“For two reasons,” answered the voice behind. “First off, neighbor, I’m no friend of Red Steve’s. Then, again, I’m lashed and laid away on the shelf. If I was able to move, I’d take Red Steve down and choke the breath out of him.”
“Dunbar’s a hoss thief that I’ve captured,” cried Red Steve, “an’ I want ye ter go on erbout yore bizness an’ leave us alone.”
“I’m no horse thief,” said Dunbar, “and Red Steve talks crooked. He’s working for Benner, and Phelps, and the rest of those cattle barons on the Brazos. It’s tin-horn work, too, and Red has to use the double tongue.”
“I thought there was something more than just common incivility back of his treatment of me,” observed the scout, a glitter rising in the eyes that looked across the revolver sights. “Don’t you try to talk!” he said sternly to the man in front of him. “Walk around and take the ropes off Dunbar. When I count ‘one,’ you’ll begin to move; when I say ‘two,’ you’ll begin on the ropes; and when I finish with ‘three,’ if Dunbar isn’t clear of his bonds, I’ll do something more than singe your ear and take a lock of your red hair. Chance, it seems, has bobbled, and dropped me into the right place at just about the right time. Now, then, one!”
There was that in the scout’s eyes and manner which caused Red Steve to start promptly toward the other side of the dugout. As he moved, the scout turned on the stool and let the revolver follow him.
CHAPTER II.
THE GAME OF “FREEZE OUT.”
On the plains of northwest Texas, in an early day, the dugout was a popular institution. No wind could shake such a house, and no earthquake could topple it over. In most structures, a man begins at the bottom and builds to the top, but in a dwelling like that under consideration a man begins at the top and works downward.
The usual underground house measured about fifteen by twenty feet, and was from seven to ten feet in height. Some three feet from the floor the walls were abruptly widened out, thus giving a shelf in the earthen wall. This shelf extended around the whole room, and was three feet in width—or more or less according to the fancy of the owner.
The shelf took the place of chairs, of dining table and of bunks. A few three-legged stools might be added, if the one who occupied the underground house had the wood and the time necessary to make them.
A fireplace was usually cut in the solid dirt wall and, with an ordinary posthole augur, a chimney was bored down to it. A joint of stovepipe, extending upward from the top of the hole, gave the fireplace a chance to breathe.