Bar-20 Days by Clarence E. Mulford (best black authors TXT) 📖
- Author: Clarence E. Mulford
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“But the best shot won’t allus win in that game,” commented Elkins. “That’s one of the minor factors.”
“Yes, sir! It’s luck that counts there,” endorsed Bartlett, quickly. “Luck, nine times out of ten.”
“Best shot ought to win,” declared Skinny Thompson. “It ain’t all luck, nohow. Where’d I be against Hoppy, there?”
“Won’t neither!” cried Johnny, excitedly. “The man who sees the other first wins out. That’s wood-craft, an’ brains.”
“Aw! What do you know about it, anyhow?” demanded Lucas. “If he can’t shoot so good what chance has he got—if he misses the first try, what then?”
“What chance has he got! First chance, miss or no miss. If he can’t see the other first, where the devil does his good shooting come in?”
“Huh!” snorted Wood Wright, belligerently. “Any fool can see, but he can’t shoot! An’ it’s as much luck as wood-craft, too, an’ don’t you forget it!”
“The first shot don’t win, Johnny; not in a game like that, with all the dodging an’ ducking,” remarked Red. “You can’t put one where you want it when a feller’s slipping around in the brush. It’s the most that counts, an’ the best shot gets in the most. I wouldn’t want to have to stand up against Hoppy an’ a short gun, not in that game; no, sir!” and Red shook his head with decision.
The argument waxed hot. With the exception of Hopalong, who sat silently watchful, every one spoke his opinion and repeated it without regard to the others. It appeared that in this game, the man with the strongest lungs would eventually win out, and each man tried to show his superiority in that line. Finally, above the uproar, Cowan’s bellow was herd, and he kept it up until some notice was taken of it. “Shut up! Shut up! For God’s sake, quit! Never saw such a bunch of tinder—let somebody drop a cold, burned-out match in this gang, an’ hell’s to pay. Here, all of you, play cards an’ forget about cross-tag in the scrub. You’ll be arguing about playing marbles in the dark purty soon!”
“All right,” muttered Johnny, “but just the same, the man who—”
“Never mind about the man who! Did you hear me?” yelled Cowan, swiftly reaching for a bucket of water. “This is a game where I gets the most in, an’ don’t forget it!”
“Come on; play cards,” growled Lucas, who did not relish having his decision questioned on his own story. Undoubtedly somewhere in the wide, wide world there was such a thing as common courtesy, but none of it had ever strayed onto that range.
The chairs scraped on the rough floor as the men pulled up to a table. “I don’t care a hang,” came Elkins’ final comment as he shuffled the cards with careful attention. “I’m not any fancy Colt expert, but I’m damned if I won’t take a chance in that game with any man as totes a gun. Leastawise, of course, I wouldn’t take no such advantage of a lame man.”
The effect would have been ludicrous but for its deadly significance. Cowan, stooping to go under the bar, remained in that hunched-up attitude, his every faculty concentrated in his ears; the match on its way to the cigarette between Red’s lips was held until it burned his fingers, when it was dropped from mere reflex action, the hand still stiffly aloft; Lucas, half in and half out of his chair, seemed to have got just where he intended, making no effort to seat himself. Skinny Thompson, his hand on his gun, seemed paralyzed; his mouth was open to frame a reply that never was uttered and he stared through narrowed eyelids at the blunderer. The sole movement in the room was the slow rising of Hopalong and the markedly innocent shuffling of the cards by Elkins, who appeared to be entirely ignorant of the weight and effect of his words. He dropped the pack for the cut and then looked up and around as if surprised by the silence and the expressions he saw.
Hopalong stood facing him, leaning over with both hands on the table. His voice, when he spoke, rumbled up from his chest in a low growl. “You won’t have no advantage, Elkins. Take it from me, you’ve had yore last fling. I’m glad you made it plain, this time, so it’s something I can take hold of.” He straightened slowly and walked to the door, and an audible sigh sounded through the room as it was realized that trouble was not immediately imminent. At the door he paused and turned back around, looking back over his shoulder. “At noon to-morrow I’m going to hoof it north through the brush between the river an’ the river trail, starting at the old ford a mile down the river.” He waited expectantly.
“Me too—only the other way,” was the instant rejoinder. “Have it yore own way.”
Hopalong nodded and the closing door shut him out into the night. Without a word the Bar-20 men arose and followed him, the only hesitant being Johnny, who was torn between loyalty and new-found friendship; but with a sorrowful shake of the head, he turned away and passed out, not far behind the others.
“Clannish, ain’t they?” remarked Elkins, gravely.
Those remaining were regarding him sternly, questioningly, Cowan with a deep frown darkening his face. “You hadn’t ought to ‘a’ said that, Elkins.” The reproof was almost an accusation.
