Curly Part 13

"I expaict," says that one-eyed cripple, "that working my job at the livery I'd oughter know what comes and goes around heah."

"Is that why you're there--to watch?"

Crook went white at that. "You're dreaming," says he, very faint.

"And you're lending me the buckskin running mare for to-night. I've heard of that mare. Is that the sort of thing to lend to a stranger?"

"Well, seh, even a hired man may have his private feelings."

"Look here, youngster, I've seen you before, and I remember you now.

When I saw you once at Holy Cross you had two eyes in your head, and you weren't a cripple."

Suddenly Jim s.n.a.t.c.hed away the black pad which was slung over Crook's disabled eye. Two good eyes shone out, and over one of them the scar of an old wound. Jim laughed at that, but Crook forgot to be lame, starting back lithe as a panther and his face dead white.

"Be careful!" he whispered, "there's men pa.s.sing us! My life ain't worth a cent if I'm seen heah in town." He had the sling across his eye again and broke out laughing. "I mean the doctor says I got to keep it covered, or I'll go blind--and a blind man's life ain't worth one cent in the dollar."

"Quit lying! You're posted at the stable to see who comes and goes, one eye in a sling and one game leg for disguise. Come here!"

Jim dragged him by the scruff of the neck to the post office, which stood next door to the saloon, with only the alley between, and there was an old poster notice on the wall:--

"NOTICE.

"The Northern Pacific and Wells Fargo Express Companies offer ($2,000) two thousand dollars,

DEAD OR ALIVE,

for the four robbers who held up the Northern Pacific Express train at Gold Creek, Deer Lodge County, Montana, on the morning of April 3rd, 1899. Descriptions:--

"Peter, _alias_ Bobby Stark, _alias_ Curly McCalmont, supposed to be son of Captain McCalmont, is five feet six inches in height, slim, fair hair, blue eyes, clean-shaven, soft girlish manner, with a scar over left eye, the result of a knife wound. He is about twenty years of age, but looks not more than fifteen, and was formerly a cowboy, riding for the Holy Cross Outfit in Arizona. He was last seen on or about May 5th, at Clay Flat, in the Painted Desert, with a flea-bitten grey gelding branded x on the near stifle, and two led burros, one of them packed."

Jim turned round sharp on Crook. "You're Curly McCalmont!" says he.

"Come away--yo' risking my neck."

"Do you think I'd sell you for that dirty money?"

"What you seen, others may, and they'd act haidstrong."

"All right, Curly. Don't you forget to walk lame."

"Hist! Heah come the Ryans!"

The two youngsters came hurrying into the saloon, where I stood watching Balshannon while he lost the last of his money. Jim clutched me by the arm, whispering something, but I did not catch what he said, for Curly was making a last play to get Balshannon from the tables.

"You quit," said he, "befo' yo're too late, patrone."

"It's too late now," says Balshannon; "what's the good?"

"It's not too late to save yo' life. Come quick!"

"So," says Balshannon, looking up sort of surprised, "you think you can er--_frighten_ me?"

Louisiana was leaning forward across the table. "Look a-here, Crook,"

says he, "you can play, or you can get right out, but you don't interrupt this game." And Curly was hustled aside by Ryan's watchers.

"Now, Joe," the patrone was saying, "let's finish this."

He staked his last chips and lost, then got up with a little sigh, thinking, I reckon, of his wife, his ranche, his cattle.

"I'm kind of sorry, Dook," says Louisiana.

"So am I, a little," Balshannon chuckled.

"I think," says the gambler, stacking away his great big heaps of gold and silver coin--"I think that----"

"You are fortunate, Pete," Balshannon answered lightly, "I dare not think."

"I'm closing the game for to-night," says Louisiana.

"I'm closing the game to-night," says Lord Balshannon.

He took a cigarette-case from his pocket, but found it empty, felt in his shabby old clothes for money, then turned away with a queer little laugh of his which made me ache.

Outside in the street I heard a hand-bell clang, and took notice through the tail of my eye that the room was filling with all the worst men in that bad town of ours. There was the Alabama Kid, and beside him Shorty Broach, stage robber and thug, Beef Jones, the horse-thief, Gas, a tin-horn crook, Thimble-Rig Phipps, and two or three other sure-thing gamblers, rollers, and thugs. I went over to the front end of the house, where the orchestra were packing up to quit, and there at the far corner of the bar were old Ryan and Michael standing drinks to the crowd. Yes, the game was being set sure enough. I saw Low-Lived Joe hurry past me and speak in a whisper to Ryan, and at that Balshannon's enemy stood out to the front of his gang. All the scrubs and skin-game men were drifting into that corner behind him, until there must have been perhaps thirty gathered, loosing their guns to be ready.

By the faro tables were Jim and Curly trying to get Balshannon out of the house, but he broke away, and they followed until he came to the inner end of the bar. Then they stood back a little, while he waited to be served.

"Here, Bill!" he called out cheerfully.

A bar-keep quit the Ryans and went to serve him. "Well," says he, heaps insolent, "what do you want?"

The patrone looked at him smiling. "You seem out of sorts, Bill; have a drink with me. I'll take a whisky."

The bar-keep glared at him.

"Oh, by the way," says Balshannon, "I'll have to square up for this to-morrow morning."

"Terms cash," says the bar-keep.

"Really?" Balshannon smiled at his ugly face. "Oh, of course--your orders, eh? Well, never mind. You're so polite, Bill, that--er--that just by way of thanks I'll ask you to accept this little token." He chucked him the silver cigarette-case and turned away from the bar.

But I was bull-roaring mad. "Patrone," says I, "patrone, I owe you heaps of money. Here, take this!"

But Balshannon laid both his hands upon my shoulders, smiling right into my eyes. "Dear friend," he said, "you know I could not take money, even from you."

A thick voice was calling from the other end of the bar: "Here, bar-keep, you give this man a drink!"

Then the patrone looked round. "Ah, Ryan, eh?" He walked straight up to his enemy. "I'll drink with you gladly, Ryan. Suppose we forget the past, and try to be good--er--friends, eh?" He held out his hand, but Ryan took no notice. "h.e.l.lo, I see your son is with you, Ryan. Good evening, Michael."