Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/139

Rh "I'm the nephew of Jasper Lanning. I guess you'll be remembering him?"

"I'll forget my right hand sooner," said the big, red man calmly. But he kept on looking steadily at Andrew.

"Well," said Andrew, encouraged and at the same time repulsed by this calm silence, "my name is one you've heard. I am"

The other broke in hastily. "You are Jasper Lanning's nephew. That's all I know. What's a name to me? I don't want to know names!"

It puzzled Andrew, but the big man ran on smoothly enough: "Lanning ain't a popular name around here, you see? Suppose somebody was to come around and say, 'Seen Lanning?' What could I say, if you was here? 'I've got a Lanning here. I dunno but he's the one you want.' But suppose I don't know anything except you're Jasper's nephew? Maybe you're related on the mother's side. Eh?" He winked at Andrew. "You come along and don't talk too much about names."

He led the way into the house and picked up one of the posters, which lay on the floor.

"They've sent those through the mountains already?" asked Andrew gloomily.

"Sure! These come down from Twin Falls. Now, a gent with special fine eyes might find that you looked like the gent on this poster. But my eyes are terrible bad mostly. Besides, I need to quicken up that fire."

He crumpled the poster and inserted it beneath the lid of his iron stove. There was a rush and faint roar of the flame up the chimney as the cardboard burned. "And now," said Hank Rainer, turning with a broad smile, "I guess they ain't any reason why I should recognize you. You're just a plain stranger comin' along and you stop over here for the night. That all?"