Part 19

“I’m going to shoot you now and here in your tracks, where every one can look on,” I told him in a whisper--and I kept smiling. “Don’t you dare to pull a gun. I’ve got you covered. I’ve got a revolver in that hand that’s wrapped in the tail of this coat and it’s aimed at you. I’m going to shoot you while I’m smiling. There are men looking at me. I’ll say that the gun went off by accident. It’ll be believed, because we look so sociable. Hold on! Don’t you open that mouth to yell. You’ve got one chance for your life. I’ll tell you now--because I’ll never have a better chance to get you proper if you don’t take that chance I offer.”

I was stalling then, for I had not intended to talk so long. Mr. Pratt stood there as stiff as a wooden man.

He took a peep at my hand that was muffled in the skirt of my frock-coat. The unseen terrifies most. His face grew pale. He continued-to stare at the hidden thing that threatened his life. My smile broadened--it was no assumed smile--for my wrapped hand was empty.

“You may think that this is a queer place for me to hold you up”

If Pratt could have known what was passing in my mind at that moment he would have agreed. It would also have astonished Mr. Pratt to know that I was just then raking my soul in order to think of something to say next.

There seemed to be an infernally long time between the shuttlings of the White Ghost. I felt like an anarchist who has timed a bomb and finds his fuse faulty. Where in the devil’s name was the fool? I knew I couldn’t stand there and tell a serial story to Pratt. A dangerous light was coming into the man’s eyes. Astonishment had held him for the first few moments, then fear had chained him, but finally panic was plainly breaking out in him, and in such cases a victim will run amuck regardless of consequences. I felt that Pratt was getting ready to howl and leap upon me.

Where was the White Ghost?

The thought came to me that this prolonged absence hinted at one consolation--the White Ghost must be filling many orders--his tray would be heaped to the ceiling.

“Your one chance is--” said I--and then it happened!

Without warning, the swing doors burst open under the kick of the White Ghost’s foot and forth from the cavern of the kitchen came the thunderbolt. I had been waiting and listening, and was ready to dodge. The petrified Pratt never stirred a stump. There was a howl from warning diners--a collision, a terrific crash, and Pratt went down under the avalanche. The White Ghost was lugging one of the biggest loads of his career. There were deep plates in which hot and greasy soup swam, there were gravied meats, nappies of vegetables, tea, coffee, macaroni, pies, and puddings. Mr. Pratt was buried under dishes, hot soup blinded his eyes, macaroni was twined around his neck, pies plastered his shirt bosom, and his clothes sopped up liquids. He might have been labeled, “A dinner in eruption!” The White Ghost dove across him and skated along the floor on his nose.

I hurried to Pratt and began to paw the dishes from off him. And having planned just what I was going to do and knowing just where to seek for what I wanted, I dove a hand into Pratt’s inside vest pocket and yanked out the big wallet. Other men ran to help me, there was excitement, and in that mess of provisions which I was cuffing to right and left my handling of the wallet was noticed by no one. I was kneeling close beside Pratt and I shoved the wallet between my knees, and when I arose, slid it up under my coat.

There were plenty of volunteers whose hands were out to boost Mr. Pratt to his feet. His eyes were tightly shut and he was bellowing about the pain the soup was giving him. I took the rôle of close friend and ordered the rescuers to carry Mr. Pratt to the wash-room and give him first aid with towels and water. I followed close upon their heels and elbowed Kingsley along with the push. The judge had stood at some distance during our drama. I pulled his hand up under my coat and set it on the wallet.

“Grab it!” I whispered. “Slip it under your coat; get out of this hotel and around the corner. Jam the money into your stocking and stamp the wallet down into the mud. Be careful no one sees you.”

It was on me that Pratt’s eyes first opened--for I was swabbing the soup out of those eyes with the end of a wet towel.

But when he opened his mouth I swabbed the towel across his lips. Other volunteers were working away at the clothing of the victim with wet towels.

All at once Pratt began to slap himself on the breast and howl. His laments in regard to the hot soup in his eyes had been loud, but in contrast to his latest outburst they were as the voice of the chickadee compared with the roar of the lion. After he had beat upon his breast, he dove a greasy hand into his vest pocket. It was empty. His eyes goggled, his face grew purple, he shouted, he swore, and he raved.

