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

These thoughts kept him company for a day and when he dismounted before Stevenson's “Hotel” in Hoyt's Corners he summed up his feelings for the enlightenment of his horse.

“Damn it, bronc! I'd give ten dollars right now to know if I was a jackass or not,” he growled. “But he was an awful slick talker if he lied. An' I've got to go up an' face Dave Wilkes to find out about it!”

Mr. Cassidy was not known by sight to the citizens of Hoyt's Corners, however well versed they might be in his numerous exploits of wisdom and folly. Therefore the habitues of Stevenson's Hotel did not recognize him in the gloomy and morose individual who dropped his saddle on the floor with a crash and stamped over to the three-legged table at dusk and surlily demanded shelter for the night.

“Gimme a bed an' something to eat,” he demanded, eyeing the three men seated with their chairs tilted against the wall. “Do I get 'em?” he asked, impatiently.

“You do,” replied a one-eyed man, lazily arising and approaching him. “One dollar, now.”

“An' take the rocks outen that bed—I want to sleep.”

“A dollar per for every rock you find,” grinned Stevenson, pleasantly. “There ain't no rocks in my beds,” he added.

“Some folks likes to be rocked to sleep,” facetiously remarked one of the pair by the wall, laughing contentedly at his own pun. He bore all the ear-marks of being regarded as the wit of the locality—every hamlet has one; I have seen some myself.

“Hee, hee, hee! Yo're a droll feller, Charley,” chuckled Old John Ferris, rubbing his ear with unconcealed delight. “That's a good un.”

“One drink, now,” growled Hopalong, mimicking the proprietor, and glaring savagely at the “droll feller” and his companion. “An' mind that it's a good one,” he admonished the host.

“It's better,” smiled Stevenson, whereat Old John crossed his legs and chuckled again. Stevenson winked.

“Riding long?” he asked.

“Since I started.”

“Going fur?”

“Till I stop.”

“Where do you belong?” Stevenson's pique was urging him against the ethics of the range, which forbade personal questions.

Hopalong looked at him with a light in his eye that told the host he had gone too far. “Under my sombrero!” he snapped.

“Hee, hee, hee!” chortled Old John, rubbing his ear again and nudging Charley. “He ain't no fool, hey?”

“Why, I don't know, John; he won't tell,” replied Charley.

Hopalong wheeled and glared at him, and Charley, smiling uneasily, made an appeal: “Ain't mad, are you?”

“Not yet,” and Hopalong turned to the bar again, took up his liquor and tossed it off. Considering a moment he shoved the glass back again, while Old John tongued his lips in anticipation of a treat. “It is good—fill it again.”

The third was even better and by the time the fourth and fifth had joined their predecessors Hopalong began to feel a little more cheerful. But even the liquor and an exceptionally well-cooked supper could not separate him from his persistent and set grouch. And of liquor he had already taken more than his limit. He had always boasted, with truth, that he had never been drunk, although there had been two occasions when he was not far from it. That was one doubtful luxury which he could not afford for the reason that there were men who would have been glad to see him, if only for a few seconds, when liquor had dulled his brain and slowed his speed of hand. He could never tell when and where he might meet one of these.

He dropped into a chair by a card table and, baffling all attempts to engage him in conversation, reviewed his troubles in a mumbled soliloquy, the liquor gradually making him careless. But of all the jumbled words his companions' diligent ears heard they recognized and retained only the bare term “Winchester”; and their conjectures were limited only by their imaginations.

Hopalong stirred and looked up, shaking off the hand which had aroused him. “Better go to bed, stranger,” the proprietor was saying. “You an' me are the last two up. It's after twelve, an' you look tired and sleepy.”

“Said his wife was sick,” muttered the puncher. “Oh, what you saying?”

“You'll find a bed better'n this table, stranger—it's after twelve an' I want to close up an' get some sleep. I'm tired myself.”

“Oh, that all? Shore I'll go to bed—like to see anybody stop me! Ain't no rocks in it, hey?”

“Nary a rock,” laughingly reassured the host, picking up Hopalong's saddle and leading the way to a small room off the “office,” his guest stumbling after him and growling about the rocks that lived in Winchester. When Stevenson had dropped the saddle by the window and departed, Hopalong sat on the edge of the bed to close his eyes for just a moment before tackling the labor of removing his clothes. A crash and a jar awakened him and he found himself on the floor with his back to the bed. He was hot and his head ached, and his back was skinned a little—and how hot and stuffy and choking the room had become! He thought he had blown out the light, but it still burned, and three-quarters of the chimney was thickly covered with soot. He was stifling and could not endure it any longer. After three attempts he put out the light, stumbled against his saddle and, opening the window, leaned out to breathe the pure air. As his lungs filled he chuckled wisely and, picking up the saddle, managed to get it and himself through the window and on the ground without serious mishap. He would ride for an hour, give the room time to freshen and cool off, and come back feeling much better. Not a star could be seen as he groped his way unsteadily towards the rear of the building, where he vaguely remembered having seen the corral as he rode up.

“Huh! Said he lived in Winchester an' his name was Bill—no, Ben Ferris,” he muttered, stumbling towards a noise he knew was made by a horse rubbing against the corral fence. Then his feet got tangled up in the cinch of his saddle, which he had kicked before him, and after great labor he arose, muttering savagely, and continued on his wobbly way. “Goo' Lord, it's darker'n cats in—oof!” he grunted, recoiling from forcible contact with the fence he sought. Growling words unholy he felt his way along it and finally his arm slipped through an opening and he bumped his head solidly against the top bar of the gate. As he righted himself his hand struck the nose of a horse and closed mechanically over it. Cow-ponies look alike in the dark and he grinned jubilantly as he complimented himself upon finding his own so unerringly.

“Anything is easy, when you know how. Can't fool me, ol' cayuse,” he beamed, fumbling at the bars with his free hand and getting them down with a fool's luck. “You can't do it—I got you firs', las', an' always;