The Texan by James B. Hendryx (reading in the dark .TXT) 📖

drifted up into the cow country. But they's a certain express company that's still huntin' fer the gang—not knowin' o' course that the Cinnabar Joe that got notorious fer defendin' his dudes was one of 'em.'"

The cowpuncher ceased speaking and produced his "makings" while the other stood gazing straight before him, the dead cigar still gripped in the corner of his mouth. The scratch of the match roused him and quick as a flash he reached beneath the bar and the next instant had Purdy covered with a six-shooter. With his finger on the trigger Cinnabar Joe hesitated, and in that instant he learned that the man that faced him across the bar was as brave as he was unscrupulous. The fingers that twisted the little cylinder of paper never faltered and the black eyes looked straight into the muzzle of the gun.

Now, in the cow country the drawing of a gun is one and the same movement with the firing of it, and why Cinnabar Joe hesitated he did not know.

Purdy laughed: "Put her down, Cinnabar. Yeh won't shoot, now. Yeh see, I kind of figgered yeh might be sort o' riled up, so I left my gun in my slicker. Shootin' a unarmed man don't git yeh nothin' but a chanct to stretch a rope."

The bartender returned the gun to its place. "Where'd you git that dope, Jack?" he asked, in a dull voice.

"Well, seein' as yeh hain't so blood-thirsty no more, I'll tell yeh. I swung down into the bad lands couple weeks ago huntin' a bunch of mares that strayed off the south slope. I was follerin' down a mud-crack that opens into Big Dry when all to onct my horse jumps sideways an' like to got me. The reason fer which was a feller layin' on the ground where his horse had busted him agin' a rock. His back was broke an' he was mumblin'; which he must of laid there a day, mebbe two, cause his tongue an' lips was dried up till I couldn't hardly make out what he was sayin'. I catched here an' there a word about holdin' up a train an' he was mumblin' your name now an' agin so I fetched some water from a hole a mile away an' camped. He et a little bacon later but he was half crazy with the pain in his back. He'd yell when I walked near him on the ground, said it jarred him, an' when I tried to move him a little he fainted plumb away. But he come to agin an' begged me fer to hand him his Colt that had lit about ten feet away so he could finish the job. I seen they wasn't no use tryin' to git him nowheres. He was all in. But his mutterin' had interested me consid'ble. I figgers if he's a hold-up, chances is he's got a nice fat cache hid away somewheres, an' seein' he hain't never goin' to need it I might's well have the handlin' of it as let it rot where it's at. I tells him so an' agrees that if he tips off his cache to me I'll retaliate by givin' him the gun. He swears he ain't got no cache. He's blow'd everything he had, his nerve's gone, an' he's headin' fer Wolf River fer to gouge yeh out of some dinero. He claims yeh collected reward on them two yeh got in the Yellowstone an' what's more the dudes tuk up a collection of a thousan' bucks an' give it to yeh besides. You was his cache. So he handed me the dope I just sprung on yeh, an' he says besides that you an' him's the only ones left. The other one got his'n down in Mexico where he'd throw'd in with some Greaser bandits."

"An' what—— Did you give him the gun?" asked the bartender.

Purdy nodded: "Sure. He' done a good job, too. He was game, all right, never whimpered nor hung back on the halter. Jest stuck the gun in his mouth an' pulled the trigger. I was goin' to bury him but I heard them mares whinner down to the water-hole so I left him fer the buzzards an' the coyotes.

"About that there chloral. I'll slip over an' git it from Doc. An' say, I'm doin' the right thing by yeh. I could horn yeh fer a chunk o' that reward money, but I won't do a friend that way. An' more'n that," he paused and leaned closer. "I'll let you in on somethin' worth while one of these days. That there thousan' that ol' Lazy Y paid Doc hain't a patchin' to what he's goin' to fork over to me. See?"

Cinnabar Joe nodded, slowly, as he mouthed his dead cigar, and when he spoke it was more to himself than to Purdy. "I've played a square game ever since that time back on the edge of the desert. I don't want to have to do time fer that. It wouldn't be a square deal nohow, I was only a Kid then an' never got a cent of the money. Then, there's Jennie over to the hotel. We'd about decided that bartendin' an' hash-slingin' wasn't gittin' us nowheres an' we was goin' to hitch up an' turn nesters on a little yak outfit I've bought over on Eagle." He stopped abruptly and looked the cowpuncher squarely in the eye. "If it wasn't fer her, by God! I'd tell you jest as I did before, to git to hell out of here an' do your damnedest. But it would bust her all up if I had to do time fer a hold-up. You've got me where you want me, I guess. But I don't want in on no dirty money from old Lazy Y, nor no one else. You go it alone—it's your kind of a job.

"This here chloride, or whatever you call it, you sure it won't kill a man?"

Purdy laughed: "Course it won't. It'll only put him to sleep till I've had a chanct to win out. I'll git the stuff from Doc an' find out how much is a dost, an' you kin' slip it in his booze."