He had been done, trimmed, robbed, frisked, touched--so were his bellowings! He searched his soul for synonyms with which to announce to the world that his wallet had been stolen. And then he accused me--accused me with violence and profanity.

“Just one moment, sir,” I suggested, taking advantage of a moment when Mr. Pratt was choking. “You are sure those dishes didn’t crack your skull a bit and injure your brain?”

After spitting many oaths, Mr. Pratt declared that he was all right and knew what he was talking about.

“You’ll have to back that up,” I told him. “Fifty men were looking at you when that thing happened. I have not been out of the sight of those men since. You say it was a large wallet.” I unbuttoned my coat and slung it open. “Will any gentleman present kindly search me?”

“He is going too far when he shoots off his mouth about a gent like you,” declared somebody in the crowd. “We all saw you. All you did was try to help the son of a gun out of his mess--and that’s all the thanks you get!”

“Mistakes are bound to occur. I demand that some gentleman make sure that I have no wallet on my person. My own money is in a roll in my trousers pocket.”

A solid-looking citizen searched me, uttering apologies. “There ain’t any wallet on this gent, and you’d better ask his pardon for remarks offered,” suggested the citizen.

But Pratt only raved the louder.

“I’d like to say a word just here,” called a voice. The stage-driver pushed to the front. “You all know me and you know I ain’t any liar. This gent, here, is a friend of mine and he wouldn’t do dirt to anybody. He’s a friend of our mayor, too.” He put his hand affectionately on my shoulder. “But as for that other cuss, there, in the piebald clothes, I heard him make threats not longer ago than this morning that he would get my friend, and get him good and plenty.”

“Maybe you think I arranged to have those seventeen dinners dumped over me so as to make the plot a good one, you pie-eyed horse-walloper, you,” squealed Pratt, beginning to “weave” in his fury like a caged bear.

“I wouldn’t wonder a mite,” replied the driver, coolly. “When I heard you threatening to get my friend you was mad enough to try on most anything.”

“He got my money, I tell you. I felt him at my pocket while I was trying to get my senses back. Blast you all for infernal fools, I’ve been robbed right before your eyes and you’re backing up the thief.”

There was a stir at the door and the crowd glanced that way and parted respectfully. It was His Honor the Mayor of Breed City. He stood for a few moments and listened to the language Pratt addressed to me. Then he broke in with authority:

“Just a moment, citizens! There’s a lot about this affair, here, that I know and cannot tell. As for that knave who accuses Mr. Mann, I declare on my honor that he is a dangerous foe to this city. He has come here to try to ruin it if his scheme works.”

Mr. Pratt at this point managed to control the amazement that was provoked by the appearance of this new champion.

“I tell you, Mayor,” he shouted, “you’ve got the wrong dope about me. Dragg tried to get me into the scheme, but I----”

“You are convicting yourself right now out of your own mouth,” broke in the mayor. He marched up to Pratt, finger upraised: “You are as dangerous here as a dynamite bomb. I’ll allow you thirty minutes to get out of town. Get to those other two knaves and warn them that they’ll be lynched if they show up here--and I’ll lead the lynching-bee.”

There was immediate change in Mr. Pratt’s demeanor and the mayor and the bystanders listened to him. The fat face was lined with grief, and tears ran down his cheeks and mingled with the grub stains.

“I’m not lying about that wallet, gents. I’ve lost my bundle. It has been stolen. That’s a nice word to go out about Breed City--that a visitor to town loses his wad and the mayor backs up the man who stole it!”

“Silence!” said the mayor.

“Then I’ll simply say that I’ve lost my money--and how about law and order in a city that will let a man be trimmed in that style? Hold on one minute, Mr. Mayor! It isn’t merely a case of my own money! If it was, I’d shut up now and pass on. But I had along with mine the money of a good friend who trusted me with his roll. I left him in the calaboose back on the trail and I brought out his money to take care of it for him, for he was afraid they’d get to him for it. That’s God’s truth, Mayor.”

In a crowd there may be found champions for the under dog--even when a mayor has turned down his thumb. I heard murmurs. One voice suggested that the matter better be looked into--the good name of Breed City demanded it.

