Crooked Trails and Straight. William MacLeod Raine

on, Curly. Let’s go feed our faces,” Mac called from the stable.

      Flandrau nodded. “You still with the Hashknife?” he asked Davis.

      “Still with ’em. I’ve been raised to assistant foreman.”

      “Bully for you. That’s great. All right, Mac. I’m coming. That’s sure great, old hoss. Well, see you later, Slats.”

      Flandrau followed Mac, dissatisfied with himself for leaving his friend so cavalierly. In the old days they had told each other everything, had talked things out together before many a campfire. He guessed Slats would be hurt, but he had to think of his partners in this enterprise.

      After supper they took a room at the hotel and divided the money Warren had paid for the horses. None of them had slept for the last fifty hours and Mac proposed to tumble into bed at once.

      Bad Bill shook his head. “I wouldn’t, Mac. Let’s hit the trail and do our sleeping in the hills. There’s too many telephone lines into this town to suit me.”

      “Sho! We made a clean getaway, and we’re plumb wore out. Our play isn’t to hike out like we were scared stiff of something. What we want to do is to act as if we could look every darned citizen in the face. Mac’s sure right,” Curly agreed.

      “You kids make me tired. As if you knew anything about it. I’m going to dust muy pronto,” Blackwell snarled.

      “Sure. Whenever you like. You go and we’ll stay. Then everybody’ll be satisfied. We got to split up anyhow,” Mac said.

      Bad Bill looked at Blackwell and nodded. “That’s right. We don’t all want to pull a blue streak. That would be a dead give away. Let the kids stay if they want to.”

      “So as they can round on us if they’re nabbed,” Blackwell sneered.

      Cranston called him down roughly. “That’ll be enough along that line, Lute. I don’t stand for any more cracks like it.”

      Blackwell, not three months out from the penitentiary, faced the other with an ugly look in his eyes. He was always ready to quarrel, but he did not like to fight unless he had a sure thing. He knew Bad Bill was an ugly customer when he once got started.

      “Didn’t mean any harm,” the ex-convict growled. “But I don’t like this sticking around town. I tell you straight I don’t like it.”

      “Then I wouldn’t stay if I were you,” Curly suggested promptly. “Mac and I have got a different notion. So we’ll tie to Saguache for a day or two.”

      As soon as the older men had gone the others tumbled into bed and fell asleep at once. Daylight was sifting in through the open window before their eyes opened. Somebody was pounding on the bedroom door, which probably accounted for Flandrau’s dream that a sheriff was driving nails in the lid of a coffin containing one Curly.

      Mac was already out of bed when his partner’s feet hit the floor.

      “What’s up, Mac?”

      The eyes of the redheaded puncher gleamed with excitement. His six-gun was in his hand. By the look of him he was about ready to whang loose through the door.

      “Hold your horses, you chump,” Curly sang out “It’s the hotel clerk. I left a call with him.”

      But it was not the hotel clerk after all. Through the door came a quick, jerky voice.

      “That you, Curly? For God’s sake, let me in.”

      Before he had got the words out the door was open. Slats came in and shut it behind him. He looked at Mac, the forty-five shaking in the boy’s hand, and he looked at Flandrau.

      “They’re after you,” he said, breathing fast as if he had been running.

      “Who?” fired Curly back at him.

      “The Bar Double M boys. They just reached town.”

      “Put up that gun, Mac, and move into your clothes immediate,” ordered Curly. Then to Davis: “Go on. Unload the rest. What do they know?”

      “They inquired for you and your friend here down at the Legal Tender. The other members of your party they could only guess at.”

      “Have we got a chance to make our getaway?” Mac asked.

      Davis nodded. “Slide out through the kitchen, cut into the alley, and across lots to the corral. We’ll lock the door and I’ll hold them here long as I can.”

      “Good boy, Slats. If there’s a necktie party you’ll get the first bid,” Curly grinned.

      Slats looked at him, cold and steady. Plainer than words he was telling his former friend that he would not joke with a horse thief. For the sake of old times he would save him if he could, but he would call any bluffs about the whole thing being a lark.

      Curly’s eyes fell away. It came to him for the first time that he was no longer an honest man. Up till this escapade he had been only wild, but now he had crossed the line that separates decent folks from outlaws. He had been excited with liquor when he joined in this fool enterprise, but that made no difference now. He was a rustler, a horse thief. If he lived a hundred years he could never get away from the disgrace of it.

      Not another word was said while they hurried into their clothes. But as Curly passed out of the door he called back huskily. “Won’t forget what you done for us, Slats.”

      Again their eyes met. Davis did not speak, but the chill look on his face told Flandrau that he had lost a friend.

      The two young men ran down the back stairs, passed through the kitchen where a Chinese cook was getting breakfast, and out into the bright sunlight. Before they cut across to the corral their eyes searched for enemies. Nobody was in sight except the negro janitor of a saloon busy putting empty bottles into a barrel.

      “Won’t do to be in any hurry. The play is we’re gentlemen of leisure, just out for an amble to get the mo’ning air,” Curly cautioned.

      While they fed, watered, and saddled they swapped gossip with the wrangler. It would not do to leave the boy with a story of two riders in such a hurry to hit the trail that they could not wait to feed their bronchos. So they stuck it out while the animals ate, though they were about as contented as a two-pound rainbow trout on a hook. One of them was at the door all the time to make sure the way was still clear. At that they shaved it fine, for as they rode away two men were coming down the street.

      “Kite Bonfils,” Curly called to his partner.

      No explanation was needed. Bonfils was the foreman of the Bar Double M. He let out a shout as he caught sight of them and began to run forward. Simultaneously his gun seemed to jump from its holster.

      Mac’s quirt sang and his pony leaped to a canter in two strides. A bullet zipped between them. Another struck the dust at their heels. Faintly there came to the fugitives the sound of the foreman’s impotent curses. They had escaped for the time.

      Presently they passed the last barb wire fence and open country lay before them. It did not greatly matter which direction they followed, so long as they headed into the desert.

      “What we’re looking for is a country filled with absentees,” Curly explained with a grin.

      Neither of them had ever been in serious trouble before and both regretted the folly that had turned their drunken spree into a crime. Once or twice they came to the edge of a quarrel, for Mac was ready to lay the blame on his companion. Moreover, he had reasons why the thing he had done loomed up as a heinous offense.

      His reasons came out before the camp fire on Dry Sandy that evening. They were stretched in front of it trying to make a smoke serve instead of supper. Mac broke a gloomy silence to grunt out jerkily a situation he could no longer keep to himself.

      “Here’s where I get my walking