Because he listened in

Because he listened in by W. C. Tuttle is a Western short story written in the late 1920s. It follows a down-on-his-luck drifter in the desert Southwest who acts on a supposed stagecoach-robbery plan he overhears. A hard-bitten gambler known as the Laramie Kid flees Los Noches after shooting a crooked dealer, hides in a ranch loft, and overhears Larry Brett discussing a perfect holdup spot and a complicit driver. Wearing a blue shirt and out of ammunition, Laramie steals a J80 horse and intercepts the Silver City stage at Lost Creek, only to be blasted and captured by veteran driver Eph Jones. Later in Silver City, Sheriff Buck Nolan hears Brett and a visiting writer, Jimmy Colvin, reveal that the “plan” Laramie overheard was merely plotting for Colvin’s Western tale. Realizing he was duped by fiction he mistook for fact, Laramie sits wounded and roped, the butt of an ironic twist he brought on himself.

Summary written by Project Gutenberg, by machine.