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

BEN DUCK was quite calm. He liked to know exactly what he was doing before he did a thing. So he
did not ride forward. He sat there and watched. The moonlight was bright. Very bright.
The man who had come out of the bushes was searching Albert Panzer. Thoroughly, too. Feeling out
garment seams, scratching buttons with the point of a knife, thrusting a pin into hat felt and belt leather.
Finally he pried off Albert PanzerтАЩs boot heels, examining them carefully, then hammered them back. He
had thoughtfully prepared himself with a hammer and a piece of metal for the operation on the boot heels.

Ben Duck suddenly decided who the searcher was.

"McCain," Ben said, shaping the name soundlessly with his lips.

It must be McCain, although he could not see the manтАЩs face. McCain was one of the dudes. He had
arrived at the Broken Circle four days ago, ostensibly from San Francisco. Ben Duck had an eerie feeling
about the fellow from the first. McCain was so thorough about everything he did. It was unnatural. Ben
had seen McCain practicing horseshoe pitching. McCain had tossed eleven ringers in succession.
McCain had not known anyone was watching.

McCainтАЩs white hair made his age indeterminate, but he was a large man who walked with a definite
limp. His blue eyes had a glasslike quality. He spoke very seldom in a rather nasal voice. Mostly he kept
to himself, limping about the neighborhood of the ranch.

Limp. . . . Limp. . . . He wasnтАЩt limping now. Ben Duck frowned. It was McCain, all right. But McCain
wasnтАЩt limping tonight.

Ben felt of his six-shooter. It was one of the dude-ranch props, and wearing it had embarrassed him. It
was loaded with blanks, but genuine .45-caliber cartridges studded BenтАЩs wide stamped leather belt.

Ben started to put genuine bullets in the six-gun in place of the blanks, then changed his mind. He was
one cowboy who couldnтАЩt hit the side of a bunkhouse with a hand gun. Genuine cowboys of this day
didnтАЩt wear six-guns. He had shot lots of coyotes on the run with a rifle. He didnтАЩt have a rifle, though.

McCain, and he wasnтАЩt limping.

McCain finished his examination of Albert Panzer. Apparently he had not taken anything. But what a
thorough search he had given Panzer.

While Ben Duck was deciding to step forward and bluntly accost McCain, the latter suddenly vanished
into the greasewood shadows. He went suddenly, silently, and after he disappeared there was no sound
or movement to show what he had done. He might still be there. He might have gone.

Ben Duck moved his shoulders impatiently, because there was a creepy sensation up and down his back.
He decided to put some real bullets in the six-gun anyway. He tilted the cylinder out and ejected the
cylindrical brass blanks into his palm. The plump weight of the genuine bullets was reassuring as he
stuffed them into the cylinder chambers.

He was conscious of feeling a little dizzy, and then it got quite dark. The darkness was pleasant,
somewhat like sleep.