"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 101 - The Green Eagle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

And get fired. And be without a job. And jobs were scarce, even for a top hand. That wasnтАЩt the
remedy. Ben shook his head slowly.

If he even looked like the movie Donald Duck, or sounded like him, it would have been different. He
might have excused the dudes. But, although he had no great admiration for the entertaining Donald, he
had no desire to emulate him in action or appearance. Furthermore, he didnтАЩt look in the least like the
movie cartoon Donald Duck. Or did he?

If those dudes wanted to call him Donald Duck, heтАЩd have to take it. The dudes paid eighteen dollars a
day. For that money, they could call the hired help Donald Ducks if they wanted to.

Precious little of the eighteen dollars a day found its way into BenтАЩs pocket.

No salary would be worse, however.

The remedy would be simple. Own a little ranch of his own, a spread in some valley with a few dogies. A
valley that was not so high up in the mountains that there was killing cold in winter, but high enough that
summer range could be had up around the timber line. There was just one difficulty. It took money to buy
a spread. And money was one thing Ben did not have.

"A danged dude wrangler," he described himself disgustedly.

He thought of what his dadтАЩs opinion would have been of his present status in the world, and shuddered.
Old Man Duck had chased the Indians out of western Montana to make room for a whopping big cow
outfit, and he rode the crest until he picked a fight with a group of encroaching nesters, and didnтАЩt draw
quick enough. Between the time they laid Old Man Duck in his grave, and the time Ben was big enough
to do anything about it, the nesters took over the country and homesteaded all the Duck range. A bank
eventually got the ranch, and an uncle got young Ben. Uncle Spud. About all Uncle Spud had been able
to teach young Ben was to ride, fight, and be honest. Uncle Spud had trapped beaver for a living. Three
years ago he had frozen to death in a March blizzard. Young Ben had gone out into the world and
discovered it was hard to make a living punching cows.

"Donald Duck," Ben said. He said it through his teeth.

After an hour or so he was soothed by the vastness of Wyoming in the moonlight. He climbed on Patches
and rode silently down the path. It was purely accident that he was so silent, but he managed to surprise
a man on the path.

Ben pulled the horse to a stop and watched the man ahead. The man was turning around and around
strangelyтАФand strangely was a mild word for itтАФon the path. He was a long man dressed darkly, except
for his chaps, which were made from the hide of a black-and-white pinto pony. Ben recognized the
chaps. He had resented them, because the pony skin was the color of PatchesтАЩ hide. The man was
Albert Panzer, one of the Broken Circle dudes.

Ben watched Albert Panzer stop turning around and around and drop face-down on the path. He made a
move to ride forward, but did not. Another man came out of the greasewood bushes beside the trail and
stooped over the one who had fallen.