Jap Herron Part 18

"What!" he hailed joyously, "our old friend of the sorghum barrel!

Where have you been hibernating? Surely a cure for sore eyes," and j.a.p seized his shoulder and whirled him around so that he could grasp his hand.

"Chipmunking in Barton," prompted Bill. "This sadly misguided farmer has been lost but now is found."

"The Missus sent a package to Miss Flossy. You and Bill 'll eat it, I reckon," and he produced a parcel from his pocket. "She said if Ellis was here, he'd appreciate it. It's sausage that she made herself.

And--and she sent a dollar for the paper. She wants the _Herald_."

"And what about Kelly?" j.a.p asked, a wave of memory sweeping over him.

"Just you write it down that Kelly Jones is a yaller pup," said Kelly morosely.

"Never!" declared j.a.p heartily. "Misled, perhaps, but with a heart of gold."

Kelly groped for his handkerchief.

"I've got on the water wagon, j.a.p," he sniffled. "I reckon I kin get along without the stuff. Sary hid my jug, and I done 'thout it for a week, and I felt fine. I am goin' to make a stagger at it, if I do fall down."

j.a.p pushed him into a chair.

"Why, you old rascal," he cried, "you have backbone enough to do anything you will to do. Move into town and help us turn the wheels."

Kelly wiped his nose on the tail of his slicker as he started for the door.

"Don't happen to need any ba.s.ses, do you?" he grinned.

j.a.p flung an empty ink bottle after him. When quiet had returned to the office, he said, as he hung his hat on the nail:

"Isabel wants to learn to stick type."

"Funny," said Bill shortly, "so does Rosy, and they hate each other like Pap hates beer. Pretty mix-up we'll have on our hands."

"That's all nonsense, Bill. Rosy can't help liking Isabel."

Bill scanned the copy on his hook, his eyes narrowing.

"Appears like she can," he muttered.

"Now, Bill, this won't do," argued j.a.p earnestly. "We can't afford to have dissension in such a vital matter. You must talk to Rosy."

"You can have the job," waived Bill, picking up a type. "Isabel said that Rosy was shallow and only skin-deep, and Rosy heard about it.

Isabel Granger is not so much----"

He stopped abruptly as j.a.p's hand went up in pained alarm.

"Look here, Bill, are we going to let the chatter of women come between us? There is something deeper holding us together than the friendship of a day. Give me your hand, Bill, and tell me that it is Ellis's work and not these trifles that you care for. We have a work to do, you and I."

Bill threw the stick upon the case and grasped j.a.p's outstretched hand.

Tears glistened in his eyes.

"Better than all the loves in the world, I love you, j.a.p," he stormed.

Jerking his hat from the nail, he strode out to walk off the emotionalism he decried.

That afternoon he strove manfully to show Isabel how to put type in the stick upside down, and to save her feelings he stealthily corrected her faulty work, suppressing a grin at j.a.p's pride in her first attempt.

Bill shook his head sadly as they strolled out together, j.a.p's eyes drinking in the girl's slender beauty.

"Petticoat government 'll get old j.a.p tripped up," he complained to the office cat. "And then where'll I be? When j.a.p marries I'll play second fiddle. Come seven, come 'leven!" and he snapped his fingers in the air.

CHAPTER XVI

The sun was streaming through the east windows. j.a.p looked anxiously up and down the street. Bill had not been home all night. This was a state of affairs alarming to j.a.p. He walked back to the table and turned the exchanges over restlessly.

"I wonder if the boy could have persuaded that b.u.t.terfly to elope with him, as he threatened he would, when her mother cut up so rough," he worried.

Tim Simpson came in and peered around furtively.

"Bill is drunk as a lord," he announced in a stage whisper. "I've got him in the back room of the calaboose, to sober up without the news leakin'."

j.a.p paled.

"Bill drunk?" he faltered. "Who got him into it? Is he asleep, Tim?"

"Lord, no! If he was, I would 'a' left him out when he come to, and said no word to you about it. But I'm plum scared about him. He's chargin' up and down like a Barnum lion. I reckon as how you'd better mosey down there and try to ca'm him."

As j.a.p walked rapidly down the alley beside the night marshal, he asked:

"Did you try to talk to him?"

"Yes," said Simpson ruefully. "He kicked me out and was chasin' after me when I slammed the door on him. He's blind crazy loaded. I fu'st seen him after number nine pulled in, so I think he come on her. He was mutterin' and shakin' his fist when he hove in sight. I got him and steered him into the jug without much trouble, and it was only a hour ago that he started this ragin' and ravin'."

As they entered the jail, sounds of tramping feet and mutterings reached their ears. Bill's swollen, blotched face and reddened eyes appeared behind the grating.

"Let me out of here!" he shouted. "You'll get a broken head for this, you old mule." He shook the grating furiously.

"Bill," said j.a.p slowly, "do you want to come with me, or do you want me to stay here with you till you've had a bath and a good sleep?"

Bill laughed discordantly.

"A sleep! A sleep!" he cried. "Yes, a long, long sleep. As soon as you take me out of this h.e.l.l-hole, I'll take a sleep that'll last."

j.a.p opened the door and stepped inside.

"Don't come any nearer," warned Bill. "I'm too filthy, j.a.p. But let me stay as I am till it's over."

He sat down on the cot and stared crazily into the corridor. j.a.p sat down beside him and drew his arm around his shoulder, with the tenderness of a woman.

"Tell me about it, Bill, boy," he counselled gently. "Tim, you may leave us."