"THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

"Well," Hopalong suggested, "I reckon that's her business. We only ride herd on the
cows, Kid."
"Yeah." The boy's face flushed. "But this here hombre- well, he's plumb bad, if you
ask me. It's that gunman, Clarry Jacks!"
Hopalong Cassidy remembered the handsome, dashing young man from Katie Regan's and
understood how Kid Newton must feel. Clarry Jacks might be all right, but all of
Hopalong's instincts warned him that he was not.
"I-I heard some talk over to the ranch," Newton volunteered. "The boss don't want
her seem' him atall. He said so, some time back. He ordered Jacks off the place.
Jacks laughed at him, then went."
Hopalong nodded. "All right, Kid. Keep it under your hat. I'll think it over." Yet
as he rode away he remembered that it was none of his business, not any of his business
at all. Newton, he imagined, was more than a little infatuated with Lenny Ronson,
and it was easy to understand, as was Lenny's interest in Clarry Jacks.
Frenchy and Tex were already in their saddles, and Hopalong swung up. They were two
miles along the trail before he spoke. "What about Jacks? Know anything about him?"
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"He's bad," Ruyters said quietly. "He killed a man over to Unionville last year .
. . deliberately picked the fight. He's killed three other men I know of and a couple
I suspect. That partner of his, Dud Leeman, he's just about as mean himself."
The roundup was still several days away, and there was much work to do before they
could begin. It was work that had to be done, by all of them. There might be trouble
at the roundup itself, but Hopalong looked for little until it was over. Besides,
the losses to Rocking R cattle and the gain by other herds would show up strongly
then and bring the whole affair into the open. It might well be that soimething would
occur during the roundup that would start trouble and start it fast.
It would be well to be ready for that, and it looked as if a ride to town and a talk
to Shorty Montana were in order. From all he had heard, Montana was a fighter, and
that was the sort of man they needed right now. Every fighting man they added to
the Rocking R outfit meant that much less danger of trouble. Everybody on this range
knew that Montana would take no water from anyone, and that in itself would help.
Frenchy and Milligan were good men. How good the others were remained to be seen.
Moreover, the battle had been opened by his facing of Windy Gore and his beating
of Gore's rider. At least they now knew that the Rocking R was not a fat sheep in
high oats, to be taken when they wanted it. This would not stop the hardiest ones
but might cause the rustling to ease off until after the roundup, when it would be
less easy than now.
Where Clarry Jacks fitted into the picture, Cassidy could not guess, and he was not
the man to interfere in something that was none of his business.
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THE TRAIL TO SEVEN PINES
His thoughts returned to the stage holdup, the murder of Jesse Lock, and the killing
of Thacker.
Thacker had been a dangerous gunman, he had learned. Where had the man been going?
Who had killed him? A man fearless enough to give Thacker his chance with a gun would
be a man among few, a man who could be found without too much trouble, for not many
would have dared. It could only be a man supremely confident and supremely arrogant.