Bar-20 Days by Clarence Edward Mulford (reading fiction .TXT) 📖

“Sh! Not so loud,” chuckled Hopalong, winking prodigiously.

Johnny pulled tentatively at his upper lip but before he could reply his companion had accosted a stranger.

“Friend, we're pilgrims in a strange land, an' we don't know the trails. Can you tell us where the docks are?”

“Certainly; glad to. You'll find them at the end of this street,” and he smilingly waved them towards the section of the town which Jeremiah T. Jones had specifically and earnestly warned them to avoid.

“Wonder if you're as thirsty as me?” solicitously inquired Hopalong of his companion.

“I was just wondering the same,” replied Johnny. “Say,” he confided in a lower voice, “blamed if I don't feel sort of lost without that Colt. Every time I lifts my right laig she goes too high—don't feel natural, nohow.”

“Same here; I'm allus feeling to see if I lost it,” Hopalong responded. “There ain't no rubbing, no weight, nor nothing.”

“Wish I had something to put in its place, blamed if I don't.”

“Why, now yo're talking—mebby we can buy something,” grinned Hopalong, happily. “Here's a hardware store—come on in.”

The clerk looked up and laid aside his novel. “Good-morning, gentlemen; what can I do for you? We've just got in some fine new rifles,” he suggested.

The customers exchanged looks and it was Hopalong who first found his voice. “Nope, don't want no rifles,” he replied, glancing around. “To tell the truth, I don't know just what we do want, but we want something, all right—got to have it. It's a funny thing, come to think of it; I can't never pass a hardware store without going in an' buying something. I've been told my father was the same way, so I must inherit it. It's the same with my pardner, here, only he gets his weakness from his whole family, and it's different from mine. He can't pass a saloon without going in an' buying something.”

“Yo're a cheerful liar, an' you know it,” retorted Johnny. “You know the reason why I goes in saloons so much—you'd never leave 'em if I didn't drag you out. He inherits that weakness from his grandfather, twice removed,” he confided to the astonished clerk, whose expression didn't know what to express.

“Let's see: a saw?” soliloquized Hopalong. “Nope; got lots of 'em, an' they're all genuine Colts,” he mused thoughtfully. “Axe? Nails? Augurs? Corkscrews? Can we use a corkscrew, Johnny? Ah, thought I'd wake you up. Now, what was it Cookie said for us to bring him? Bacon? Got any bacon? Too bad—oh, don't apologize; it's all right. Cold chisels—that's the thing if you ain't got no bacon. Let me see a three-pound cold chisel about as big as that,”—extending a huge and crooked forefinger,—“an' with a big bulge at one end. Straight in the middle, circling off into a three-cornered wavy edge on the other side. What? Look here! You can't tell us nothing about saloons that we don't know. I want a three-pound cold chisel, any kind, so it's cold.”

Johnny nudged him. “How about them wedges?”

“Twenty-five cents a pound,” explained the clerk, groping for his bearings.

“They might do,” Hopalong muttered, forcing the article mentioned into his holster. “Why, they're quite hocus-pocus. You take the brother to mine, Johnny.”

“Feels good, but I dunno,” his companion muttered. “Little wide at the sharp end. Hey, got any loose shot?” he suddenly asked, whereat Hopalong beamed and the clerk gasped. It didn't seem to matter whether they bought bacon, cold chisels, wedges, or shot; yet they looked sober.

“Yes, sir; what size?”

“Three pounds of shot, I said!” Johnny rumbled in his throat. “Never mind what size.”

“We never care about size when we buy shot,” Hopalong smiled. “But, Johnny, wouldn't them little screws be better?” he asked, pointing eagerly.

“Mebby; reckon we better get 'em mixed—half of each,” Johnny gravely replied. “Anyhow, there ain't much difference.”

The clerk had been behind that counter for four years, and executing and filling orders had become a habit with him; else he would have given them six pounds of cold chisels and corkscrews, mixed. His mouth was still open when he weighed out the screws.

“Mix 'em! Mix 'em!” roared Hopalong, and the stunned clerk complied, and charged them for the whole purchase at the rate set down for screws.

Hopalong started to pour his purchase into the holster which, being open at the bottom, gayly passed the first instalment through to the floor. He stopped and looked appealingly at Johnny, and Johnny, in pain from holding back screams of laughter, looked at him indignantly. Then a guileless smile crept over Hopalong's face and he stopped the opening with a wad of wrapping paper and disposed of the shot and screws, Johnny following his laudable example. After haggling a moment over the bill they paid it and walked out, to the apparent joy of the clerk.

“Don't laugh, Kid; you'll spoil it all,” warned Hopalong, as he noted signs of distress on his companion's face. “Now, then; what was it we said about thirst? Come on; I see one already.”

Having entered the saloon and ordered, Hopalong beamed upon the bartender and shoved his glass back again. “One more, kind stranger; it's good stuff.”

“Yes, feels like a shore-enough gun,” remarked Johnny, combining two thoughts in one expression, which is brevity.

The bartender looked at him quickly and then stood quite still and listened, a puzzled expression on his face.

Tic—tickety-tick—tic-tic, came strange sounds from the other side of the bar. Hopalong was intently studying a chromo on the wall and Johnny gazed vacantly out of the window.

“What's that? What in the deuce is that?” quickly demanded the man with the apron, swiftly reaching for his bung-starter.

Tickety-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic, the noise went on, and Hopalong, slowly rolling his eyes, looked at the floor. A screw rebounded and struck his foot, while shot were rolling recklessly.

“Them's making the noise,” Johnny explained after critical survey.

“Hang it! I knowed we ought to 'a' got them wedges!” Hopalong exclaimed, petulantly, closing the bottom of the sheath. “Why, I won't have no gun left soon 'less I holds it in.” The complaint was plaintive.

“Must be filtering through the stopper,” Johnny remarked. “But don't it sound nice, especially when it hits that brass cuspidor!”

The bartender, grasping the mallet even more firmly, arose on his toes and peered over the bar, not quite sure of what he might discover. He had read of infernal machines although he had never seen one. “What the blazes!” he exclaimed in almost a whisper; and then his face went hard. “You get out of here, quick! You've had too much already! I've seen drunks, but—G'wan! Get out!”

“But we ain't begun yet,”