyes of the boy were big with reminiscent excitement. “Gee! He could of licked a regiment.”

      “You aren’t going to let anybody harm him, are you?” Sandra asked. “After what he did for us.”

      “No.” John Ranger spoke with crisp decision. “I’ll have a talk with the boys. There won’t be any trouble.”

      “He isn’t a thief,” Sandra announced loyally. “And if he was I wouldn’t care.”

      The cattleman wished he was as sure Sloan was innocent. But innocent or guilty it was not going to make any difference with him.

      Blunt and his party reached the ranch. Bill Hays was put to bed and his wound dressed. One of Ranger’s riders started on the fifty-mile ride to bring a doctor. After supper John gathered the men around him at the corral.

      He told the story of how this man Sloan had saved his children from the raiders. There was a long silence after he had finished.

      Blunt spoke first. “He has guts. That’s sure.”

      “But he’s a cow thief just the same,” McNulty added.

      Ranger looked at him with contempt in his steady eyes. “I don’t think it. We’ll know in a couple of days whether his story is true. But right now I’m serving notice that whether it is or isn’t nobody is going to harm this man.”

      Uhlmann protested sourly. “Now look here, John. We can’t turn a cow thief loose because he’s game. He would be a menace to the community. Take Scarface. They don’t make them any gamer than he is, but by jiminy, if I get my gun sights on him he’s going to die.”

      Ranger said, spacing his words deliberately: “We’re not talking about Scarface, but about a man who has just saved my children at great risk to himself, a man who had got away scot free and came back because he had to make sure that they would get home safe. I’m talking about the man lying wounded in that room.

      “But if he’s a rustler—” began Blunt unhappily.

      “If he is a rustler we’ll drive him out of the district. But that will be all.” Ranger did not lift his voice, but there was an icy threat in his words. “Anybody who lifts a hand against him will have to settle with me.”

      Blunt shifted ground. “John is right, boys. I’d feel the same as he does if it had been my Elvira. Guilty or not guilty, we’ll have to take a chance on this young fellow.”

      Uhlmann grumbled that he had cattle in the bunch taken by the rustlers. They were on their way to Mexico now. If he lost them, he’d be damned if he was going to let anybody be generous at his expense.

      “When you know how many you have lost, make a bill and send it to me,” Ranger told him scornfully. “I’ll pay it unless it is shown that Sloan was not one of Scarface’s men.”

      “Don’t think I won’t send it to you.” Uhlmann retorted. “Get soft with cow thieves if you like. I won’t.”

      Within twenty-four hours the truth of Sloan’s story was confirmed. He had spent the night of the raid at a roadhouse in Redrock. The following morning, while the raiders must have been chousing the stolen stock across the flats to the hills, he had eaten breakfast at a Chinese restaurant in Tucson, just off the old plaza. He had sat opposite the deputy sheriff Mosely while they ate their flapjacks and steak and had discussed the depredations of the Apache Kid a dozen years earlier.

      Some days later Sloan was sitting on the porch of the Blunt house in the warm sunshine waiting for a wagon that was to take him to the Circle J R. Two men rode up the lane to the house and swung from their saddles. They were McNulty and Uhlmann. Blunt was shoeing a horse and they stopped for a minute to talk with him. While they were still talking, a wagon driven by Ranger rolled into the yard.

      The owner of the Circle J R pulled up in front of the porch. The bed of the wagon was filled with hay to make the riding easier.

      “Ready to go?” Ranger asked Sloan.

      “Yes, sir. But there’s no need of my bothering you. I’m doing all right here. In a couple of days I’ll move on.”

      “You won’t bother us. We all want you to make a long visit at the ranch. The children won’t let me rest until I get you.”

      McNulty and Uhlmann clumped forward from the outdoor blacksmith shop with the awkward gait of men who wear tight high-heeled cowboy boots. Pete went up the porch steps to Sloan, an ingratiating smile on his face. He held out a hand.

      “Put her there, pardner,” he said. “Looks like the joke is on we’uns. You can’t hardly blame us, of course. The story you pulled was the thinnest darned one I ever did hear. But, as the old sayin’ is, all’s well that ends well.”

      Sloan did not seem to