Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/94



L' BILL!" grunted red-headed Jeff. "Well, I'll be hung! There's one good deed done. He was overdue, anyways."

Andy, waiting breathlessly, watched lest the eye of the narrator should swing toward him for the least part of a second. But Scottie seemed utterly oblivious of the fact that he sat in the same room with the murderer.

"Well, he got it," said Scottie. "And he didn't get it from behind. Seems there was a young gent in Martindale—all you boys know old Jasper Lanning?" There was an answering chorus. "Well, he's got a nephew, Andrew Lanning. This kid was sort of a bashful kind, they say. But yesterday he up and bashed a fellow in the jaw, and the man went down. Whacked his head on a rock, and young Lanning thought his man was dead. So he holds off the crowd with a gun, hops a horse, and beats it."

"Pretty, pretty!" murmured Larry. "But what's that got to do with that hyena, Bill Dozier?"

"I don't get it all hitched up straight. Most of the news come from Martindale to town by telephone. Seems this young Lanning was follered by Bill Dozier. He was always a hound for a job like that, eh?"

There was a growl of assent.

"He hand-picked five rough ones and went after Lanning. Chased him all night. Landed at John Merchant's place. The kid had dropped in there to call on