Elkins looked steadily at the speaker. “You hadn’t ought to ‘a’ let me say it,” he replied. “How did I know he was so touchy?” His gaze left Cowan and lingered in turn on each of the others. “Some of you ought to ‘a’ told me. I wouldn’t ‘a’ said it only for what I said just before, an’ I didn’t want him to think I was challenging him to no duel in the brush. So I says so, an’ then he goes an’ takes it up that I am challenging him. I ain’t got no call to fight with nobody. Ain’t I tried to keep out of trouble with him ever since I’ve been here? Ain’t I kept out of the poker games on his account? Ain’t I?” The grave, even tones were dispassionate, without a trace of animus and serenely sure of justice.
The faces around him cleared gradually and heads began to nod in comprehending consent.
“Yes, I reckon you have,” agreed Cowan, slowly, but the frown was not entirely gone. “Yes, I reckon—mebby—you have.”
It was noon by the sun when Hopalong and Red shook hands south of the old ford and the former turned to enter the brush. Hopalong was cool and ominously calm while his companion was the opposite. Red was frankly suspicious of the whole affair and nursed the private opinion that Mr. Elkins would lay in ambush and shoot his enemy down like a dog. And Red had promised himself a dozen times that he would study the signs around the scene of action if Hopalong should not come back, and take a keen delight, if warranted, in shooting Mr. Elkins full of holes with no regard for an even break. He was thinking the matter over as his friend breasted the first line of brush and could not refrain from giving a slight warning. “Get him, Hoppy,” he called, earnestly; “get him good. Let him do some of the moving about. I’ll be here waiting for you.”
Hopalong smiled in reply and sprang forward, the leaves and branches quickly shutting him from Red’s sight. He had worked out his plan of action the night before when he was alone and the world was still, and as soon as he had it to his satisfaction he had dropped off to sleep as easily as a child—it took more than gunplay to disturb his nerves. He glanced about him to make sure of his bearings and then struck on a curving line for the river. The first hundred yards were covered with speed and then he began to move more slowly and with greater regard for caution, keeping close to the earth and showing a marked preference for low ground. Sky-lines were all right in times of peace, but under the present conditions they promised to become unhealthy. His eyes and ears told him nothing for a quarter of an hour, and then he suddenly stopped short and crouched as he saw the plain trail of a man crossing his own direction at a right angle. From the bottom of one of the heel prints a crushed leaf was slowly rising back towards its original position, telling him how new the trail was; and as if this were not enough for his trained mind he heard a twig snap sharply as he glanced along the line of prints. It sounded very close, and he dropped instantly to one knee and thought quickly. Why had the other left so plain a trail, why had he reached up and broken twigs that projected above his head as he passed? Why had he kicked aside a small stone, leaving a patch of moist, bleached grass to tell where it had lain? Elkins had stumbled here, but there were no toe marks to tell of it. Hopalong would not track, for he was no assassin; but he knew that he would do if he were, and careless. The answer leaped to his suspicious mind like a flash, and he did not care to waste any time in trying to determine whether or not Elkins was capable of such a trick. He acted on the presumption that the trail had been made plain for a good reason, and that not far ahead at some suitable place,—and there were any number of such within a hundred yards,—the maker of the plain trail lay in wait. Smiling savagely he worked backward and turning, struck off in a circle. He had no compunctions whatever now about shooting the other player of the game. It was not long before he came upon the same trail again and he started another circle. A bullet zipped past his ear and cut a twig not two inches from his head. He fired at the smoke as he dropped, and then wriggled rapidly backward, keeping as flat to the earth as he could. Elkins had taken up his position in a thicket which stood in the centre of a level patch of sand in the old bed of the river,—the bed it had used five years before and forsaken at the time of the big flood when it cut itself a new channel and made the U-bend which now surrounded this piece of land on three sides. Even now, during the rainy season, the thicket which sheltered Mr. Elkins was frequently an island in a sluggish, shallow overflow.
“Hole up, blast you!” jeered Hopalong, hugging the ground. The second bullet from Mr. Elkins’ gun cut another twig, this one just over his head, and he laughed insolently. “I ain’t ascared to do the moving, even if you are. Judging from the way you keep out o’ sight the canned oysters are in the can again. I never did no ambushing, you coyote.”
“You can’t make remarks like that an’ get away with ‘em—I’ve knowed you too long,” retorted Elkins, shifting quickly, and none too soon. “You went an’ got Slim afore he was wide awake. I know you, all right.”
Hopalong’s surprise was but momentary, and his mind raced back over the years. Who was this man Elkins, that he knew Slim Travennes? “Yo’re a liar, Elkins, an’ so was the man who told you that!”
“Call me Ewalt,” jeered the other, nastily. “Nobody’ll hear it, an’ you’ll not live to tell it. Ewalt,
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