Creeping stealthily to the porch she peered in at the window.
Eddie was stretched out in cramped though seeming
luxury in an office chair. His feet were cocked up on the desk
before him. In his lap lay his six-shooter ready for any
emergency. Another reposed in its holster at his belt.
Barbara tiptoed to the door. Holding her breath she turned
the knob gently. The door swung open without a sound, and
an instant later she stood within the room. Again her eyes
were fixed upon Eddie Shorter. She saw his nerveless fingers
relax their hold upon the grip of his revolver. She saw the
weapon slip farther down into his lap. He did not move, other
than to the deep and regular breathing of profound slumber.
Barbara crossed the room to his side.
Behind the ranchhouse three figures crept forward in the
shadows. Behind them a matter of a hundred yards stood a
little clump of horses and with them were the figures of more
men. These waited in silence. The other three crept toward the
house. It was such a ranchhouse as you might find by the
scores or hundreds throughout Texas. Grayson, evidently, or
some other Texan, had designed it. There was nothing Mexican
about it, nor anything beautiful. It stood two storied,
verandaed and hideous, a blot upon the soil of picturesque
Mexico.
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