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

the street another crept over the edge of a dried-out water course and swore softly as he stood up slowly to flex away the stiffness of cramped limbs. Of vain speculation he was empty; he had exhausted all the whys and hows long before and now only muttered discontentedly as he reviewed the hours of fruitless waiting. And he was uneasy; it was not like Harris to take a dare and swallow his own threats without a struggle. He looked around apprehensively, shrugged his shoulders and stalked behind the shacks across from the two hotels.

Another figure crept from the protection of Hawley’s corral like a slinking coyote, gun in hand and nervously alert. He was just in time to escape the challenge that would have been hurled at him by Hawley, himself, had that gentleman seen the skulker as he grouchily opened one shutter and scowled sleepily at the kindling eastern sky. Mr. Hawley was one of those who go to bed with regret and get up with remorse, and his temper was always easily disturbed before breakfast. The skulker, safe from the remorseful gentleman’s eyes, and gun, kept close to the building as he walked and was again fortunate, for he had passed when Mr. Hawley strode heavily into his kitchen to curse the cold, rusty stove, a rite he faithfully performed each morning. Across the street George and Art Thomas walked to meet each other behind the row of shacks and stopped near the harness shop to hold a consultation. The subject was so interesting that for a few moments they were oblivious to all else.

A man softly stepped to the door of the Victoria and watched the two across the street with an expression on his face that showed his smiling contempt for them and their kind. He was a small man, so far as physical measurements go, but he was lithe, sinewy and compact. On his opened vest, hanging slovenly and blinking in the growing light as if to prepare itself for the blinding glare of midday, glinted a fivepointed star of nickel, a lowly badge that every rural community knows and holds in an awe far above the metal or design. Swinging low on his hip gleamed the ivory butt of a silver-plated Colt, the one weakness that his vanity seized upon. But under the silver and its engraving, above and before the cracked and stained ivory handles, lay the power of a great force; and under the casing of the marshal’s small body lay a virile manhood, strong in courage and determination. Toby Harris watched, smilingly; he loved the dramatic and found keen enjoyment in the situation. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a carelessly dressed cowpuncher slouching indolently along close to the buildings on the other side of the street with the misleading sluggishness of a panther. The red hair, kissed by the slanting rays of the sun where it showed beneath the soiled sombrero, seemed to be a flaming warning; the half -closed eyes, squinting under the brim of the big hat, missed nothing as they darted from point to point.

The marshal stepped silently to the porch and then on to the ground, his back to the rear of the hotel, waiting to be discovered. He had been in sight perhaps a minute. The cowpuncher made a sudden, eye-baffling movement and smoke whirled about his hips. Fred, turning the corner behind the marshal, dropped his gun with a scream of rage and pain and crashed against the window in sudden sickness, his gunhand hanging by a tendon from his wrist. The marshal stepped quickly forward at the shot and for an instant gazed deeply into the eyes of the startled rustlers. Then his Colt leaped out and crashed a fraction of a second before the brothers fired. George Thomas reeled, caught sight of the puncher and fired by instinct. Bill, leaving Harris to watch the other side of the street, was watching the rear corner of the Victoria and was unprepared for the shot. He crumpled and dropped and then the marshal, enraged, ended the rustler’s earthly career in a stream of flame and smoke. Tom, turning into the street further down, wheeled and dashed for his horse, and Art, having leaped behind the harness shop, turned and fled for his life. He had nearly reached his horse and was going at top speed with great leaps when the prostrate man in the street, raising on his elbow, emptied his gun after him, the five shots sounding almost as one. Art Thomas arose convulsively, steadied himself and managed to gain the saddle. Harris looked hastily down the street and saw a cloud of dust racing northward, and grunted. “Let them go they won’t never come back no more.” Running to the cowpuncher he raised him after a hurried examination of the wounded thigh. “Hop along, Cassidy,” he smiled in encouragement. “You’ll be a better man with one good laig than th’ whole gang was all put together.”

The puncher smiled faintly as Hawley, running to them, helped him toward his hotel. “Th’ bone is plumb smashed. I reckon I’ll hop along through life. It’ll be hop along, for me, all right. That’s my name, all right. Huh! Hopalong Cassidy! But I didn’t hop into h 1, did I, Harris?” he grinned bravely.

And thus was born a nickname that found honor and fame in the cow-country a name that stood for loyalty, courage and most amazing gunplay. I have Red’s word for this, and the endorsement of those who knew him at the time. And from this on, up to the time he died, and after, we will forsake “Bill” and speak of him as Hopalong Cassidy, a cowpuncher who lived and worked in the days when the West was wild and rough and lawless; and who, like others, through the medium of the only court at hand, Judge Colt, enforced justice as he believed it should be enforced.

