Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/24

6 mesquite, Pete Sheridan, like the mangy coyote you are. You know the rules of the range. This is a maverick an' I found it. It's mine an' I'm goin' to set my iron on it."

"Take off that rope." "You go plumb to hell! You don't know jest how close you are to it this minnit."

"If I go there it 'll be to find you waiting, Hollister." Sheridan stood motionless, in easy pose, but his voice was crisp with purpose, his grey eyes shone like the glint of sun on the mica flakes imprisoned in grey granite. Hollister had crouched slightly from the hips, arms away from his body, out-curving, his face set in a snarl. He was instinct with the desire to shoot, to kill, but something in Sheridan's seemingly careless confidence held him baffled him.

"You've seen me shoot, Hollister. Better take off that rope."

Hollister's eyes shifted. His hands closed and opened jerkily.

"Hands up! High! Grab for the sky, Greaser! Muy pronto. Now stan' up an' stan' still!"

Two arms, clad in cotton of gaudy check, shot up from the brush to Sheridan's right. Then the head and upper body of a Mexican came into view, mushroomed beneath his sombrero. A pistol gleamed in one hand. With them rose half the lean length of Jackson, hatless, his red hair fuzzy in the sun. He reached for the gun in the Mexican's nerveless grasp and with it covered the discomfited Hollister, while his own pistol menaced the man he had