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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78771 ***
+
+                         BECAUSE HE LISTENED IN
+
+                              W. C. Tuttle
+
+                     Author of “Bad and Mad,” etc.
+
+
+There was no doubt that Jim Allen, alias Jim Asher, alias the “Laramie
+Kid,” and other aliases too numerous to recount, had been having a run
+of hard luck. Things had been breaking badly for Laramie, as he was
+more generally known down where the Gila flows.
+
+Laramie was of medium height, rather scrawny, thin faced, peaked nosed,
+generally in need of a shave and a haircut--a tough hombre withal, and
+of exceeding speed with a six-shooter. Poker was a passion with Laramie,
+and he had an idea that all dealers were crooked. He knew what he’d do,
+if he were in their place--and blamed them exceedingly for doing it.
+
+There was, therefore, quite a commotion in the palatial Yellow Moon
+Saloon in Los Noches, when Laramie planted a .45 slug through the right
+arm of a silk-shirted dealer, because Laramie discarded an ace and a
+king, only to discover that the dealer held an ace full on kings. The
+percentage was all against the dealer holding such a hand, and Laramie
+didn’t believe in what is commonly termed a coincidence.
+
+The sheriff at Los Noches thereby, being filled with civic pride,
+considered Laramie at fault, and they swapped lead all around the main
+street of Los Noches, aided and abetted by other civic-minded citizens,
+who felt that the honor of Los Noches needed upholding, with the result
+that Laramie got away with a more or less shot-up horse, but his own
+skin intact.
+
+Ten miles out of Los Noches, the horse gave up the ghost, or whatever
+it is that keeps a horse together, and Laramie faced the terrible
+predicament of walking or sitting down to starve. Laramie wasn’t a
+walker. As far back as he could remember, he had always ridden a
+horse. He didn’t want to go back to Los Noches. They had queer ideas,
+those folks of Los Noches. All that fuss over a crooked gambler!
+Ridiculous! Laramie was bitter. He had a good saddle. But what use is
+a saddle, when one has no horse? No, he most surely would not go back
+to Los Noches; so he went in the opposite direction. There was always
+an opening for an energetic young man, and Laramie _was_ energetic.
+
+And that was part of the reason why Laramie awoke in the loft of a
+stable, somewhere in the next county, twenty miles or more away from Los
+Noches. He was stiff and sore, ravenously hungry, mentally alert--and
+without a cartridge for his six-shooter. It had been quite a battle in
+that Los Noches street.
+
+Laramie had discovered this cattle ranch in the dark, and, being of a
+cautious frame of mind, decided not to bother the inhabitants; so he
+had climbed to the loft and slept in what little hay remained.
+
+Now he sat up, wiped his sleep-filled eyes, and listened to the voices
+of two men, which drifted up to him through the many cracks in the rough
+flooring. One man’s voice droned a little, and Laramie was not able to
+hear what he said; but the reply was plain enough:
+
+“That sounds pretty good, pardner, but I’ll tell yuh what I’d do; I’d
+pull that job this side of the crossin’, at that hair-pin turn on the
+grade. That’s a dinger of a place. Yuh can watch both ways, and there’s
+a trail off the pinnacle. When yo’re plannin’ a job like that, always
+figure yore get-away.”
+
+“But the driver is in on the deal.”
+
+“Shore--I know that! But you’ve got to protect him, don’tcha see? You’ve
+got to make it look right to the sheriff. Yuh can’t stick up a stage and
+git twenty thousand dollars without stirrin’ up a lotta dust. That’s
+_money_! That stage comes along at about ten o’clock to-morrow mornin’,
+packin’ a fortune. There ain’t no guard, ’cause nobody expects the stage
+to be packin’ real money. That’s great. The holdup man wears a blue
+shirt----”
+
+“But the driver will lie about the description, Larry; and the sheriff
+will never find a man who corresponds to the one who robbed the stage.”
+
+“That’s great. But I’d pull it off at the hair-pin turn, if I was you.”
+
+“All right, Larry; you know better about it than I do. Now, that’s all
+set.”
+
+Laramie was wide awake now. The two men left the stable, and he scuttled
+over to peer out through a crack in the wall. They were now standing
+near the corral fence, and he could see one of them quite plain.
+
+“Larry Brett,” grunted Laramie, half aloud. “Dunno the other one.
+Whatcha know about that? Twenty thousand dollars, and the stage driver
+is in on it!”
+
+Laramie stretched out flat on his back, squinting at the sunbeams
+through the cracks in the roof. He lifted one arm and looked at his
+shirt sleeve. It was blue. Not a glaring blue, but the sky-blue of a
+shirt which had gone to the wash many times.
