“The Wolf?”
Toothpick remembered his dead friend, Dutchy’s, warning about some day digging his own grave with his tongue, so he resolutely stopped it by cramming his mouth full of beefsteak.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE WOLF CALL
Dot Reed, Treadwell, and McAllister headed toward old Miser Jimpson’s tumble-down house.
“Yuh mean to say that I may lose my ranch?” she asked anxiously.
“No, I didn’t say quite that,” Spur hastened to explain. “But things are in a mess, and while I, bein’ your guardian, perhaps have the right to decide without your consent, I thought it better to have it all explained to yuh an’ then have both of us decide what’s best.”
Bill McAllister shook his head. He was floundering in deep waters. He distrusted Spur, yet apparently everything the man did was aboveboard. He could not see how Spur could be blamed for the present tangled mess of the financial affairs of the Double R Ranch. He had seemingly done what he could to straighten them out.
The three turned into the gateless fence that surrounded old Miser Jimpson’s house and passed into a dingy, shabby room where they found three men—Jimpson, One-wing McCann, and a small, dapper man, named W. A. Raine, waiting for them.
“Miss Reed, this is Mr. Raine, who represents the Wilton County Bank. Yuh know the other two gents. The Double R Ranch owes them all money,” Spur said to the girl.
Dot Reed smiled at One-wing and old Miser and shook hands with Raine. He was forty-five, with quick, nervous movements. He had keen blue eyes. After studying him, Bill McAllister decided that he was not only clever, but honest as well.