Hidden Creek Part 13

"You first, Dusty--d.a.m.n you!" and led the stumbling beast into the yard of The Aura. In an hour or more he came back. He had dined at the hotel and he had bathed. His naturally vivid coloring glowed under the street-light. He was shaved and brushed and sleek. He pushed quickly through the swinging doors of the bar and stepped into the saloon. It was truly a famous bar--The Aura--and it deserved its fame. It shone bright and cool and polished. There was a cheerful clink of gla.s.ses, a subdued, comfortable sound of talk. Men drank at the bar, and drank and played cards at the small tables. A giant in a white ap.r.o.n stood to serve the newcomer.

Hilliard ordered his drink, sipped it leisurely, then wandered off to a near-by table. There he stood, watching the game. Not long after, he accepted an invitation and joined the players. From then till midnight he was oblivious of everything but the magic squares of pasteboard, the shifting pile of dirty silver at his elbow, the faces--vacant, clever, or rascally--of his opponents. But at about midnight, trouble came. For some time Hilliard had been subconsciously irritated by the divided attention of a player opposite to him across the table. This man, with a long, thin face, was constantly squinting past Cosme's shoulder, squinting and leering and stretching his great full-lipped mouth into a queer half-smile. At last, abruptly, the irritation came to consciousness and Cosme threw an angry glance over his own shoulder.

Beside the giant who had served him his drink a girl stood: a thin, straight girl in black and white who held herself so still that she seemed painted there against the mirror on the wall. Her hands rested on her slight hips, the fine, pointed, ringless fingers white against the black stuff of her dress. Her neck, too, was white and her face, the pure unpowdered whiteness of childhood. Her chin was lifted, her lips laid together, her eyes, brilliant and clear, of no definite color, looked through her surroundings. She was very young, not more than seventeen.

The mere presence of a girl was startling enough. Barmaids are unknown to the experience of the average cowboy. But this girl was trebly startling.

For her face was rare. It was not Western, not even American. It was a fine-drawn, finished, Old-World face, with long, arched eyebrows, large lids, shadowed eyes, nostrils a little pinched, a sad and tender mouth.

It was a face whose lines might have followed the pencil of Botticelli--those little hollows in the cheeks, that slight exaggeration of the pointed chin, that silky, rippling brown hair. There was no touch of artifice; it was an unpainted young face; hair brushed and knotted simply; the very carriage of the body was alien; supple, unconscious, restrained.

Cosme Hilliard's look lasted for a minute. Returning to his opponent it met an ugly grimace. He flushed and the game went on.

But the incident had roused Hilliard's antagonism. He disliked that man with the grimacing mouth. He began to watch him. An hour or two later Cosme's thin, dark hand shot across the table and gripped the fellow's wrist.

"Caught you that time, you tin-horn," he said quietly.

Instantly, almost before the speech was out, the giant in the ap.r.o.n had hurled himself across the room and gripped the cheat, who stood, a hand arrested on its way to his pocket, snarling helplessly. But the other players, his fellow sheep-herders, fell away from Hilliard dangerously.

"No shootin'," said the giant harshly. "No shoot-in' in The Aura. It ain't allowed."

"No callin' names either," growled the prisoner. "Me and my friends would like to settle with the youthful stranger."

"Settle with him, then, but somewheres else. No fightin' in The Aura."

There was an acquiescent murmur from the other table and the sheep-herder gave in. He exchanged a look with his friends, and Carthy, seeing them disposed to return quietly to the game, left them and took up his usual position behind the bar. The barmaid moved a little closer to his elbow.

Hilliard noticed that her eyes had widened in her pale face. He made a brief, contemptuous excuse to his opponents, settled his account with them, and strolled over to the bar. From Carthy he ordered another drink.

He saw the girl's eyes studying the hand he put out for his gla.s.s and he smiled a little to himself. When she looked up he was ready with his golden eyes to catch her glance. Both pairs of eyes smiled. She came a step toward him.

"I believe I've heard of you, miss," he said.

A delicate pink stained her face and throat and he wondered if she could possibly be shy.

"Some fellows I met over in the Big Horn country lately told me to look you up if I came to Millings. They said something about Hudson's Queen.

It's the Hudson Hotel isn't it?--"

A puzzled, rather worried look crept into her eyes, but she avoided his question. "You were working in the Big Horn country? I hoped you were from Hidden Creek."

"I'm on my way there," he said. "I know that country well. You come from over there?"

"No." She smiled faintly. "But"--and here her breast lifted on a deep, spasmodic sigh--"some day I'm going there."

"It's not like any other country," he said, turning his gla.s.s in his supple fingers. "It's wonderful. But wild and lonesome. You wouldn't be caring for it--not for longer than a sunny day or two, I reckon."

He used the native phrases with sure familiarity, and yet in his speaking of them there was something unfamiliar. Evidently she was puzzled by him, and Cosme was not sorry that he had so roused her curiosity. He was very curious himself, so much so that he had forgotten the explosive moment of a few short minutes back.

