One morning they looked down from the top of a heavily wooded hill into the smooth cuplike valley through which flowed the Little Deadman’s Creek. At the farther end, doll-like buildings marked the site of the Double R Ranch.
“There she is,” Slivers cried.
“I’m bettin’ yuh can pick out that gal of yourn settin’ on the porch,” Allen grinned.
Slivers did not reply, but continued to stare out across the valley to the ranch buildings. Allen’s words were true, for he saw, even if it were in his imagination, Dot Reed sitting on the front porch, just as he had last seen her on that day he had had to flee from the mob which was intent on lynching him.
CHAPTER XIX
DOT REED
The two went over their plans, arranging camp. Slivers was to remain there while Allen went on to the ranch to ascertain if the feeling against Slivers was still vindictive. Jim Allen knew that the fame of his grays had traveled all over the West and that if he took both with him, it would make the chances of his being recognized that much greater, so he hobbled Honeyboy and saddled Princess. The stallion uttered shrill neighs of protest at being left behind, and Princess balked at leaving her constant companion.
Allen circled to the east, for he did not wish to leave a direct trail from Slivers’ camp to the ranch. After an hour’s ride, he struck the road that ran south to Wichita Falls, where he turned to the north. It was close to sundown when he arrived at the small town of Malboro. This was the typical cow town of the region. It consisted of a few stores, a combination hotel and bar, a post office, and three or four saloons.
There were but a few people about the streets as he rode into town and these gave him but a casual glance. If they classified him at all, they put him down as some kid from a distant ranch. He wore no gun that could be seen, his shirt and jeans were tattered and torn. Princess was the personification of a tired, worked-out old horse. Her head drooped, her feet shuffled up little clouds of dust as she ambled along. No one would have taken her for one of the most famous horses in the West, nor her rider as the most famous outlaw of all time.
Allen swung from his horse before the Wichita Hotel, dropped the reins over the hitch rack and stood for a moment gazing about like a gawky country boy on his first visit to town.
He wandered aimlessly along the street. Spying a store that displayed candy bars in its window, he entered and reappeared a moment later sucking at a brightly colored candy bar. Munching the candy, he slipped through the doors of the hotel and entered the bar. There was no one there, so he walked briskly toward the wall where they had posted the bills for the men who were wanted. He found one for himself, but he gave a sigh of relief when he noted it was an old one and did not have his picture. He also found one for Slivers Joe Hart, which offered a reward of five hundred dollars for that young man, dead or alive. He was reading this when some one entered the room. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a stout, one-armed man, of about fifty, whom he surmised to be “One-wing” McCann, the owner of the hotel.