Elder Conklin and Other Stories Part 17

"Yes," replied Rablay, "that'd be fair. I agree to that."

"h.e.l.l!" exclaimed Hitchc.o.c.k, "I don't. If he wants to fight, I'm here; but I ain't goin' to take a hand in no sich derned game--with the cards stocked agen me."

"Ain't you?" retorted Crocker, facing him, and beginning slowly. "I reckon _you'll_ play any game we say. _See_! any d.a.m.ned game _we_ like.

D'ye understand?"

As no response was forthcoming to this defiance, he went into the other room to arrange the preliminaries of the duel. A few moments pa.s.sed in silence, and then he came back through the lane of men to the two combatants.

"Jedge," he began, "the six-shooters are there, all ready. Would you like to hev first draw, or throw for it with him?" contemptuously indicating Hitchc.o.c.k with a movement of his head as he concluded.

"Let us throw," replied Rablay, quietly.

In silence the three dice and the box were placed by Doolan on the bar.

In response to Crocker's gesture the Judge took up the box and rolled out two fives and a three--thirteen. Every one felt that he had lost the draw, but his face did not change any more than that of his adversary.

In silence Hitchc.o.c.k replaced the dice in the box and threw a three, a four, and a two--nine; he put down the box emphatically.

"Wall," Crocker decided impa.s.sively, "I guess that gives you the draw, Jedge; we throw fer high in Garotte--sometimes," he went on, turning as if to explain to Hitchc.o.c.k, but with insult in his voice, and then, "After you, Jedge!"

Rablay pa.s.sed through the crowd into the next room. There, on a table, was a small heap covered with a cloak. Silently the men pressed round, leaving Crocker between the two adversaries in the full light of the swinging lamp.

"Now, Jedge," said Crocker, with a motion towards the table.

"No!" returned the Judge, with white, fixed face, "he won; let him draw first. I only want a square deal."

A low hum of surprise went round the room. Garotte was more than satisfied with its champion. Crocker looked at Hitchc.o.c.k, and said:

"It's your draw, then." The words were careless, but the tone and face spoke clearly enough.

A quick glance round the room and Hitchc.o.c.k saw that he was trapped.

These men would show him no mercy. At once the wild beast in him appeared. He stepped to the table, put his hand under the cloak, drew out a revolver, dropped it, pointing towards Rablay's face, and pulled the trigger. A sharp click. That revolver, at any rate, was unloaded.

Quick as thought Crocker stepped between Hitchc.o.c.k and the table. Then he said:

"It's your turn now, Jedge!"

As he spoke a sound, half of relief and half of content came from the throats of the onlookers. The Judge did not move. He had not quivered when the revolver was levelled within a foot of his head; he did not appear to have seen it. With set eyes and pale face, and the jagged wound on his forehead whence the blood still trickled, he had waited, and now he did not seem to hear. Again Crocker spoke:

"Come, Jedge, it's your turn."

The sharp, loud words seemed to break the spell which had paralyzed the man. He moved to the table, and slowly drew the revolver from under the cloak. His hesitation was too much for the crowd.

"Throw it through him, Jedge! Now's your chance. Wade in, Jedge!"

The desperate ferocity of the curt phrases seemed to move him. He raised the revolver. Then came in tones of triumph:

"I'll bet high on the Jedge!"

He dropped the revolver on the floor, and fled from the room.

The first feeling of the crowd of men was utter astonishment, but in a moment or two this gave place to half-contemptuous sympathy. What expression this sentiment would have found it is impossible to say, for just then Bill Hitchc.o.c.k observed with a sneer:

"As he's run, I may as well walk;" and he stepped towards the bar-room.

Instantly Crocker threw himself in front of him with his face on fire.

"Walk--will ye?" he burst out, the long-repressed rage flaming up--"walk! when you've jumped the best man in Garotte--walk! No, by G.o.d, you'll crawl, d'ye hear? crawl--right out of this camp, right now!" and he dropped his revolver on Hitchc.o.c.k's breast.

Then came a wild chorus of shouts.

"That's right! That's the talk! Crawl, will ye! Down on yer hands and knees. Crawl, d.a.m.n ye! Crawl!" and a score of revolvers covered the stranger.

For a moment he stood defiant, looking his a.s.sailants in the eyes. His face seemed to have grown thinner, and his moustache twitched with the snarling movement of a brute at bay. Then he was tripped up and thrown forwards amid a storm of, "Crawl, d.a.m.n ye--crawl!" And so Hitchc.o.c.k crawled, on hands and knees, out of Doolan's.

