“Isn’t it exciting? I think Slivers has a friend working on the ranch.”
“Look here, Dot. Mebbe Slivers has a friend in our outfit, mebbe Slivers is right close—but yuh got to remember that if yuh tol’ the wrong person, mebbe that friend an’ Slivers would die pronto. So don’t yuh go talkin’ to nobody—nobody a-tall!” McAllister warned her.
The gravity of his expression made her eyes cloud with fear. She thought for a moment and then nodded. “I won’t tell any one,” she agreed.
It was close to noon when they arrived in Malboro. As they turned into the livery stable, a rider swung from a big dun horse and addressed the hostler.
“Feller, don’t be skimpin’ the oats. Gents call me Toothpick Jarrick, ’cause I sure whittle hombres, what rile me, to the size of toothpicks.” He removed one of those implements from the corner of his mouth and held it up for the holster’s inspection. “Yuh see that? That’s all what’s left of the gent what last annoyed me. Now, on the contrary, if I likes a gent, I buys him plenty of drinks.”
The hostler grinned at him, then both became conscious of Dot Reed and Bill McAllister.
The hostler ran forward to take the horses, while Toothpick stared in frank admiration at Dot Reed and regretted his own travel-stained and dusty appearance. He watched the old man and the girl walk down the street.
“Who’s she?” he asked.
“That’s Dot Reed, the owner of the Double R. That gent what is crossin’ over to her is Spur Treadwell, her sweetie,” the hostler explained as he deftly unhitched the sweating horses from the buckboard.
Spur Treadwell walked across the road with an arrogant grace. He swept off his hat as he neared the girl, and then the three of them entered McCann’s hotel.