Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/166

 "I'll want to see you, all right, pardner, unless this thing happens to turn out the way you tell it. If it does, I'll take off my hat to you and apologize."

"I wouldn't ask it of you, sir," Texas returned loftily, plainly conveying to the notorious gun-slinger that his opinion, one way or the other, mattered very little.

"We're goin' up there on the hill to call them fellers out for a talk and lay down the law. Duncan wants you to go along with me and him and two or three more. We'll be ready in a minute."

"I'll be on hand when wanted, sir," Texas said.

He looked after Winch as he walked away, his hairy chaparejos accentuating the curve of his ridiculous short legs until he looked more like a crab than a man. There was a feeling of hardness in him against this man Winch, more than against any other in the band. Winch knew him better than any of the others, and should be able to judge him with more justice. It looked as if prejudice had made him blind and unreasonable, or that he wanted to seize on this pretext of personal affront to add one more to his bloody toll of men.

Texas wondered what Duncan's purpose in having him go with the parleying party might be. He thought, with contempt for such smallness and distrust, that it might be to keep him under the eyes of Winch, whose name on the range was equal to