“Wonder if he’ll ever find out?” Folsom asked.
“Maybe; maybe not. He’ll be leaving here soon, and Tildy Mae can handle him,” Red replied. “Talking of handling, where did you learn to handle a gun like that?”
Folsom and his wife looked at each other. Then she smiled, and replied: “We wouldn’t want this to get out, but our name isn’t Folsom.”
“No, we use it as a cover,” said her husband. “Find it is less trouble than using my own.”
Red watched the man’s face. Was there something familiar about it he wondered. “Less trouble?” That was more polite than a direct question.
“Yes, you see my real name is Frank Leslie.”
Six – The Winner of the Bet
“Buckskin Frank Leslie?” Dusty looked at his cousin Red. “I often wondered where he’d got to.”
The hour was late and Jean Mollison looked around the table at the men who sat there. She took in Mark’s classically handsome features and his giant’s size. Then at the Indian-dark, baby-faced innocent expression of the Ysabel Kid. Next, at the freckle-faced, pugnaciously good-looking face of Red Blaze. Then at the intelligent, well-shaped features of the boy she only knew as Waco. Finally her eyes went to the small, insignificant-looking man who was the leader of this reckless bunch of peerless fighting men. The man who led them and steered them through any trouble! Dusty Fog.
“Tell you though,” Red went on, having just completed the story of his adventures. “With my kind of luck, I shouldn’t be paying in more than six dollars. It was five-to-one that I found trouble.”
“You put down the thirty, Red boy,” the Ysabel Kid replied unsympathetically.
“The question is, who’s won the bet,” Jean remarked.
All eyes went to the girl, and the same question flooded into the heads of the men around the table.
“Let me see,” Jean went on, ticking the names off on her fingers. “Waco got into trouble in Bennet. The Ysabel Kid found his in the town of Wet Slim. Mark Counter made it to Casa Grande, then he lost out. Red Blaze, you reached Pinto then you found trouble.”
Dusty reached across the table and took up the money. He tapped it into a neat pile and took the wallet from inside his shirt, opening it.
“Hold hard there, Dusty!” the Kid said softly. “Why for are you putting that money away? You was belly-deep in trouble when we got here.”
“Why sure,” Dusty agreed. “What was the bet?”
“That we got to Tensonville without trouble,” Mark stated, but there was worry in his voice now.
“What’s the name of this town?” Dusty turned to Jean and asked.
“Tensonville,” Jean replied, a gurgle of amusement coming into her voice as she saw what Dusty was driving at.
So did the others around the table; and dismay started to show in four faces even before Dusty started to talk again.
Jean threw back her head, laughing at the mingled dismay and annoyance on the four faces. Then she composed herself and putting on a straight and judicial face nodded her head.
“As an impartial judge, I’d say that Dusty Fog has won the bet.”
About the Author
J. T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.
The Floating Outfit Series by J. T. Edson
The Ysabel Kid
.44 Caliber Man
A Horse Called Mogollon
Goodnight’s Dream
From Hide and Horn
Set Texas Back on Her Feet
The Hide and Tallow Men
The Hooded Riders
Quiet Town
Trail Boss
Wagons to Backsight
Troubled Range
Sidewinder
Rangeland Hercules
McGraw’s Inheritance
White Indians
Texas Kidnappers
The Wildcats
The Bad Bunch
The Fast Gun
Cuchilo
A Town Called Yellowdog
Trigger Fast
The Trouble Busters
The Making of a Lawman
Decision for Dusty Fog
Cards and Colts
The Code of Dusty Fog
The Gentle Giant
Set-A-Foot
The Making of a Lawman
The Peacemakers
To Arms! To Arms! In Dixie!
Hell in the Palo Duro
Go Back to Hell
The Quest for Bowie’s Blade
Beguinage
Beguinage Is Dead
The Rushers
Buffalo Are Coming!
The Fortune Hunters
Rio Guns
Gun Wizard
The Texan
... And more to come every month!
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