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Page 40
But all this brought him no closer to Jim Galloway; Galloway, meeting
him shortly afterward in San Juan, laughed and thanked him for the job.
It appeared that the man whom Norton had brought back to stand trial
was not only no friend of the proprietor of the Casa Blanca, but an
out-spoken enemy.
"You'll be asking favors of me next, Norton," grinned the big,
thick-bodied man. "I'd pay you real money for getting a few like him
out of my way. Get me, don't you?" and he passed on, his eyes turned
tauntingly.
Yes, Norton "got" him. No man in the southwest harbored more bitter
ill-will for the lawless than Jim Galloway . . . unless the lawless
stood in with him. Aforetime many a hardy, tempestuous spirit had
defied the crime-dictator; here of late they were few who hoped to slit
throats or cut purses and not pay allegiance to the saloon-keeper of
San Juan.
Upon the heels of this affair, however, came another which was destined
to bring Roderick Norton to a crisis in his life. Word reached him at
Las Flores that a lone prospector in the Red Hills had been robbed of a
baking-powder tin of dust and that the prospector, recovering from the
blows which had been rained on his head, had identified one of his two
assailants. That one was Vidal Nu�ez; circumstances hinted that the
other well might be Kid Rickard.
Norton promptly instructed Tom Cutter to find out what he could of
Rickard's movements upon the day of the robbery, and himself set out to
bring in Vidal Nu�ez, taking a grim joy in his task when he remembered
how Nu�ez had been the man who, with a glance, had cautioned Antone to
hold his tongue after the shooting of Bisbee at the Casa Blanca.
"Here's a man Jim Galloway won't thank me for rounding up," he told
himself. "And we are going to see if his arm is long enough to keep
Nu�ez out of the penitentiary."
He went to San Juan, learned that nothing had been seen of the Mexican
there, set the machinery of the man hunt in full swing, doubled back
through the settlements to the eastward, and for two weeks got nothing
but disappointment for his efforts. Nu�ez had disappeared and none who
cared to tell knew where. But Norton kept on doggedly; confident that
the man had not had the opportunity to get out of the country, he was
equally confident that, soon or late, he would get him. Then came the
second meeting with Jim Galloway.
[Illustration: Then came the second meeting with Jim Galloway.]
The two men rode into each other's view on the lonely trail half-way
between San Juan and Tecolote, which is to say where the little, barren
hills break the monotony of the desert lands some eight or ten miles to
the eastward of San Juan. It was late afternoon, and Galloway, riding
back toward town, had the sun in his eyes so that he could not have
known as soon as did Norton whom he was encountering. But Galloway was
not the man to ride anywhere that he was not ready for whatever man he
might meet; Norton's eyes, as the two drew nearer on the blistering
trail, marked the way Galloway's right hand rested loosely on the
cantle of his saddle and very near Galloway's right hip.
Norton, merely eying him sharply, was for passing on without a word or
a nod. The other, however, jerked in his horse, clearly of a mind for
parley.
"Well?" demanded Norton.
"I was just thinking," said Galloway dryly, "what an exceptionally
fitting spot we've picked! If I got you or you got me right now nobody
in the world need ever know who did the trick. We couldn't have found
a much likelier place if we'd sailed away to an island in the South
Seas."
"I was thinking something of the same kind," returned Norton coolly.
"Have you any curiosity in the matter? If you think you can get your
gun first . . . why, then, go to it!"
Galloway eased himself in the saddle.
"If I thought I could beat you to it," he answered tonelessly, "I'd do
it. As you know. If I even thought that I'd have an even break with
you," he added, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as they took stock of
the sheriff's right hand swinging free at his side and never far from
the butt of the revolver fitting loosely in his holster, "I'd take the
chance. No, you're a shade too lively in the draw for me and I happen
to know it."
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