Apache Rampage Read Online Free PDF Page B

soft-drawled words cut over the noise of the crowd and brought every eye to the four riders. It was the small man who’d spoken, Ellwood guessed and decided he was relying on the backing of the three big cowhands while speaking.
    ‘What do you mean?’ Ellwood asked, irritation thinly veiled in his tone. The town saw little of cowhands, less of Texas cowhands. Any man who knew the cowhand country would have known that here sat three men who were tophands and knew the cattle business from calf-down to trailend shipping pens. He’d also have known that here were four men more than just ordinarily competent with their guns. Ellwood knew none of this.
    ‘You aren’t sending these folks out of town at a time like this, are you?’ asked the small man.
    It was Mrs. Haslett who replied, spitting the words out viciously. ‘Why not, because four saddle-tramps don’t like it?’
    ‘No, ma’am,’ the small Texan answered, his voice an easy southern drawl. ‘Because of what we know—and you don’t.’
    Ellwood watched the small man, noting the commanding way in which he spoke. There was more to this man than first met the eye, the marshal decided. It might be well to listen to him.
    ‘What might that be?’
    ‘We found a couple of miners as we cut through the hills.’
    ‘So what?’ Ellwood snapped. ‘The hills are full of miners.’
    ‘There’s two less now, mister,’ the dark-faced boy said, moving his horse alongside the small man’s. ‘Maybe more, we didn’t stop on long enough to find out.’ He reached back and drew something from under the bedroll strapped to his saddle. ‘This’s what killed one of them.’
    The crowd scattered as if the young man had thrown a live rattler at them. Every eye went to the thing which stuck in the ground before them. It looked like a long, thin, straight stick—except that stick never grew on a tree with feathers at one end, barbed head at the other and painted bands of colour in the centre.
    ‘But that’s an Apache arrow.’
    ‘Yeah, friend,’ agreed the dark boy, his voice cold and mocking. ‘An Apache war arrow.’
    The listeners noticed the emphasis placed on that one word and knew what the dark boy meant by it. There was a whole lot the good citizens of Baptist’s Hollow did not know about Apaches. There was one thing they, and almost every other man or woman in Arizona territory knew, that was the significance of an Apache war arrow. The Apache might kill a chance-met stranger with a hunting arrow, but he would never use the same for serious business. When the Apache went to war he took his special war arrows from the medicine lodge. When he used war arrows it meant just that—he was wearing paint and at war.
    ‘So you found two dead miners, one killed by an Indian arrow,’ said Ellwood, not liking the dark boy’s attitude or tone of voice. ‘Why should that stop me turning undesirables out of town?’
    The small man studied Ellwood as if the marshal was fresh come from under a rotten log. ‘Mister, Lon said maybe more. We didn’t stay on to try and find out. The Apaches are out, swarming. There’s more of them out there than a man could count on a lot more hands and feet than he’s got right now.’
    ‘And they’re all wearing paint,’ concluded the dark boy, ‘or I don’t know sic ‘em about Apaches.’
    That was one saying none of the crowd needed explaining. No self-respecting Apache would think of making war without putting his paint on first. On the wagon Phyllis and Doc looked at the small Texan with considerable interest. They were nearly sure they could put a brand on him. It was a famous name, one which was known from Texas to California, from the Rio Grande to the Canadian line. Phyllis was almost sure but did not speak.
    ‘That doesn’t concern us any,’ Ellwood growled and heard his town give their rumbled agreement. ‘We’ve never had any trouble with the Apaches.’
    ‘You’re like to get it,’ said the blond giant, his