Lawyer Rablay, too, was never afterwards seen in Garotte. Men said his nerves had "give out."

JULY, 1892.

GULMORE, THE BOSS

The habits of the Gulmore household were in some respects primitive.

Though it was not yet seven o'clock two negro girls were clearing away the breakfast things under the minute supervision of their mistress, an angular, sharp-faced woman with a reedy voice, and nervously abrupt movements. Near the table sat a girl of nineteen absorbed in a book. In an easy-chair by the open bay-window a man with a cigar in his mouth was reading a newspaper. Jonathan Byrne Gulmore, as he always signed himself, was about fifty years of age; his heavy frame was muscular, and the coa.r.s.e dark hair and swarthy skin showed vigorous health. There was both obstinacy and combativeness in his face with its c.o.c.ked nose, low irregular forehead, thick eyebrows, and square jaw, but the deep-set grey eyes gleamed at times with humorous comprehension, and the usual expression of the countenance was far from ill-natured. As he laid the paper on his knees and looked up, he drew the eye. His size and strength seemed to be the physical equivalents of an extraordinary power of character and will. When Mrs. Gulmore followed the servants out of the room the girl rose from her chair and went towards the door. She was stopped by her father's voice:

"Ida, I want a talk with you. You'll be able to go to your books afterwards; I won't keep you long." She sat down again and laid her book on the table, while Mr. Gulmore continued:

"The election's next Monday week, and I've no time to lose." A moment's silence, and he let his question fall casually:

"You know this--Professor Roberts--don't you? He was at the University when you were there--eh?" The girl flushed slightly as she a.s.sented.

"They say he's smart, an' he ken talk. I heard him the other night; but I'd like to know what you think. Your judgment's generally worth havin'."

Forced to reply without time for reflection, Miss Gulmore said as little as possible with a great show of frankness:

"Oh, yes; he's smart, and knows Greek and Latin and German, and a great many things. The senior students used to say he knew more than all the other professors put together, and he--he thinks so too, I imagine," and she laughed intentionally, for, on hearing her own strained laughter, she blushed, and then stood up out of a nervous desire to conceal her embarra.s.sment. But her father was looking away from her at the glowing end of his cigar; and, as she resumed her seat, he went on:

"I'm glad you seem to take no stock in him, Ida, for he's makin' himself unpleasant. I'll have to give him a lesson, I reckon, not in Greek or Latin or them things--I never had nothin' taught me beyond the 'Fourth Reader,' in old Vermont, and I've forgotten some of what I learned then--but in election work an' business I guess I ken give Professor Roberts points, fifty in a hundred, every time. Did you know he's always around with Lawyer Hutchin's?"

"Is he? That's because of May--May Hutchings. Oh, she deserves him;" the girl spoke with sarcastic bitterness, "she gave herself trouble enough to get him. It was just sickening the way she acted, blushing every time he spoke to her, and looking up at him as if he were everything. Some people have no pride in them."

Her father listened impa.s.sively, and, after a pause, began his explanation:

"Wall, Ida, anyway he means to help Hutchin's in this city election.

'Tain't the first time Hutchin's has run for mayor on the Democratic ticket and come out at the little end of the horn, and I propose to whip him again. But this Professor's runnin' him on a new track, and I want some points about _him_. It's like this. At the Democratic meetin'

the other night, the Professor spoke, and spoke well. What he said was popcorn; but it took with the Mugwumps--them that think themselves too highfalutin' to work with either party, jest as if organization was no good, an' a mob was as strong as an army. Wall, he talked for an hour about purity an' patriotism, and when he had warmed 'em up he went bald-headed for me. He told 'em--you ken read it all in the 'Tribune'--that this town was run by a ring, an' not run honestly; contracts were given only to members of the Republican party; all appointments were made by the ring, and never accordin' to ability--as if sich a ring could last ten years. He ended up by saying, though he was a Republican, as his father is, he intended to vote Democratic--he's domiciled here--as a protest against the impure and corrupt Boss-system which was disgracin' American political life. 'Twas baby talk. But it's like this. The buildin' of the branch line South has brought a lot of Irish here--they're all Democrats--and there's quite a number of Mugwumps, an' if this Professor goes about workin' them all up--what with the flannel-mouths and the rest--it might be a close finish. I'm sure to win, but if I could get some information about him, it would help me. His father's all right. We've got him down to a fine point.

Prentiss, the man I made editor of the 'Herald,' knows him well; ken tell us why he left Kaintucky to come West. But I want to know somethin'

about the Professor, jest to teach him to mind his own business, and leave other folk to attend to theirs. Ken you help me? Is he popular with the students and professors?"