“I haven’t much to say in this business, even though this man has accused me,” I said in the silence that followed. “Now that you are on the subject of your money, Mr. Pratt, and are making such a squeal in regard to the loss of it, will you allow me to ask you how much of it was money you stole in the East--especially from Zebulon Kingsley of Levant?”

If I had struck “Peacock” Pratt between the eyes the effect could not have been more noticeable. Most of those men who were present had been trained to gauge the human expression in that region of plain and mountain where life itself sometimes depends on the ability to judge between bluff and resolve. His fat cheeks flushed and then they grew pale. That a stranger in the Far West should be able to cast in his teeth one of his latest exploits staggered him. He tried to speak and couldn’t.

“Pratt, you have twenty-two more minutes left of that half hour,” stated the mayor, after silence had continued for some moments.

“I suppose that has to go for to-day,” said Pratt. “But it doesn’t go for to-morrow--nor for next day if my friends and I can get back here, Mr. Mayor! Lynch or no lynch!”

He buttoned his waistcoat, took a mournful look at himself in the wash-room mirror, and headed for a livery-stable which a sarcastic bystander recommended. I knew that threat to come back wasn’t mere talk. Mr. Pratt had good reason to take the risks!

I took my first chance and escaped from the populace of Breed City to hunt up Kingsley in the little room in the hotel.

“How much?” I was all a-tremble.

“A little over six thousand dollars. Mostly five-hundred-dollar bills. Part of it is tied up in a separate package and marked with Dawlin’s name.” The judge was not very enthusiastic.

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“In order to be on the right side and make allowance for delays here and there, we ought to leave here tomorrow, Judge Kingsley. And even then we’d be having hours for a margin--not days. I felt pretty good when I heard Pratt say that he had Dawlin’s money along. I figured there would be more between the two of ’em.”

“Then it’s all over, is it? We’re beaten, eh?”

“What do _you_ think?”

“I think we are.”

“Well, sir,” I said, “you and I have always seemed to make more progress when I take the opposite side in an argument. I predict that we shall win out. Please hand over that money.”

“The money is mine--it was stolen from me. You’re too reckless to handle money. We’re beaten, I tell you. I’ll send that money home to my wife and daughter. It’s something for them to live on. I’ll kill myself out here.”

Judge Kingsley put both hands over his breast pocket. He was hysterical. There was no reasoning with him and so I rose from the bed, walked across the room, and snapped a finger under his nose. Zebulon Kingsley must not have money in his pocket--in that case I could not handle him or trust him to stay with me!

“Give--me--that--money!”

He stared and groaned and obeyed.

I divided the bills into packets, tucked them into my various pockets, and walked out of the room.

“This money needs an airing,” I informed the judge. “I’ll take it outdoors and give it one. It has been in some mighty bad company.”

XXII--MONEY ON THE GALLOP

IN most circumstances, being padded with bills to the amount of six thousand dollars would be comfortably warming. But in my case the possession of that sum only provoked irritation.

I had set out to save Zebulon Kingsley’s name and the peace of mind of his family. The sum I had replevined by my scheme of justice fell far short of what we needed--and there was the promise I had given Dodovah Vose, as well.

From the hotel porch I saw my friend, the stage-driver, humping it toward me.

“I have tripped, tied, and gagged him. That was the only thing to do! He got here and he got two drinks into himself before I could slip the bridle on him. In another two minutes he would have been jumping clear off’n the ground, head and tail up, snorting out everything he knows. But I got to him--and I’ve laid him away, tied and gagged. Go to it, Mr. Mann, go to it, I tell you!”

He certainly was some excited!

“Are you talking about a man or a cayuse?” I asked. “I’m talking about ‘Dirty-shirt’--he’s just in from Blacksnake Gully ahead of the news. Say, they’ve struck a brown crumble in ‘Bright Eyes’ with gold set into the mush like raisins in a drunken cook’s pudding. You’re a sport and a friend of mine. I’m letting you in. Come along!”

He ran away a little distance and whirled and halted with the eager air of a dog who is inviting his master to follow. I’ll bet if he had had long ears he would have perked them; if he had had a tail he would have wagged it.

“You’re a sport--and I know it. Come along,” he called.

Along the street came loafing the individual who had tried to sell me “Bright Eyes” stock, and he heard that call.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, pard,” he advised the driver. “He’s no sport. I have tried him out. He won’t take a chance. I gave him a chance on some mining shares.”