+
+“Blue enough,” he decided. “Plenty blue. I ain’t got a shell left for
+the old gun, if anythin’ should break wrong; but he said the driver was
+in on the deal. Don’t need no shells. All I need is a horse and saddle.
+Twenty thousand dollars! And they’ll pull the deal at the hair-pin turn
+on the grade at ten o’clock in the mornin’, eh?
+
+“I’ve gotta stay right here until t’night, starve or no starve. Then
+I’ll git me a horse and saddle, and when that stage reaches the
+hair-pin curve little Laramie will be a long ways off, packin’ the
+dinero. I’ll head for a little valley off the Gila, buy me a little
+outfit, and be somebody.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+For quite a number of years old Eph Jones had driven the stage between
+Wheeler and Silver City. Jones was a tall old leatherneck, bearded to
+the eyes, gnarled of hand. He drove the four tough bronchos over the
+bad grades with a grip of steel, scaring passengers half to death, when
+he had any passengers, by the way he swung those four horses around the
+dangerous turns. The old stage was really a relic, but Eph kept it in
+repair and never missed a trip.
+
+He usually started from Wheeler about four o’clock in the morning, in
+order to reach Silver City before the heat became unbearable. By doing
+this he could arrive there by eleven o’clock, and at that time, even in
+the summer, the thermometer did not show worse than one hundred and ten
+degrees in the shade.
+
+On this certain morning he pulled out of Wheeler at the right time.
+There was no hint that the old stage carried a fortune. As usual, old
+Eph placed a sawed-off shotgun on the seat beside him, took a big chew
+of tobacco, yelled to his horses, and went out of Wheeler in a cloud
+of dust. He had no passengers.
+
+There had been holdups on the road to Silver City, but Eph had never
+been stopped by any of the festive highwaymen. Only at odd periods was
+there enough wealth on the stage for any intrepid outlaw to bother
+about. There were mines out of Wheeler; gold mines, which often sold
+their gold to the bank at Wheeler, which in turn shipped it to Silver
+City by stage, to be sent from there to the mint.
+
+Laramie knew this. He had often thought of trying to work some scheme to
+find out when these shipments were to be made, but he had never made the
+proper connections. There was no use taking pot-luck with a daily stage.
+
+Old Eph Jones kept his four horses traveling at top speed, and the
+desert road unwound behind him like a ribbon of tawny silk. Daylight
+came. He took off his heavy coat, bit off another chew of tobacco,
+and kept going. The sun came up, and in a short time the coats of the
+horses were caked from moisture and dust.
+
+There would be water at the crossing of Lost Creek; the only water
+between Wheeler and Silver City. Lost Creek disappeared shortly below
+the crossing, never to appear again. It was nearly ten o’clock when the
+lead horses of the stage splashed into the crossing. Eph drove them far
+enough ahead to allow the wheelers to drink.
+
+On the other side, the road slanted sharply upward for fifty feet, where
+it leveled again for possibly a quarter of a mile before climbing the
+grades. It was little over a mile to the hair-pin turn.
+
+The horses were checked before drinking their fill. Old Eph kicked off
+the brake, and his long whip snapped over their lean backs like the
+report of a small rifle. They jerked into their collars and sprang
+ahead, while the whip hissed and popped, urging them to drag the heavy
+stage over that sharp pull.
+
+“Tighten yore tugs, you bat-eared scorpions!” yelled old Eph. “Git
+goin’, you buzzard bait!”
+
+The horses dug to their work, and the big stage lurched up over the
+rim. But right here occurred an interruption. The leaders swung aside,
+crowding the brush beside the road, swinging one wheel out of the rut.
+Old Eph swung hard on the lines, jammed a big foot down on the brake,
+and swore bitterly through his dusty whiskers.
+
+In the middle of the road stood a man, his face masked, a big gun in his
+right hand. He had cleverly swung the leaders into the brush, and the
+stage was blocked. Eph grumbled and squinted at the robber, who kept him
+covered with the big gun.
+
+“Changed m’ mind about the hair-pin turn,” he said to Eph. “Throw down
+the treasure box.”
+
+Eph slowly bent, lifted up the iron-bound box beneath his big feet,
+and tossed it down. It was not a big box; only about eighteen inches
+long, nearly square. On it was lettered “Wells Fargo Co.” in white
+letters. Without taking his eyes off old Eph, the bandit picked it
+up. It was heavy, and he needed both hands.
+
+“See yuh later,” he said meaningly, turned, and started for the brush
+ahead of the team.
+
+Eph’s right hand dropped to the shotgun. With a twist of his wrist he
+turned the barrels toward the retreating form, and a lean finger
+tightened over the trigger. A moment later, the stillness of the hills
+was broken by the crashing report of the old 10-gauge shotgun.