The occupants of the second table pushed away their chairs and came over to the bar. For a while the barmaid was busy, making their change, answering their jests, bidding them good-night. It was, "Well, good-night, Miss Arundel, and thank you."

"See you next Sat.u.r.day, Miss Arundel, if I'm alive--"

Hilliard drummed on the counter with his fingertips and frowned. His puzzled eyes wove a pattern of inquiry from the men to the girl and back.

One of them, a ruddy-faced, town boy, lingered. He had had a drop too much of The Aura's hospitality. He rested rather top-heavily against the bar and stretched out his hand.

"Aren't you going to say me a real good-night, Miss Sheila," he besought, and a tipsy dimple cut itself into his cheek.

"Do go home, Jim," murmured the barmaid. "You've broken your promise again. It's two o'clock."

He made great ox-eyes at her, his hand still begging, its blunt fingers curled upward like a thirsty cup.

His face was emptied of everything but its desire.

It was perfectly evident that "Miss Sheila" was tormented by the look, by the eyes, by the hand, by the very presence of the boy. She pressed her lips tight, drew her fine arched brows together, and twisted her fingers.

"I'll go home," he a.s.serted obstinately, "when you tell me a proper goo'-night--not before."

Her eyes glittered. "Shall I tell Carthy to turn you out, Jim?"

He smiled triumphantly. "Uh," said he, "your watch-dog went out.

d.i.c.kie called him to answer the telephone. Now, will you tell me good-night, Sheila?"

Cosme hoped that the girl would glance at him for help, he had his long steel muscles braced; but, after a moment's thought--"And she can think.

She's as cool as she's shy," commented the observer--she put her hand on Jim's. He grabbed it, pressed his lips upon it.

"Goo'-night," he said, "Goo'-night. I'll go now." He swaggered out as though she had given him a rose.

The barmaid put her hand beneath her ap.r.o.n and rubbed it. Cosme laughed a little at the quaint action.

"Do they give you lots of trouble, Miss Arundel?" he asked her sympathetically.

She looked at him. But her att.i.tude was not so simple and friendly as it had been. Evidently her little conflict with Jim had jarred her humor.

She looked distressed, angry. Cosme felt that, unfairly enough, she lumped him with The Enemy. He wondered pitifully if she had given The Enemy its name, if her experience had given her the knowledge of such names. He had a vision of the pretty, delicate little thing standing there night after night as though divided by the bar from prowling beasts. And yet she was known over the whole wide, wild country as "Hudson's Queen." Her crystal, childlike look must be one of those extraordinary survivals, a piteous sort of accident. Cosme called himself a sentimentalist. Spurred by this reaction against his more romantic tendencies, he leaned forward. He too was going to ask the barmaid for a good-night or a greeting or a good-bye. His hand was out, when he saw her face stiffen, her lips open to an "Oh!" of warning or of fear. He wheeled and flung up his arm against a hurricane of blows.

His late opponents had decided to take advantage of Carthy's absence, and inflict chastis.e.m.e.nt prompt and merciless upon the "youthful stranger."

If it had not been for that small frightened "Oh" Cosme would have been down at once.

With that moment's advantage he fought like a tiger, his golden eyes ablaze. Swift and dangerous anger was one of his gifts. He was against the wall, he was torn from it. One of his opponents staggered across the room and fell, another crumpled up against the bar. Hilliard wheeled and jabbed, plunged, was down, was up, bleeding and laughing. He was whirled this way and that, the men from whom he had struck himself free recovered themselves, closed in upon him. A blow between the eyes half stunned him, another on his mouth silenced his laughter. The room was getting blurred.

He was forced back against the bar, fighting, but not effectively. The snarling laughter was not his now, but that of the cheat.

Something gave way behind him; it was as if the bar, against which he was bent backwards, had melted to him and hardened against his foes. For an instant he was free from blows and tearing hands. He saw that a door in the bar had opened and shut. There was a small pressure on his arm, a pressure which he blindly obeyed. In front of him another door opened, and closed. He heard the shooting of a bolt. He was in the dark. The small pressure, cold through the torn silk sleeve of his white shirt, continued to urge him swiftly along a pa.s.sage. He was allowed to rest an instant against a wall. A light was turned on with a little click above his head. He found himself at the end of the open hallway. Before him lay the brilliant velvet night.

Hilliard pressed his hands upon his eyes trying to clear his vision. He felt sick and giddy. The little barmaid's face, all terrified and urgent eyes, danced up and down.

"Don't waste any time!" she said. "Get out of Millings! Where's your pony?"

At that he looked at her and smiled.

"I'm not leaving Millings till to-morrow," he said uncertainly with wounded lips. "Don't look like that, girl. I'm not much hurt, If I'm not mistaken, your watch-dog is back and very much on his job. I reckon that our friends will leave Millings considerably before I do."

In fact, behind them at the end of the pa.s.sage there was a sort of roar.

Carthy had returned to avenge The Aura.