“Wal, I reckon there's not one honest native who KNOWS.”
“But you have your suspicions?”
“We have.”
“Give me your idea about this crowd that hangs round the saloons—the regulars.”
“Jest a bad lot,” replied Laramie, with the quick assurance of knowledge. “Most of them have been here years. Others have drifted in. Some of them work, odd times. They rustle a few steers, steal, rob, anythin' for a little money to drink an' gamble. Jest a bad lot!”
“Have you any idea whether Cheseldine and his gang are associated with this gang here?”
“Lord knows. I've always suspected them the same gang. None of us ever seen Cheseldine—an' thet's strange, when Knell, Poggin, Panhandle Smith, Blossom Kane, and Fletcher, they all ride here often. No, Poggin doesn't come often. But the others do. For thet matter, they're around all over west of the Pecos.”
“Now I'm puzzled over this,” said Duane. “Why do men—apparently honest men—seem to be so close-mouthed here? Is that a fact, or only my impression?”
“It's a sure fact,” replied Laramie, darkly. “Men have lost cattle an' property in Fairdale—lost them honestly or otherwise, as hasn't been proved. An' in some cases when they talked—hinted a little—they was found dead. Apparently held up an robbed. But dead. Dead men don't talk! Thet's why we're close mouthed.”
Duane felt a dark, somber sternness. Rustling cattle was not intolerable. Western Texas had gone on prospering, growing in spite of the hordes of rustlers ranging its vast stretches; but a cold, secret, murderous hold on a little struggling community was something too strange, too terrible for men to stand long.