“What shares?” asked the stage-driver.

“‘Bright Eyes’ in the Blacksnake.”

My friend was truly a good actor. He showed no interest.

“Shift the name to ‘blacked eyes.’ Yes, and both of ’em closed at that. No good!”

“I tell you there’s something in the air,” insisted the other. “It’s a fair gamble at twenty-five cents a share.” He pulled out some papers and walked up to me.

“You look like ready money, my friend. I’d rather play the wheel just now than be rich. I’m tied in here by the mud and it’s getting on to my nerves. Take ten thousand at twenty-five cents. I’ll close out to you.”

“Hold on!” sang out the driver, and he managed to smuggle a wink to me while he was tugging papers out of his pocket on his way back to join us. “If you’re in the market for ‘Bright Eyes,’ Eastern fellow, here’s ten thousand shares for fifteen cents a share.”.

“Don’t you come butting in on my market,” protested the prospector, elbowing the driver away. “I got to this gent first.”

“Those shares have been used all over this section for counters in poker games when beans got too expensive,” sneered the driver.

The prospector pulled out more papers.

“If you’ll take twenty thousand at ten cents a share I’ll pass ’em over. I was intending to hold on to ten thousand shares for a gamble. I tell you there’s something, somehow, somewhere, that says the hunch is out for ‘Bright Eyes.’ But I’ll let go for ten cents if you’ll take the bunch.”

“That’s no better offer than you made the other night,” I stated.

“I was pretty drunk, then, and I didn’t mean to make it. I’m daffy now, I reckon, or I wouldn’t be doing it over again.”

I stood there and looked them over and for the first time I gave a little real thought to that gold-mine proposition. Up to then the matter had been mere sound, shooting into one ear and out the other. I had been having plenty to think about in other lines.

It struck me that I was being played for a sucker by a couple of mighty awkward amateurs. Talk about Zebulon Kingsley buying a gold brick! That affair had been well buttered by some slick operators. What those two chaps were trying on me was truly raw work. That stage-driver--I didn’t even know his name--must have a healthy hate for me hidden deep down in him! I have cuffed a dog in my life and had him show more affection afterward, but I couldn’t believe that such treatment helped to mellow love in a human being. I knew it wouldn’t improve my own disposition any. In my thoughts I had some excuse for the two. They had probably been brought up to believe that the ordinary Easterner who had not already bought some punk gold-mine stock was thriftily saving up to buy some.

“There’s one of ’em born every minute,” I remarked to the stage-driver, “but I didn’t know I looked so much like one. Run away, the two of you, and fan yourselves with that stock; that’s the only way you’ll ever raise any wind with it.”

“You ain’t talking to me, are you--to me--Wash Flye?” inquired the driver.

“I am, if that’s your name--and it seems to fit you! But you are not fly enough!”

He opened eyes and mouth on me, stepped back a few feet, and visibly swelled.

“Well, my-y-y Ga-a-awd!” he wailed. “If that ain’t using the butt end of the whip on a willing friend, may I never sort webbin’s again!”

There was truly something sincere in his distress. But that sudden warming-up to me on the prairie after I had manhandled him, his unaccountable friendliness, his jacking his job for a few days in order to dog me about Breed City--the whole thing was too openly a plant.

“You’re a good actor. No wonder you’re in the stage business, Flye,” was my poor joke.

He looked at me for a full minute. Then he turned on the other man.

“It’s you, you horn-gilled wump, with your sashay prices and your drunken man’s gab--it’s you that has put me in wrong with a friend,” he squealed. “He thinks I’m like you are! He thinks I’m in mush with you on a brace! I’ll show him and you!” He leaped forward and began to kick the prospector with fury. The latter was a big and rather torpid person and he seemed to be in a sort of daze at first, and stood still while Mr. Flye kicked him. Then he turned and knocked Mr. Flye down; he picked him up and knocked him down again.

It struck me that if this were acting between friends it was getting too realistic. The driver’s face was bloody and he lay where he fell, his eyes closed.

I jumped between and pushed the prospector away. He struck at me and I was obliged to hit him a clip or two before he would hold off. We had a fairly good audience, but fisticuffs in Breed, when the muddy season made tempers short, seemed to stir only mild interest.

