The Heart of the Range Part 40

"Like that!" Luke Tweezy snapped his teeth together with a click.

"But foreclosing takes time. You can't sell a man up the minute his mortgage is due. There's got to be notices in the papers and the like of that. Suppose now he gets to borrow the money some'ers before the sale? He'll have plenty of time to look round."

"Who'd lend him money?"

"Old Salt would. He's tight, but he'd rather have Dale at Moccasin Spring than someone else, and he'd lend Dale money rather than have him drove out."

"Shucks, he wouldn't lend him a dime. I know Old Salt. Don't fret, we'll foreclose when we get ready."

"I ain't fretting," said Racey. "You'll foreclose, huh? Aw right. I just wanted to be sh.o.r.e. You can go now, Luke."

Thus dismissed Tweezy rose to his feet and glared down at Racey Dawson. His little eyes shone with spite.

"Say it," urged Racey. "You'll bust if you don't."

But Luke Tweezy did not say it. He knew better. Without a word he returned to the house.

"They ain't going to foreclose, that's a cinch," said Racey when the ponies were fox-trotting toward Soogan Creek and the Bar S range five minutes later. "Luke's telling me they were proves they ain't."

"Sh.o.r.e," acquiesced Swing, "but what are they gonna do?"

"I ain't figured that out yet."

"You mean you dunno. That's the size of it,"

"How'd you happen to be at that window so providential this mornin'?"

Racey queried, hurriedly.

"How'd you s'pose? Don't you guess I'd know they was something up from the nice, kind way you said so-long to me back there at the Dales'?

Huh? 'Course I did--I ain't no fool. You'd oughta had sense enough to take me along in the first place instead of makin' me trail you miles an' miles. And where would you 'a' been if I hadn't come siftin'

along, I'd like to know? Might know you'd need a witness. Them two jiggers put together could easy make you lots of trouble. What was you thinking of, anyhow, Racey?"

"How could I tell they were _both_ gonna be together? Besides, three of the 88 boys were over in the bunkhouse. I was counting on them."

"Over in the bunkhouse, huh? A lot of good they'd done you there. A lot of good. Oh, yo're bright, Racey. I'd tell a man that, I would."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SHOWDOWN

Racey, walking suddenly round the corner of the Dale stable, came upon Mr. Dale tilting a bottle toward the sky. The business end of the bottle was inserted between Mr. Dale's lips. His Adam's apple slid gravely up and down. He did not see Racey Dawson.

"Howdy," said the puncher.

Mr. Dale removed the bottle, whirled, and thrust the bottle behind him.

"Oh, it's you," he said, blinking, and slowly producing the bottle.

"Huh-have one on me."

"Not to-day," refused Racey, shaking his head. "I got a misery in my stummick. Doctor won't lemme drink any."

"Yeah?" Thus Mr. Dale with interest. Then, again proffering the liquor, he said: "This here's fine for the misery. Better have a snooter."

"No, I guess not."

"Well, I will," averred Mr. Dale and downed three swallows rapidly.

"Yeah," he continued, driving in the cork with the heel of his hand, "a feller needs a drink now and then."

"Helps him stand off trouble, don't it?" Racey hazarded, sympathetically, perceiving an opening.

"Sh.o.r.e does," answered Mr. Dale. "I should say so. Dunno who'd oughta know that better'n I do. Trouble, Racey--well, say, I'm just made of trouble I am."

"Aw, it ain't as bad as that," encouraged Racey.

"Yes, it is, too," contradicted the other. "I got more trouble on my hands than a rat-tailed hoss tied short in fly-time. Trouble--nothing but."

"Nothing is as bad as it looks."

"Heaps of times she's worse."

"I'm yore friend. You know me. If I can help you--"

"n.o.body can help me. I dunno what to do, Racey."

"Well, you know best, I expect, but I've always found if I talk over with somebody else anythin' that bothers me it don't seem to stick up half so big."

Mr. Dale sank down upon one run-over heel and stared blearily off across the flats. The bottle in his hip-pocket made a p.r.o.nounced bulge under the cloth.

"I dunno what to do, Racey," he said, looking up sidewise at Racey where he stood in front of him, his hands in his pockets and his hat on the back of his head. "I owe a lot of money. I dunno how I'm gonna pay it, and I'm worried."

"Let the other feller do the worrying," suggested Racey.

"I wish I could," said Mr. Dale, drearily. "I wish I could."

"Why don't you, then?"

"He'll foreclose--they'll foreclose, I mean."

"Aw, maybe not."

"Yeah, they will. I know 'em! ---- 'em! They'd have the shirt off my back if they could. You see, Racey, she's thisaway: I borrowed five thousand dollars from the Marysville bank, on a mortgage, and there they went and sold the mortgage to Lanpher of the 88 and Luke Tweezy.

And there's the rub, Racey. The bank would 'a' renewed all right, but you can put down a bet and go the limit that Lanpher and Tweezy won't.

I done asked 'em."

"Five thousand dollars is a lot of money," said Racey, soberly. He had been thinking that the mortgage would not have been above two thousand at the outside. But five thousand! What in Sam Hill had old Dale done with the money? In the next breath Dale answered the unspoken question.