The Coming of Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford (children's ebooks online .txt) 📖

is some puzzle.” He mounted the stairs shaking his head thoughtfully. “It shore is, it shore is.”

The next morning when Bill whirled up to the Crazy M bunkhouse and dismounted before the door a puncher was emerging. He started to say something, noticed Bill’s guns and went on without a word. Bill turned around and looked after him in amazement. “Well, what th’ devil!” he growled. Before he could do anything, had he wished to, Mr. Oleson stepped quickly from the house, nodded and hurried toward the ranch house, motioning for Bill to follow. Entering the house, the foreman of the Crazy M waited impatiently for Bill to get inside, and then hurriedly closed the door.

“They Ve got onto it some way,” he said, his taciturnity gone; “but that don’t make no difference if you Ve got th’ sand. I’ll pay you one hundred an’ fifty a month, furnish yore cayuses an’ feed you. I’m losin’ more ‘n two hundred cows every month an’ can’t get a trace of th’ thieves. Harris, Marshal of Clay Gulch, is stumped, too. He can’t move without proof; you can. Th’ first man to get is George Thomas, then his brother Art. By that time you’ll know how things lay. George Thomas is keepin’ out of Harris’ way. He killed a man last week over in Tuxedo an’ Harris wants to take him over there. He’ll not help you, so don’t ask him to.” Before Bill could reply or recover from his astonishment Oleson continued and described several men. “Look out for ambushes. It’ll be th’ hardest game you ever went up ag’in, an’ if you ain’t got th’ sand to go through with it, say so.”

Bill shook his head. “I got th’ sand to go through with anythin’ I starts, but I don’t start here. I reckon you got th’ wrong man. I come up here to look over a herd for Buck Peters; an’ here you go shovin’ wages like that at me. When I tells Buck what I’ve been offered he’ll fall dead.” He laughed. “Now I knows th’ answer to a lot of things.

“Here, here!” he exclaimed as Oleson began to rave. “Don’t you go an’ get all het up like that.

I reckon I can keep my face shut. An’ lemme observe in yore hat-like ear that if th’ rest of this gang is like th’ samples I seen in town, a good gun-man would shore be robbin’ you to take all that money for th’ job. Fifty a month, for two months, would be a-plenty.”

Oleson’s dismay was fading, and he accepted the situation with a grim smile. “You don’t know them fellers,” he replied. “They’re a bad lot, an’ won’t stop at nothin’.”

“All right. Let’s take a look at them cows. I want to get home soon as I can.”

Oleson shook his head. “I gave you up, an’ when I got a better offer I let ‘em go. I’m sorry you had th’ ride for nothin’, but I couldn’t get word to you.”

Bill led the way in silence back to the bunk house and mounted his horse. “All right,” he nodded. “I shore was late. Well, I’ll be goin’.”

“That gun-man is late, too,” said Oleson. “Mebby he ain’t comin’. You want th’ job at my figgers?”

“Nope. I got a better job, though it don’t pay so much money. It’s steady, an’ a hull lot cleaner. So-long,” and Bill loped away, closely watched by Shorty Allen from the corral. And after an interval, Shorty mounted and swung out of the other gate of the corral and rode along the bottom of an arroyo until he felt it was safe to follow Bill’s trail. When Shorty turned back he was almost to town, and he would not have been pleased had he known that Bill knew of the trailing for the last ten miles. Bill had doubled back and was within a hundred yards of Shorty when that person turned ranchward.

“Huh! I must be popular,” grunted Bill. “I reckon I will stay in Clay Gulch till t’morrow mornin’; an’ at the Victoria,” he grinned. Then he laughed heartily. “Victoria! I got a better name for it than that, all right.”

When he pulled up before the Victoria and looked in the proprietor scowled at him, which made Bill frown as he went on to Hawley’s. Putting his horse in the corral he carried his saddle and rifle into the barroom and looked around.

There was no one in sight, and he smiled. Putting the saddle and rifle back in one corner under the bar and covering them with gunny sacks he strolled to the Victoria and entered through the rear door. The proprietor reached for his gun but reconsidered in time and picked up a glass, which he polished with exaggerated care. There was something about the stranger that obtruded upon his peace of mind and confidence. He would let some one else try the stranger out.

Bill walked slowly forward, by force of will ironing out the humor in his face and assuming his sternest expression. “I want supper an’ a bed, an’ don’t forget to be plumb polite,” he rumbled, sitting down by the side of a small table in such a manner that it did not in the least interfere with the movement of his right hand. The observing proprietor observed and gave strict attention to the preparation of the meal. The gun-man, glancing around, slowly arose and walked carelessly to a chair that had blank wall behind it, and from where he could watch windows and doors.

When the meal was placed before him he glanced up. “Go over there an’sit down,” he ordered, motioning to a chair that stood close to the rifle that leaned against the wall. “Loaded?” he demanded. The proprietor could only nod. “Then sling it acrost yore knees an’ keep still. Well, start movin’.”

