Blazed Trail Stories, and Stories of the Wild Life Part 16

The invisible stranger in the gloom fell silent, considering.

"I'm a pretty rank proposition, myself," said he at last, as if to himself, "and I've got a job on hand which same I oughta put through without givin' attention to anything else. As a usual thing folks don't care fer me, and I don't care much fer folks. Women especial. They drives me plumb tired. I reckon I don't stack up very high in th' blue chips when it comes to cashin' in with the gentle s.e.x, anyhow; but in general they gives me as much notice as they lavishes on a doodle-bug. I ain't kickin', you understand, nary bit; but onct in a dog's age I kind of hankers fer a decent look from one of 'em. I ain't never had no women-folks of my own, never. Sometimes I thinks it would be some scrumptious to know a little gal waitin' fer me somewhere. They ain't none. They never will be. I ain't built that way. You treated me white to-night. You're th' first woman that ever kissed me of her own accord."

The girl heard a faint scramble, then the soft _pat_ of someone landing on his feet. Peering from the window she made out a faint, shadowy form stealing around the corner of the hotel. She put her hand to her heart and listened. Her understanding of the stranger's motives was vague at best, but she had caught his confession that her kiss had meant much to him, and even in her anxiety she felt an inclination to laugh. She had bestowed that caress as she would have kissed the cold end of a dog's nose.

The men below stairs had, after some discussion, decided on bullet. This was out of consideration for Billy's standing as a frontiersman.

Besides, he had stolen no horses. In order not to delay matters, the execution was fixed for the present time and place. Billy stood with his back to the logs of his own hotel, his hands and feet bound, but his eyes uncovered. He had never lost his nerve. In the short respite which preparation demanded, he told his opponents what he thought of them.

"Proud?" he concluded a long soliloquy as if to the reflector of the lamp. "Proud?" he repeated, reflectively. "This yere Hank's jest that proud he's all swelled up like a poisoned pup. Ain't everyone kin corall a man sleepin' and git fifty thousand without turnin' a hair."

Black Hank distributed three men to do the business. There were no heroics. The execution of this man was necessary to him, not because he was particularly angry over the escape of the messenger--he expected to capture that individual in due time--but in order to preserve his authority over his men. He was in the act of moving back to give the shooters room, when he heard behind him the door open and shut.

He turned. Before the door stood a small consumptive-looking man in a light check suit. The tenderfoot carried two short-barrelled Colt's revolvers, one of which he presented directly at Black Hank.

"'Nds up!" he commanded, sharply.

Hank was directly covered, so he obeyed. The new-comer's eye had a strangely restless quality. Of the other dozen inmates of the room, eleven were firmly convinced that the weapon and eye not directly levelled at their leader were personally concerned with themselves. The twelfth thought he saw his chance. To the bewildered onlookers there seemed to be a flash and a bang, instantaneous; then things were as before. One of the stranger's weapons still pointed at Black Hank's breast; the other at each of the rest. Only the twelfth man, he who had seen his chance, had collapsed forward to the floor. No one could a.s.sure himself positively that he had discerned the slightest motion on the part of the stranger.

"Now," said the latter, sharply, "one at a time, gentlemen. Drop yore gun," this last to Black Hank, "muzzle down. Drop it! Correct!"

One of the men in the back of the room stirred slightly on the ball of his foot.

"Steady, there!" warned the stranger. The man stiffened.

"Next gent," went on the little man, subtly indicating another. The latter obeyed without hesitation. "Next. Now you. Now you in th'

corner."

One after another the pistols clattered to the floor. Not for an instant could a single inmate of the apartment, armed or unarmed, flatter himself that his slightest motion was un.o.bserved. They were like tigers on the crouch, ready to spring the moment the man's guard lowered. It did not lower. The huddled figure on the floor reminded them of what might happen. They obeyed.

"Step back," commanded the stranger next. In a moment he had them standing in a row against the wall, rigid, upright, their hands over their heads. Then for the first time the stranger moved from his position by the door.

"Call her," he said to Billy, "th' girl."

Billy raised his voice. "Nell! Oh, Nell!"

In a moment she appeared in the doorway at the foot of the stairs, without hesitation or fear. When she perceived the state of affairs, she brightened almost mischievously.

"Would you jest as soon, ma'am, if it ain't troubling you too much, jest nat'rally sort of untie Billy?" requested the stranger.

She did so. The hotel-keeper stretched his arms.

"Now, pick up th' guns, please."

The two set about it.

"Where's that d.a.m.n ol' reprobate?" inquired Billy, truculently, looking about for Charley.

The patriarch had quietly slipped away.

"You kin drop them hands," advised the stranger, lowering the muzzles of his weapons. The leader started to say something.

"You shut up!" said Billy, selecting his own weapons from the heap.

The stranger suddenly picked up one of the Colt's single-action revolvers which lay on the floor, and, holding the trigger back against the guard, exploded the six charges by hitting the hammer smartly with the palm of his hand. In the thrusting motion of this discharge he evidently had design, for the first six wine-gla.s.ses on Billy's bar were shivered. It was wonderful work, rattling fire, quicker than a self-c.o.c.ker even. He selected another weapon. From a pile of tomato-cans he took one and tossed it into the air. Before it had fallen he had perforated it twice, and as it rolled along the floor he helped its progression by four more bullets which left streams of tomato-juice where they had hit. The room was full of smoke. The group watched, fascinated.

Then the men against the wall grew rigid. Out of the film of smoke long, vivid streams of fire flashed toward them, now right, now left, like the alternating steam of a locomotive's pistons. _Smash, smash! Smash, smash!_ hit the bullets with regular thud. With the twelfth discharge the din ceased. Midway in the s.p.a.ce between the heads of each pair of men against the wall was a round hole. No one was touched.

A silence fell. The smoke lightened and blew slowly through the open door. The horses, long since deserted by their guardians in favour of the excitement within, whinnied. The stranger dropped the smoking Colts, and quietly reproduced his own short-barrelled arms from his side-pockets, where he had thrust them. Billy broke the silence at last.

"That's _shootin'_!" he observed, with a sigh.

"Them fifty thousand is outside," clicked the stranger. "Do you want them?"

There was no reply.

"I aims to pull out on one of these yere hosses of yours," said he.

"Billy he's all straight. He doesn't know nothin' about me."

He collected the six-shooters from the floor.

"I jest takes these with me for a spell," he continued. "You'll find them, if you look hard enough, along on th' trail--also yore broncs."

He backed toward the door.

"I'm layin' fer th' man that sticks his head out that door," he warned.

"Stranger," said Black Hank as he neared the door.

The little man paused.

"Might I ask yore name?"

"My name is Alfred," replied the latter.

Black Hank looked chagrined.

"I've hearn tell of you," he acknowledged.

The stranger's eye ran over the room, and encountered that of the girl.

He shrank into himself and blushed.

"Good-night," he said, hastily, and disappeared. A moment later the beat of hoofs became audible as he led the bunch of horses away.

For a time there was silence. Then Billy, "By G.o.d, Hank, I means to stand in with you, but you let that kid alone, or I plugs you!"

"Kid, huh!" grunted Hank. "Alfred a kid! I've hearn tell of him."

"What've you heard?" inquired the girl.