The Killer
ink it a good yarn. It hasn't any love story in it; and there isn't any plot. Things just happened, one thing after the other. There ought to be a yarn in it somehow, and I
miles from our Box Springs ranch--a nice easy ride. I should explain that heretofore I had ridden the Gila end of our range, which is so far away that only vague rumours of Hooper had ever reached me at all. He was reputed a tough old devil with
ain hold-ups and homicide yet prevalent but frowned upon; favourite tipple whiskey toddy with sugar; but the old fortified ranches all gone; longhorns crowded out by shorthorn blaze-head Herefords or near-Herefords; some indignation against Alfred Henry Lewis's _Wolfville_ as a base libel; and, also bu
d himself up against the snubbing post of the corral. He watched me for a
oper?" h
him driving
to every little stone in the road; but there was nothing the matter with the horses or their harness. We never held much with grooming in Arizona, but these beasts shone like
a tough bird
mless old cuss--b
fter I'd saddled and coiled my
his, but led my h
tell you all about it," said Je
hought he _had_ told me all about
cantered up who was perfectly able to express himself. He w
stay the night at Hooper'
are you another of these
t Hooper's
I replied,
let each other's strays water at our troughs in this co
d would you mind informing me further h
e chute he built a gate that would swing across it and open a hole into a dry corral. And he had a high platform with a handle that ran the gate. When any cat
out w
the chute. And so on. Till they died, o
"you're stuffing
nce like drifts of tumbleweed," said Windy, soberly; a
face, I knew thes
got a bad lot of oilers[A] there, especially an old one named Andreas and another one called Ramon, and all
Oiler = Greas
etty strong, and I g
d Windy, "I'm ju
hallenged. "How is it he's lasted so long? Why hasn't som
d he don't pack no gun ever, and he's sort of runty--and--I do'no _wh
of humour. Nothing would have tickled them more than to bluff me out of a harmless excursion by means of
lected the late sunlight into gamboge yellows and mauves. The magic time was near when the fierce, implacable day-genius of the desert would fall asleep and the soft, gentle, beautiful star-eyed night-genius of