2-Gun Western, February 1954 — page 51: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

WHEN A TEXAN TAKES OVER was a tough man. He had shown it more than once. Of course, nobody wanted any part of Lee Dunn, not even Gerlach. Matt Ryan rode on, but kept a good background behind him. He had no desire to sky-line himself with rustlers around. For three months now he had been working his placer claim in Pima - Canyon, just over the ridge from Mocking Bird. He had a good show of color and with persistent work he made better than cowhand’s: wages. But lately he was doing better. Twice in the past month he had struck pockets that netted him nearly a hundred dollars each. The result was that his last month had brought him in the neighborhood of three hun- dred in gold. Matt Ryan knew the hills and the men who rode them. None of them knew him. Matt had a streak of In- dian in his nature if not in his blood, and he knew how to leave no trail and travel without being seen. He was around, but not obvious. They knew somebody was there, but who and why or where did they not know, and he liked it that way. Once a month he came out of the hills for supplies, but he never rode to the same places. Only this time he was coming back to Hanna’s Stage Sta- tion. He told himself it was because it was close, but down inside he knew it was because of Kitty Hanna. She was something who stepped out of your dreams, a lovely girl of twenty in a cotton dress and with carefully done hair, with large, Jark eyes and a mouth that would set a man to being restless... M‘Ait RYAN had stopped by two months before to eat a woman- cooked meai and to buy supplies, and he had lingered over his coffee. He was a tall, wide-shouldered young man with a slim, long-legged body and hands that swung wide of his narrow hips. He had a wedge- shaped face and green eyes, and a way of looking at you with faint hu- mor in his eyes. He carried a gun, but he carried it tucked into his waist-band, and he carried a Winchester that he never left on his saddle. 51 Nobody knew him around the Slumbering Hills, nobody knew him anywhere this side of Texas...they remembered him there. His name was a legend on the Neuces. Big Red ambled on down the trail and Matt watched the country and studied the cattle tracks. He would remember those horse tracks, too. Fi- nally the cow tracks turned off into a long valley and when he sat his horse he could see dust off over there where Thumb Butte lifted against the sky. Indian Kelly...not Dunn this time, although Dunn might have given the word. Kitty was pouring coffee when he came in and she felt her heart give a tiny leap, It had only been once, but she remembered, for when his eyes touched her that time it made her feel the woman in her...a quick ex- citement such as she felt now. Why was that? This man whom she knew nothing about? Why should he make her feel this way? He put his hat on a hook and sat down, and she saw that his hair was freshly combed and still damp from the water he had used. That meant he had stopped back there by the creek...it was unlike a drifting cowhand, or had it been for her? When he looked up she knew it had, and she liked the smile he had and the way his eyes could not seem to leave her face. “Eggs,” he said, “about four of them, and whatever vegetable you have, and a slab of beef. I’m a hungry man.” She filled his cup, standing very close to him, and she saw .the red mount under his dark skin and when she moved away it was slowly, and there was a little something in her walk. Had her father seen it he would have been angry, but this man would not be angry, and he would know it was for him, Dutch Gerlach came in, a big, brawny man with bold eyes and care- less hands. He had a wide, flat face and a confident, knowing manner that she hated. Fred Hitch was with him. They looked at Ryan, then looked again. He was that sort of man, and something about him irritated Ger- lach. But the big foreman of the KY — said nothing. He was watching Kitty. COPMICGLOOOKS (E@