Stamping Ground Read Online Free PDF

That’s why I hide it under my arm.”
    â€œI noticed. It’s obvious as hell.”
    He scowled, as at the unwanted logic of an impertinent child, and went on. “I got two years before my thirty’s in, then I can retire and collect my pension. That’s if I can stick it out without getting fired. The judge has been handing out some heavy hints lately, mostly about my drinking. He’s a damn dyed-in-the-wool teetotaler, and in his thinking every man who takes a sip now and then is a drunk. Anyhow, he doubts my ability to carry out my duties, he says, and with the territory filling with settlers like it is he’s wondering if some young jackanapes from out East might be more suitable. Then he brings up this Ghost Shirt business. It’s blackmail, pure and simple, but what’ve I got to put up against it? I’m too old to drive teams any more, and that’s all I know how to do besides enforcing the law.”
    â€œI guess all judges are alike,” I said, and related how I came to be in Dakota. He snorted.
    â€œThem law schools ought to be made illegal. They turn out more crooks than the prisons.”
    I agreed. “Flood, for instance. Assuming we can pull off the impossible and beat the army to Ghost Shirt, what’s he to gain? I don’t for one minute buy his story about land interests, and that’s easier to swallow than the one about saving this glorious territory.” I waved a hand toward the window just as we happened to be passing a group of raggedbone-pickers reaping the rotting harvest of last winter’s buffalo slaughter along the railroad right-of-way.
    â€œThe White House. That’s what he’s got to gain.” The marshal slid a metal flask from the inside breast pocket of his coat and uncorked it. As he did so, the coat buckled and I caught a glimpse of the gun reposing in a special pocket of his vest beneath his left armpit. Small wonder it bulged. It was an army-size Smith & Wesson .44 caliber, christened the American, big and heavy enough to drive nails with the butt. The Deane-Adams English .45 I carried in my hip holster looked insignificant by comparison. This one was about as suited to be carried beneath a man’s arm as a grand piano was to be played in a third-floor cathouse. He took a long pull at the flask’s acrid contents—the odor of bad traveling whiskey assaulted my nostrils—replaced the cork, although without conviction, and returned the container to his pocket. His bright little eyes clouded for an instant, then cleared brighter than ever.
    â€œThe White House?” I prompted.
    He nodded. “Flood ain’t been satisfied just being judge since he first dumb onto the bench. He made two tries for governor of the territory and damn near got the appointment the second time. He would of, too, if some nosy reporter on the
Tribune
hadn’t wrote that he took money from the Northern Pacific back in seventy-one to clear a track foreman of a charge of murdering a Chinaman on government property.”
    â€œDid he?”
    â€œKill the Chinaman? I reckon so.”
    â€œNot that. Did Rood take the money?”
    â€œOh, that. Who knows. I’d be mighty damn surprised if he didn’t. Everybody takes money from the railroads. The only reason the choice went against him is he got caught. That didn’t cool him off any, though. He just aimed higher.” Hudspeth went for the flask again, then changed directions and, instead, loosened his gun in its leather-lined sheath as if that had been his intention all along. I recognized the standard drunk’s way of cutting down: Takeplenty of liquor along just in case, but only hit it half as hard. Rood’s threats worried him more than he would admit. “Ever since Custer got it,” he went on, “being an injun fighter brings in more votes than promising to cut taxes. The judge figures if he can get to Ghost Shirt ahead of the army and