It was a Los Angeles paper, which he had bought on leaving the railroad at Meteorite because it was the latest sheet to be had. Now he searched the advertising columns, and after a moment chanced upon the very thing he sought. It was a large display advertisement, and after reading it, Tompkins clipped it out and then perused it more carefully and with keen appreciation. It read as follows:
CHICKEN RANCHERS
Come To Chuckwalla County!No California fogs in this State; an ideal climate for chickens. Stovepipe Springs will welcome you. Local demand for eggs is heavy. Not a chicken within a radius of thirty miles in one direction and 250 miles in all others.
Off railroad but on State highway. Land from $1 to $50 per acre. Taxes so light they make you laugh. Correspondence invited. The Stovepipe Springs Chamber of Commerce will coöperate with you in every way; write the secretary, M. J. Crowfoot, First State Bank, Stovepipe Springs.
Putting the clipping away in his pocket, Tompkins got his pipe going and puffed for a while in frowning reflection. At length he sighed.
“Well, I suppose I can’t help her any—and I don’t know that I blame her for feeling as she does. To all appearance, this is a harmless little desert town and nothing else. I don’t even know that I’m right; haven’t a darned bit of proof to lay before her! But this Sidewinder Crowfoot sure lays a clever trap for suckers. Not a chicken around here, eh? He’s dead right, at that. What with coyotes, skunks, lynx and snakes, not to mention rats, any chickens would have a hard struggle. And the advertisement doesn’t mention water. Hm! I wonder how many poor flies have been drawn into this spider-net and sucked dry? And I wonder how many poor devils have gone out into that desert around here and never come back—like my brother Alec Ramsay?”
He puffed on, a somber frown darkening his keen eyes.
CHAPTER III
When Percival Henry J. Tompkins, mammalogist, walked into the First State Bank the next morning, he wore his best professorial air.
Moses J. Crowfoot, more generally known as Sidewinder, was his own banking force, and sat alone at a desk behind a grill which hedged off most of the bank. He was not afraid of robbers. No professional robber in the combined areas of Nevada, Utah and New Mexico would have dreamed of tackling the Stovepipe Springs bank, because Sidewinder Crowfoot was an old-timer who knew his business. Three amateurs had undertaken the job two years previously, and each of them received a forty-five slug squarely between the eyes.
The nickname was highly appropriate. Like his namesake, Crowfoot was highly venomous, he struck without warning, and he struck to kill; he was not a pleasant man, and he did not care to be pleasant. He lived alone. In the old dim days, Sidewinder had been a monte dealer in the Alcora Dance Hall; when the law clamped down on gambling, he had owned the Oasis Saloon; when the law clamped down on liquor, he had gone into banking. Some people would claim this was natural evolution.
He looked up at his visitor without speaking. Tompkins, entirely ignoring what had happened upon his arrival in town, came forward to the grill and smiled.