Read Online The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 by Louis L’Amour - Free Book Online Page B

that lured many a man from his trail to pursue the always retreating shoreline of the lake. It looked like water, it really did.
    Maybe there was water in the heat waves. Maybe if a man knew how, he could extract it and drink. The thought drew his hand to his canteen, but he took it away without drinking. The slosh water in the canteen was no longer enticing, for it was warm, brackish, and unsatisfying.
    â€œYou know him, Kimmel?” Kesney asked. He was a wiry little man, hard as a whipstock, with bits of sharp steel for eyes and brown muscle-corded hands. “I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.”
    â€œSure, I know him. Big feller, strong made, rusty-like hair an’ maybe forty year old. Looks plumb salty, too, an’ from what I hear he’s no friendly sort of man. Squattin’ on that Sorenson place looks plumb suspicious, for no man can make him a livin’ on that dry-as-a-bone place. No fit place for man nor beast. Ever’body figures no honest man would squat on such a place.”
    It seemed a strange thing, to be searching out a man whom none of them really knew. Of course, they had all known Johnny Webb. He was a handsome, popular young man, a daredevil and a hellion, but a very attractive one, and a top hand to boot. They had all known him and had all liked him. Then, one of the things that made them so sure that this had been a wrong killing, even aside from the shots in the back, was the fact that Johnny Webb had been the fastest man in the Spring Valley country. Fast, and a dead shot.
    Johnny had worked with all these men, and they were good men—hard men, but good. Kimmel, Hardin, and Kesney had all made something of their ranches, as had the others, only somewhat less so. They had come west when the going was rough, fought Indians and rustlers, and then battled drought, dust, and hot, hard winds. It took a strong man to survive in this country, and they had survived. He, Neill, was the youngest of them all and the newest in the country. He was still looked upon with some reserve. He had been here only five years.
    Neill could see the tracks of the buckskin, and it gave him a strange feeling to realize that the man who rode that horse would soon be dead, hanging from a noose in one of those ropes attached to a saddle horn of Hardin or Kimmel. Neill had never killed a man or seen one killed by another man, and the thought made him uncomfortable.
    Yet Johnny was gone, and his laughter and his jokes were a thing passed. They had brightened more than one roundup, more than one bitter day of heartbreaking labor on the range. Not that he had been an angel. He had been a proper hand with a gun and could throw one. And in his time he had had his troubles.
    â€œHe’s walkin’ his horse,” Kesney said, “leadin’ him.”
    â€œHe’s a heavy man,” Hardin agreed, “an’ he figures to give us a long chase.”
    â€œGone lame on him maybe,” Kimmel suggested.
    â€œNo, that horse isn’t limpin’. This Lock is a smart one.”
    They had walked out of the ankle-deep dust now and were crossing a parched, dry plain of crusted earth. Hardin reined in suddenly and pointed.
    â€œLook there.” He indicated a couple of flecks on the face of the earth crust where something had spilled. “Water splashed.”
    â€œCareless,” Neill said. “He’ll need that water.”
    â€œNo,” Kesney said. “He was pourin’ water in a cloth to wipe out his horse’s nostrils. Bet you a dollar.”
    â€œSure,” Hardin agreed, “that’s it. Horse breathes a lot better. A man runnin’ could kill a good horse on this Flat. He knows that.”
    Â 
    They rode on, and for almost a half hour no one spoke. Neill frowned at the sun. It had been on his left a few minutes ago, and now they rode straight into it.
    â€œWhat’s he doin’?” Kesney said wonderingly. “This ain’t the