The skim-milk eyes did not change expression, but there seemed to lie back of them the jeer of mockery. “Why, ’most anything. We eat canned tomatoes for supper, say—an’ you get lead poisonin’. I’ve known real healthy-lookin’ folks fall asleep an’ never wake up.”
“Yes. That’s true,” Hollister agreed, an odd sinking in the pit of his stomach. “And I’ve seen murderers who could have passed a first-class life insurance examination quit living very suddenly. The other day I read a piece about a scoundrel in Mexico who had killed two or three people. He rather had the habit. When he shot another in the back, his neighbors rode to his ranch one night and hanged him to his own wagon tongue.”
“I always did say Mexico was no place for a white man to live,” the old fellow piped amiably. “Well, I expect you boys are hungry, buckin’ this blizzard. What say to some dinner?”
“Good enough. No canned tomatoes, though, if you please.”
Once more Hollister and Prowers measured eyes before the cattleman grinned evilly.
“Glad you mentioned it. I was aimin’ to have tomatoes,” he said.
CHAPTER XXIV
“COME ON, YOU DAMN BUSHWHACKER”
The fury of the storm rattled the window panes. Down the chimney came the shrill whistle of the gale. The light of day broke dimly through the heavy clouds that swept above the gulch from peak to peak.
Two of the men sitting at dinner in the cabin watched each other intently if covertly. The third, dog-tired, nodded over the food he rushed voraciously to his mouth.
“Gonna pound my ear,” Cig announced as soon as he had finished eating.