As the cowpuncher disappeared through the door, Cinnabar Joe's eyes narrowed. "You damn skunk!" he muttered, biting viciously upon the stump of his cigar. "If you was drinkin' anything I'd switch glasses on you, an' then shoot it out with you when you come to. From now on it's you or me. You've got your hooks into me an' this is only the beginnin'." The man stopped abruptly and stared for a long time at the stove-pipe hole in the opposite wall. Then, turning, he studied his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles and glasses. He tossed away his cigar, straightened his necktie, and surveyed himself from a new angle.

"This here Tex, now," he mused. "He sure is a rantankerous cuss when he's lickered up. He'd jest as soon ride his horse through that door as he would to walk through, an' he's always puttin' somethin' over on someone. But he's a man. He'd go through hell an' high water fer a friend. He was the only one of the whole outfit had the guts to tend Jimmy Trimble when he got the spotted fever—nursed him back to good as ever, too, after the Doc had him billed through fer yonder." Cinnabar Joe turned and brought his fist down on the bar. "I'll do it!" he gritted. "Purdy'll think Tex switched the drinks on me. Only I hope he wasn't lyin' about that there stuff. Anyways, even if he was, it's one of them things a man's got to do. An' I'll rest a whole lot easier in my six by two than what I would if I give Tex the long good-bye first." Unconsciously, the man began to croon the dismal wail of the plains:

  "O bury me not on the lone praire-e-e
  In a narrow grave six foot by three,
  Where the buzzard waits and the wind blows free,
  Then bury me not on the lone praire-e-e.

  Yes, we buried him there on the lone praire-e-e
  Where the owl all night hoots mournfulle-e-e
  And the blizzard beats and the wind blows free
  O'er his lonely grave on the lone praire-e-e.

And the cowboys now as they roam the plain"——

"Hey, choke off on that!" growled Purdy as he advanced with rattling spurs. "Puts me in mind of him—back there in Big Dry. 'Spose I ort to buried him, but it don't make no difference, now." He passed a small phial across the bar. "Fifteen or twenty drops," he said laconically, and laughed. "Nothin' like keepin' yer eyes an' ears open. Doc kicked like a steer first, but he seen I had his hide hung on the fence onless he loosened up. But he sure wouldn't weep none at my demise. If ever I git sick I'll have some other Doc. I'd as soon send fer a rattlesnake." The man glanced at the clock. "It's workin' 'long to'ards noon, I'll jest slip down to the Long Horn an' stampede the bunch over here."

CHAPTER IV CINNABAR JOE

In the dining car of the side-tracked train Alice Marcum's glance strayed from the face of her table companion to the window. Another cavalcade of riders had swept into town and with a chorus of wild yells the crowd in the Long Horn surged out to greet them. A moment later the dismounted ones rushed to their horses, leaped into the saddles and, joined by the newcomers, dashed at top speed for perhaps thirty yards and dismounted to crowd into another saloon across whose front the word HEADQUARTERS was emblazoned in letters of flaming red.

"They're just like a lot of boys," exclaimed the girl with a smile,
"The idea of anybody mounting a horse to ride that distance!"

"They're a rough lot, I guess." Winthrop Adams Endicott studied his menu card.

"Rough! Of course they're rough! Why shouldn't they be rough? Think of the work they do—rain or shine, riding out there on the plains. When they get to town they've earned the right to play as they want to play! I'd be rough, too, if I lived the life they live. And if I were a man I'd be right over there with them this minute."

"Why be a man?" smiled Endicott. "You have the Mayor's own word for the breadth of Wolf River's ideas. As for myself, I don't drink and wouldn't enjoy that sort of thing. Besides, if I were over there I would have to forgo——"

"No pretty little speeches, please. At least you can spare me that."

"But, Alice, I mean it, really. And——"

"Save 'em for the Cincinnati girls. They'll believe 'em. Who do you think will win this afternoon. Let's bet! I'll bet you a—an umbrella against a pair of gloves, that my cavalier of the yellow fur trousers will win the bucking contest, and——"

"Our train may pull out before the thing is over, and we would never know who won."

"Oh, yes we will, because we're going to stay for the finish. Why, I wouldn't miss this afternoon's fun if forty trains pulled out!"

"I ought to be in Chicago day after tomorrow," objected the man.

"I ought to be, too. But I'm not going to be. For Heaven's sake,
Winthrop, for once in your life, do something you oughtn't to do!"

"All right," laughed the man with a gesture of surrender. "And for the rope throwing contest I'll pick the other."

"What other?" The girl's eyes strayed past the little wooden buildings of the town to the clean-cut rim of the bench.

"Why the other who rode after your handkerchief. The fellow who lassoed the honourable Mayor and was guilty of springing the pun."

The girl nodded with her eyes still on the skyline. "Oh, yes. He seemed—somehow—different. As if people amused him. As if everything were