Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/153

Rh eminently honest and, while he maintained the key, had discovered that such permission to get their own goods helped to increase mutual goodwill.

"Head all right, Jim?" he asked.

"'Pears to be. Cure'll likely be complete soon as I square accounts with the feller that give me the slip."

"Any idea who it was?"

"Pedro Lopez, brother to Hollister's gel."

"How do you know?"

"He hid his face but he wears a bum ruby ring on his left hand. I saw that." Sheridan sensed deep resentment in Jim's manner of talk.

"Don't go doing anything foolish, Jim," he warned. "Don't give them a chance to get anything on you. You can't prove it was Pedro with that evidence. I put a bullet through his arm the other night. He won't be in shooting form himself for a while."

"I'll wait till his arm heals," said Lund. "Then I'll happen across him an' call him a few pet names that even a Greaser'll rile at. I'll see there's witnesses to that. I'll give him the chance to draw, Boss, but I'll shoot first an' I'll shoot straight." "All right, Jim. Get your tobacco." It was small use trying to eliminate Lund's bloodthirstiness. It was quite natural. Such affairs would lapse only when such types as Pedro were swept from the mesa. Sheridan knew himself the quick, sharp temptation to use a gun. He had graduated swiftly in western ways of handling primitive questions.

Lund turned away with the key. He stopped at