+
+The bandit stopped, staggered sideways, dropped the heavy box, and fell
+over it.
+
+“Them there buckshot,” said old Eph, as he climbed down over a wheel,
+“are shore e-fective on half-witted holdup men.”
+
+Then he went over, picked up the wounded man, and took him to the stage,
+where he roped him well, threw him inside, and went back to get the
+treasure chest.
+
+“Goin’ to be a little late at Silver City,” he said thoughtfully, as he
+kicked off the brake. “Tighten yore tugs, you bat-eared buzzards!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about three o’clock that same afternoon. Sheriff “Buck” Nolan was
+sitting out in front of his office at Silver City, seeking what little
+shade there was to be had, which wasn’t much, when Larry Brett, foreman
+of the J80, and another man, dressed in cowboy habiliments, came down
+the sidewalk to the office.
+
+“Hyah, Larry!” greeted the sheriff wearily.
+
+“’Lo, Buck! Shake hands with Jimmy Colvin.”
+
+They shook hands solemnly. Colvin was a slight, youngish man, with blue
+eyes and a wide smile, while Larry was gaunt, angular, hard bitten.
+
+“I heard about the holdup this mornin’,” said Larry. “They was tellin’
+us up at the store. Was it really the Laramie Kid?”
+
+“It shore was and is,” smiled the sheriff. “Doc Hardy jist fixed him all
+up fine. I jist got word that he smoked up Los Noches night afore last.
+Cut down on a gambler and busted him plenty. Then he tried to whip the
+whole town. Nicked the sheriff and got plumb away.”
+
+“Is he hurt bad, Buck?” Larry inquired solicitously.
+
+“Not very. A buckshot petted him on the head, and another went plumb
+through his left arm below the shoulder. Nope, he ain’t hurt none to
+speak about. The nervy cuss never had a shell in his gun nor in his
+pockets.”
+
+“That jasper must be loco. Say! Somebody stole a horse and a saddle from
+the J80 stable last night, and I wondered if Laramie----”
+
+“I ain’t been out lookin’ for his horse. Want to talk to Laramie? Shore,
+he’s able to talk, judgin’ from the cussin’ he gave the doctor.”
+
+“I _would_ like to talk to him,” said Colvin eagerly.
+
+“C’mon in,” said the sheriff.
+
+They found Laramie sitting on the edge of his little cot, holding his
+head in his hands. He looked up at them and recognized Larry.
+
+“Hyah, Brett!” he said shortly.
+
+“’Lo, Laramie! Long time I no see yuh.”
+
+“’F I had my way about it, it’d be a darned longer time before yuh’d
+ever see me again.”
+
+“I s’pose,” grinned Larry. “And if yuh look at it right, it probably
+_will_ be a long time, Laramie. Did you steal a horse and saddle from
+the J80 last night?”
+
+Laramie thought it over for a while. Then he said:
+
+“Yuh can’t prove _that_ on me. But I seen a J80 horse tied off the road,
+left-hand side, jist this side of the crossin’. Mebby that’s yore bronc
+and saddle. I didn’t see nobody with it.”
+
+Colvin had taken out a folded piece of paper and was making notes.
+Laramie looked him over curiously, but said nothing.
+
+“How much money was in that box?” asked Larry.
+
+“Danged close to twenty thousand,” said the sheriff. “They couldn’t give
+me the exact figures at the bank yet.”
+
+Laramie squinted sideways at Larry. The amount was nearly correct, but
+Larry merely looked at Colvin, a grin on his lips.
+
+“The crossing came near being the right place,” said Colvin.
+
+“That’s right,” agreed Larry. “Never heard of anythin’ so strange in my
+life.”
+
+“What’s all this about?” demanded Laramie. “Who’s that jigger”--pointing
+at Colvin--“and what’s he writin’ anyhow?”
+
+“This is Mr. Colvin, Laramie. He’s stayin’ at the J80, gittin’ what he
+calls ‘local color.’ Writin’ a Western story, and yuh never seen a man
+so particular. He had to have a holdup in the story, and he wanted to
+locate it right. He wrote it at the ford of Lost Creek, and I told him
+that the hair-pin curve was the right place. He was right. There was to
+be twenty thousand on the stage, and the driver was one of the crooks,
+and----”
+
+Laramie covered his face with his hands for a moment.
+
+“Git out of here, will yuh?” he said savagely. “My head aches, and I--I
+want time to think.”
+
+They got up together and started for the door.
+
+“Mr. Laramie,” said Colvin, “may I come back and talk with you later?
+I’d like to get your reactions----”
+
+“Better let him alone,” advised the sheriff. “He’s in bad shape.”
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the August 25, 1928 issue of
+Western Story Magazine.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78771 ***