I found Mr. Flye on his knees and “weaving” weakly when I turned to him.

“I ain’t no fighter--I don’t pretend to be a fighter,” he mumbled. “I knew he was going to lick me if I kicked him. But that’s all right! There’s three teeth loose and my eyes are bunging! I can feel ’em! But it’s all right. If anybody thinks it was a scuffle between friends, he’d better take another think. I’ve took a licking to show some folks that there’s such a thing as being mistook in a man.”

I hadn’t straightened out my opinions, exactly, but I felt sudden pity and new respect for Mr. Flye, and some emotion even deeper. I helped him to his feet and took him into the wash-room of the hotel and fixed him up as best I could.

“I don’t blame you so very much,” he kept assuring me, whimpering through his bruised and bleeding lips. “It probably hasn’t seemed natural to you--it hasn’t seemed natural to me. This world is full of crooks and I s’pose you’ve been up against a lot of ’em. I done one crooked thing myself once when I kept water away from a drove of hogs for two days and then let ’em drink all they could hold just before I sold ’em live weight to a Snake River drover. But that drover had stolen two cayuses off’n my uncle! I didn’t know what I could do to show you, sir! Probably what I have done don’t show you. But I’ve done my best. It was all I could think of on short notice. I’ll let a dozen men beat me up if you will only understand that I ain’t going to do you or try to do you!”

That spirit of humble martyrdom was certainly getting to me!

“Look here, Mr Flye,” I blurted, “I don’t understand at all. Why in blazes are you taking all this interest in me?”

He gazed at me out of those pathetic, pale-blue eyes around which blue-black circles were settling. It was a lingering and wistful gaze.

“I don’t know, sir. It came over me all of a sudden. It ain’t often I take to anybody. It just came over me. You’re a real gent--you knowed just how to handle me. You know how to handle me now! Ain’t you doing the friendly act, hey?”

We were alone in the wash-room; the guests of the hotel flocked there only at meal-time.

“You can see how it looked to me--a stranger here--you two fellows chasing me up!”

“I don’t blame you, sir,” he agreed, meekly. “This world is full of crooks.”

“I have some money with me. It isn’t mine. I need more in a hurry--it’s to save a man’s name--save him from death, perhaps!” I couldn’t hold in. “It’s to save his daughter, too. I’m in love with her. I have been for years! It’s all I can think about. When you spoke of ‘Bright Eyes’ I felt--I felt--” I stopped and gulped.

“I reckon I know how you feel,” stated Mr. Flye, wagging that mussed-up head of his. “I know a girl. There’s hardly a minute when I ain’t thinking about her. She hasn’t paid no attention to me, but I’m going to her after I make my clean-up on ‘Bright Eyes’! It makes ’em think twice when there’s money. I ain’t much--”

“I’m desperate--I’m half crazy, Flye! This mine! Are you fooling me?”

He straightened and put his hand up like a man taking the oath. .

“I wanted you to get in because I liked you, sir. That’s why I was after you. But now that you say that you need money I’m begging and imploring you! If money will do what you say it will in your case, I say ’fore God you’ll commit a sin if you don’t grab in! I know it! It has come. ‘Dirty-shirt’ don’t know how to lie about it. The strike has been made. Take my word,” he pleaded.

“I’ll do it,” I told him. “I believe you’re trying to do an honest turn for me.” I put out my hand and he took it.

“Thank the Lord!” he said, and there was a lot of manliness about Mr. Wash Flye at that moment. “That licking was a good investment.” He said it devoutly.

“But will that fellow sell now?”

“Can you handle his twenty thousand shares at ten cents--two thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

“When I offered at fifteen I was trying to beat him down to ten. Don’t give a cent more. Go show him the money and say you’re willing to be buncoed once in your life. And hurry--for the love of Sancho, hurry!”

I found the prospector watching a roulette game with the sour gaze of a busted gambler. He went into the corner with me when I jerked invitation with my chin.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he growled, when I mentioned the stock. “And I wouldn’t do business with you anyway, you--”

I unfolded four five-hundred-dollar bills. He stopped his declaration as suddenly as if I had pinched his throat.

“Money is money, I suppose,” said he, “though your shin-plasters from the East are poor things alongside the good hard coin.”

“There’s the bank across the street, and they’ll give you the good hard coin, mister.”