Going Some Part 33

Yet it was small comfort to realize that he was getting his just deserts, and it likewise availed little to anathematize Fresno as the cause of his misfortune.

At noon Wally went through the mockery of a second blood-rare meal, with no cake to follow, and that afternoon Gla.s.s dragged him out under the hot sun, and made him sprint until he was ready to drop from exhaustion. His supper was wretched, and his fatigue so great that he fell asleep at Miss Blake's side during the evening. With the first hint of dawn he was up again, and Friday noon found him utterly hopeless, when, true to his prediction, the unexpected happened. In one moment he was raised from the blackest depths to the wildest transports of delight. It came in the shape of a telegram which Jean summoned him to the house to receive. He wondered listlessly as he opened the message, then started as if disbelieving his eyes; the marks of a wild emotion spread over his features, he burst into shrill, hysterical laughter.

"Do tell us!" begged Roberta.

"Covington--Covington is coming!" Wally felt his head whirl, and failed to note the chaperon's cry of surprise and see the paling of her cheeks. "_Covington is coming!_ Don't you understand?" he shouted. After all, the G.o.ds were not deaf! Good old Culver, who had never failed him, was coming as a deliverer.

Even in the face of his extraordinary outburst the attention of the beholders was drawn to Lawrence Gla.s.s, who caused the porch to shake beneath his feet; who galloped to his employer, and, seizing him by the hands, capered about like a hippopotamus.

"I told you 'Allah' was some guy," he wheezed. "When does Covington arrive?" Wally reread the message. "It says 'Noon Friday.' Why, that's to-day! He's here now!"

"'Rah! 'Rah! 'Rah! Covington!" bellowed the trainer, and Mrs.

Keap sank to a seat with a stifled moan.

"Why all the 'Oh joy! Oh, rapture!' stuff?" questioned Berkeley Fresno.

"As Socrates, the Hemlock Kid, would put it, 's.n.a.t.c.hed from the shadow of the grave,'" quoth Gla.s.s, then paused abruptly. "Say, you don't think nothin' could happen to him on the way over from the depot?"

"I'm so sorry we didn't know in time to meet him," lamented Miss Chapin.

"And I could have run over to the railroad to bid him welcome,"

laughed Speed. "Twenty miles would do me good."

Still Bill and Willie approached the gallery curiously, and in subdued tones inquired:

"What's the matter, Mr. Speed?"

"You ain't been summoned away?" Willie stared questioningly upward. "No, no! My running partner is on his way here, that's all."

"Running pardner?"

"Culver Covington."

"Oh, we was afraid something had happened. You see, Gabby Gallagher has just blowed in from the Centipede to raise our bets."

"We think it's a bluff, and we'd like to call him."

"Do so, by all means!" cried the excited athlete. "Come on, let's all talk to him!"

The entire party, with the exception of Mrs. Keap, trooped down from the porch and followed the foreman out toward the sheds, where, in the midst of a crowd of ranch-hands, a burly, loud- voiced Texan was discoursing.

"I do wish Jack were here," said Jean nervously, on the way.

Gabby Gallagher seemed a fitting leader for such a desperate crew as that of the Centipede, for he was the hardest-looking citizen the Easterners had beheld thus far. He was thickset, and burned to the color of a ripe olive; his long, drooping mustaches, tobacco-stained at the centre, were bleached at the extremities to a hempen hue. His bristly hair was cut short, and stood aggressively erect upon a bullet head, his clothes were soiled and greasy beneath a gray coating of dust. A pair of alert, lead- blue eyes and a certain facility of movement belied the drawl that marked his nativity. He removed his hat and bowed at sight of Miss Chapin.

"Good-evenin', Miss Jean!" said he. "I hope I find y'all well."

"Quite well, Gallagher. And you?"

"Tol'able, thank you."

"These are my friends from the East."

The Centipede foreman ran his eyes coldly over Jean's companions until they rested upon Speed, where they remained. He shifted a lump in his cheek, spat dexterously, and directed his remark at the Yale man.

"I rode over to see if y'all would like to lay a little mo' on this y'ere foot-race. I allow you are the unknown?"

Speed nodded, and Stover took occasion to remark: "Them's our inclinations, but we've about gone our limit."

"I don't blame you none," said Gallagher, allowing his gaze to rove slowly from top to toe of the Eastern lad. "No, I cain't blame you none whatever. But I'm terrible grieved at them tidin's. Though we Centipede punchers has ever considered y'all a cheap an' poverty-ridden outfit, we gives you credit for bein'

game, till now." He spat for a second time, and regarded Stover scornfully.

A murmur ran through the cowboys.

"We are game," retorted Stover, "and for your own good don't allow no belief to the contrary to become a superst.i.tion." Of a sudden the gangling, spineless foreman had grown taut and forceful, his long face was hard.

"Don't let a Centipede bluff you!" exclaimed Speed. "Cover anything they offer--give 'em odds. Anything you don't want, I'll take, pay or play, money at the tape. We can't lose."

"I got no more money," said Carara, removing his handsome bespangled hat, "but I bet my sombrero. 'E's wort' two hondred pesos."

Murphy, the Swede, followed quickly:

"Aye ban' send may vages home to may ole' moder, but aye skall bat you some."

"Haven't you boys risked enough already?" ventured Miss Chapin.

"Remember, it will go pretty hard with the losers."

"Harder the better," came a voice.

"Y'all don't have to bet, jest because I'm h'yar," gibed Gallagher.

"G.o.d! I wish I was rich!" exclaimed Willie.

But Miss Chapin persisted. "You are two months overdrawn, all of you. My brother won't advance you any more."

"Then my man, Lawrence, will take what they can't cover," offered Speed.

"That's right! Clean 'em good, brothers," croaked the trainer.

"If you'll step over to the bunk-house, Gabby, we'll dig up some personal perquisites and family heirlooms." Stover nodded toward his men's quarters, and Gallagher grinned joyously.

"That sh.o.r.e listens like a band from where I set. We aim to annex the wages, hopes, and personal ambitions of y'all, along with your talkin'-machine."

"Excuse me." Willie pushed his way forward. "How's she gettin'

along?"

"Fine!"

"You mule-skinners ain't broke her?"