"Davis, Harold A - Nopo Gets His Man - (Avenger 3911)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Harold A)

NOPO GETS HIS MEN
by Harold A. Davis


They said he was too old, but Nopo used
brains as well as brawn to trap killers.



THE MUSIC on the radio stopped, and an excited announcer began to talk swiftly. Nopo Beavers
hardly noticed.

His faded blue eyes intent, lined face serious, Nopo carefully wielded the pair of pliers in his
hand. He pulled another porcupine quill from the paw of the hound that sat crouched between his
legs. The hound whimpered softly.

"I've got no sympathy for y'u, Chesty," Nopo Beavers said grave]y, but I his voice was kindly,
and the hound's tail beat on the floor. "Even a hound of your quarrelsome disposition oughta know
better'n try to tangle with a porcupine."

Chesty looked sad, as only a hound can look sad, and Nopo Beavers grunted and went on with his
job, sticking the extracted quills into the lapel of his leather jacket. Chesty was a disappointment
as a hunting dog. He couldn't seem to learn anything, not even to leave porcupines alone. But the
quills had to be pulled out. If not, they'd keep on working into the body, might even kill the dog.

The radio shrilled on, and Nopo Beavers' head came up suddenly, his faded blue eyes sharpening.

"--these men are killers!" the announcer was saying rapidly. "They will stop at nothing. Peace
officers have been warned to take no chances, to shoot on sight--" The voice broke, then rushed on
excitedly.

"Wait a minute, folks! A new bulletin has just come in. Two more men have been killed, evidently
by the escaped convicts. Their bodies, clad only in underwear, have just been found in a ditch,
thirty miles north of the city. So far they have not been identified."

Nopo Beavers' breath came in sharply, his gray head came up. Thoughts seethed through his brain,
while Chesty whimpered, almost forgotten.

Why, he wondered, hadn't he been notified? Why hadn't he been asked to help hunt for these
killers?

Then his shoulders slumped, he looked for a moment even older than his eighty years. The answer
was simple, of course. He was a man who had outlived his time, whose usefulness as a man hunter was
past.

Once Nopo had been sheriff. He had been called Jack Beavers then--the nickname had come later.
But that had been long ago, when the country was wild. Yet he had set a record that hadn't been
bettered to this day. With gun and brains, he had brought order and law when a stern hand had been
needed.