The Killer

ink it a good yarn. It hasn't any love story in it; and there isn't any plot. Things just happened, one thing after the other. There ought to be a yarn in it somehow, and I

miles from our Box Springs ranch--a nice easy ride. I should explain that heretofore I had ridden the Gila end of our range, which is so far away that only vague rumours of Hooper had ever reached me at all. He was reputed a tough old devil with

ain hold-ups and homicide yet prevalent but frowned upon; favourite tipple whiskey toddy with sugar; but the old fortified ranches all gone; longhorns crowded out by shorthorn blaze-head Herefords or near-Herefords; some indignation against Alfred Henry Lewis's _Wolfville_ as a base libel; and, also bu

d himself up against the snubbing post of the corral. He watched me for a

oper?" h

him driving

to every little stone in the road; but there was nothing the matter with the horses or their harness. We never held much with grooming in Arizona, but these beasts shone like

a tough bird

mless old cuss--b

fter I'd saddled and coiled my

his, but led my h

tell you all about it," said Je

hought he _had_ told me all about

cantered up who was perfectly able to express himself. He w

stay the night at Hooper'

are you another of these

t Hooper's

I replied,

let each other's strays water at our troughs in this co

d would you mind informing me further h

e chute he built a gate that would swing across it and open a hole into a dry corral. And he had a high platform with a handle that ran the gate. When any cat

out w

the chute. And so on. Till they died, o

"you're stuffing

nce like drifts of tumbleweed," said Windy, soberly; a

face, I knew thes

got a bad lot of oilers[A] there, especially an old one named Andreas and another one called Ramon, and all

Oiler = Greas

etty strong, and I g

d Windy, "I'm ju

hallenged. "How is it he's lasted so long? Why hasn't som

d he don't pack no gun ever, and he's sort of runty--and--I do'no _wh

of humour. Nothing would have tickled them more than to bluff me out of a harmless excursion by means of

lected the late sunlight into gamboge yellows and mauves. The magic time was near when the fierce, implacable day-genius of the desert would fall asleep and the soft, gentle, beautiful star-eyed night-genius of