VII “DEALING THE ODD”

FARO-BANK is an expensive game when luck turns a cold shoulder on any player, and “going broke” is as easy as ruffling a deck. When a man finds he has two dollars left out of more than two months’ pay and that it has taken him less than thirty minutes to get down to that mark, he cannot be censored much if he rails at that Will-o’-the-wisp, the Goddess of Luck. Put him a good ten days’ ride from home, acquaintances and money and perhaps he will be justified in adding heat in plenty to his denunciation. He had played to win when he should have coppered, coppered when he should have played to win, he had backed both ends against the middle and played the high card as well but only when his bets were small did the turn show him what he wanted to see. Perhaps the case-keeper had hoodooed him, for he never did have any luck at cards when a towheaded man had a finger in the game.

Fuming impotently at his helplessness, a man limped across the main street in Colby, constrained and a little awkward in his new store clothes and new, squeaking boots that were clumsy with stiffness. The only things on him that he could regard as old and tried friends were the battered sombrero and the heavy, walnuthandled Colt’s .45 which rubbed comfortably with each movement of his thigh. The weapon, to be sure, had a ready cash value but he could not afford to part with it. The horse belonged to his ranch, and the saddle must not be sold; to part with it would be to lose his mark of caste and become a walking man, which all good punchers despised.

“Ten days from home, knowin’ nobody, two measly dollars in my pocket, an’ luck dead agin me,” he growled with pugnacious pessimism. “Oh, I’m a wise old bird, I am! A h—l of a wise bird. Real smart an’ cute an’ shiny, a cache of wisdom, a real, bonyfied Smart Aleck with a head full of spavined brains. I copper th’ deuce an’ th’ deuce wins; I play th’ King to win for ten dollars when I ought to copper it. I lay twobits and it comes right ten dollars an’ I see my guess go loco. Reckon I better slip these here twin bucks down in my kill-mesoon boots afore some blind papoose takes ‘em away from me. Wiser ‘n Solomon, I am; I’ve got old Cassar climbin’ a cactus for pleasure an’ joy. S-u-c-k-e-r is my middle name an’ I’m busted.”

He almost stumbled over a little tray of a three-legged table on the corner of the street and his face went hard as he saw the layout. Three halves of English walnut shells lay on the faded and soiled green cloth and a blackened, shriveled pea was still rolling from the shaking he had given the table. He stopped and regarded it gravely, jingling his two dollars disconsolately. “Don’t this town do nothin’ else besides gamble?” he muttered, looking around.

“Howd’y, stranger!” cheerfully cried a man who hastened up. “Want to see me fool you?”

The puncher’s anger was aroused to a thin, licking flame; but it passed swiftly and a cold, calculating look came into his eyes. He glanced around swiftly, trying to locate the cappers, but they were not to be seen, which worried him a little. He always liked to have possible danger where he could keep an eye on it. Perhaps they were eating or drinking the thought stirred him again to anger: two dollars would not feed him very long, nor quench his thirst.

“Pick it out, stranger,” invited the proprietor, idly shifting the shells. “It’s easy if yo’re right smart but lots of folks just can’t do it; they can’t seem to get th’ hang of it, somehow. That’s why it’s a bettin’ proposition. Here it is, right before yore eyes! One little pea, three little shells, right here plumb in front of yore eyes! Th’ little pea hides under one of th’ little shells, right in plain sight: But can you tell which one? That’s th’ whole game, right there. See how it’s done?” and the three little shells moved swiftly but clumsily and the little pea disappeared. “Now, then; where would you say it was?” demanded the hopeful operator, genially.

The puncher gripped his two dollars firmly, shifted his weight as much as possible on his sound leg, and scowled: he knew where it was. “Do I look like a kid? Do you reckon you have to coax like a fool to get me all primed up to show how remarkably smart an’ quick I am? You don’t; I know how smart I am. Say, you ain’t, not by any kinda miracle, a blind papoose, are you?” he demanded.

“What you mean?” asked the other, smiling as he waited for the joke. It did not come, so he continued. “Don’t take no harm in my fool wind-jammin’, stranger. It’s in th’ game. It’s a habit; I’ve said it so much I just can’t help it no more—I up an’ says it at a funeral once; that is, part of it th’ first part. That’s dead right! But I reckon I’m wastin’ my time unless you happen to feel coltish an’ hain’t got nothin’ to do for an age. I’ve been play in’ in hard luck th’ last week or so you see, I ain’t as good as I uster be. I ain’t quite so quick, an’ a little bit off my quickness is a whole lot off my chances. But th’ game’s square an’ that’s a good deal more’n you can say about most of ‘em.”

The puncher hesitated, a grin flickering about his thin lips and a calm joy warming him comfortably. He knew the operator. He knew that face, the peculiar, crescent-shaped