The proprietor walked as though he were in a trance but when he seated himself and reached for the weapon a sudden flash of understanding illumined him and caused cold sweat to bead upon his wrinkled brow. He put the weapon down again, but the noise made Bill look up.

“Acrost yore knees,” growled the puncher, and the proprietor hastily obeyed, but when it touched his legs he let loose of it as though it were hot. He felt a great awe steal through his fear, for here was a gun-man such as he had read about. This man gave him all the best of it just to tempt him to make a break. The rifle had been in his hands, and while it was there the gun-man was calmly eating with both hands on the table and had not even looked up until the noise of the gun made him!

“My Gawd, ‘e must be a wizard with ‘em. I ‘opes I don’t forget!” With the thought came a great itching of his kneecap; then his foot itched so as to make him squirm and wear horrible expressions. Bill, chancing to glance up carelessly, caught sight of the expressions and growled, whereupon they became angelic. Fearing that he could no longer hold in the laughter that tortured him, Bill arose.

“Shoulder, arms!” he ordered, crisply. The gun went up with trained precision. “Been a sojer,” thought Bill. “Carry, arms! About, face! To a bedroom, march!” He followed, holding his sides, and stopped before the room. “This th’ best?” he demanded. “Well, it ain’t good enough for me. About, face! Forward, march! Column, left! Ground, arms! Fall out.” Tossing a coin on the floor as payment for the supper Bill turned sharply and went out without even a backward glance.

The proprietor wiped the perspiration from his face and walked unsteadily to the bar, where he poured out a generous drink and gulped it down. Peering out of the door to see if the coast was clear, he scurried across the street and told his troubles to the harness-maker.

Bill leaned weakly against Hawley’s and laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. Pushing weakly from the building he returned to the Victoria to play another joke on its proprietor. Finding it vacant he slipped upstairs and hunted for a room to suit him. The bed was the softest he had seen for a long time and it lured him into removing his boots and chaps and guns, after he had propped a chair against the door as a warning signal, and stretching out flat on his back, he prepared to enjoy solid comfort. It was not yet dark, and as he was not sleepy he lay there thinking over the events of the past twenty-four hours, often laughing so hard as to shake the bed. What a reputation he would have in the morning! The softness of the bed got in its work and he fell asleep, for how long he did not know; but when he awakened it was dark and he heard voices coming up from below. They came from the room he had refused to take. One expression banished all thoughts of sleep from his mind and he listened intently. “‘Redheaded Irish gunman.’ Why, they means me! ‘Make him hop into h—l.’ I don’t reckon I’d do that for anybody, even my friends.”

“I tried to give ‘im this room, but ‘e wouldn’t tyke it” protested the proprietor, hurriedly. “‘E says the bloody room wasn’t good enough for ‘im, hand ‘e marches me out hand makes off. Likely ‘e’s in ‘Awley’s”

“No, he ain’t,” growled a strange voice. “You Ve gone an’ bungled th’ whole thing.”

“But I s’y I did n’t, you know. I tries to give ‘im this werry room, George, but ‘e wouldn’t ‘ave it. D’y think I wants ‘im running haround this blooming town? ‘E’s worse nor the other, hand Gawd knows ‘e was bad enough. ‘E’s a coldblooded beggar, ‘e is!”

“You missed yore chance,” grunted the other. “Wish Z had that gun you had.”

“I was wishing to Gawd you did,” retorted the proprietor. “It never looked so bloody big before, d—n ‘is ‘ide!”

“Well, his cayuse is in Hawley’s corral,” said the first speaker. “If I ever finds Hawley kept him under cover I’ll blow his head off. Come on; we’ll get Harris first. He ought to be gettin’ close to town if he got th’ word I sent over to Tuxedo. He won’t let us call him. He’s a man of his word.”

“He’ll be here, all right. Fred an’ Tom is watchin’ his shack, an’ we better take th’ other end of town there’s no tellin’ how he’ll come in now,” suggested Art Thomas. “But I wish I knowed where that cussed gun-man is.”

As they went out Bill, his chaps on and his boots in his hand, crept down the stairs, and stopped as he neared the hall door. The proprietor was coming back. The others were outside, going to their stations and did not hear the choking gasp that the proprietor made as a pair of strong hands reached out and throttled him. When he came to he was lying face down on a bed, gagged and bound by a rope that cut into his flesh with every movement. Bill, waiting a moment, slipped into the darkness and was swallowed up. He was looking for Mr. Harris, and looking eagerly.

The moon arose and bathed the dusty street and its crude shacks in silver, cunningly and charitably hiding its ugliness; and passed on as the skirmishing rays of the sun burst into the sky in close and eternal pursuit. As the dawn spread swiftly and long, thin shadows sprang across the sandy street, there arose from the dissipated darkness close to the wall of a building an armed man, weary and slow from a tiresome vigil. Another emerged from behind a pile of boards that faced the marshal’s abode, while down