Lightnin Part 14

"Who's calling her that?" Harper paced up and down, a scowl on his face.

"I mean the whole situation. It's such a silly mistake. And yet she won't believe it."

"Same here." There was a warm sense of comradeship in the same sad cause in the air with which Bill made his last remark. It brought Harper to a standstill. With a smile he listened to the old man's explanation.

"Folks don't believe nothin' I tell 'em. Women never do believe you when you tell 'em the truth, but tell 'em a lie 'n' they swallows it hook 'n'

bait. Why don't you write her a letter? Ef she knows yer here 'n' ain't too anxious ye got a good chance."

"I believe I'll do that. It sounds like a good scheme. Give her a chance to think things over instead of running in on her all of a sudden. Have you got a room?" Harper went to the Nevada desk and took up the pen to register, but Bill interrupted him.

"Come on over here," Bill nodded to the California desk, following his own gesture to a place back of the counter. "We always got plenty of room on this side."

"Where's the bar?"

At this question put by Harper, Bill's head struck an interesting and inquisitive att.i.tude. "Down to the saloon," he said.

But he was doomed to disappointment. "Never mind, then," was Harper's disheartening reply.

Bill's interest slackened, but was quickly revived as Harper, in the middle of scribbling a note to his wife, looked up long enough to add, "I've got a flask in my bag."

It did not take Bill long to get from behind the desk. That bag was a friend. He had promised Marvin that he would not spend his pension, and Mrs. Jones had carefully removed the flask from its corner in the Nevada desk. "I'll show you right up," he exclaimed, making an undue and unaccustomed haste toward the stairs, bag in hand.

At the top of the stairs he stood, waiting for Harper to seal the envelop.

Harper came up the stairs, two at a time, and handed the letter to Bill, offering to take the bag from Bill as he did so. But Bill shook his hand loose. "I'd better take the bag to the room for you first. Ye must be pretty tired." There was a hidden implication in the monotone in which the last speech was delivered.

Rodney Harper was too possessed of his own affairs to feel it, and with an impatient gesture he stooped to take his bag from Bill, pleading, "Please, old man, won't you deliver the letter?"

But Bill, attuned to a rare occasion, had quickly evaded Harper's outstretched hand and was down the hallway with the bag. He opened the door of Harper's room and went in first, depositing the bag on the floor. Then he went up to the frowning guest, caught hold of his arm, and whispered:

"Marvin's here, but I didn't want them folks down-stairs to know it.

They come to git him fer cuttin' down your timber, but he jumped over the California line. He'll be back by 'n' by, I'm thinkin'."

Harper was interested in the news and asked Bill to let him know when Marvin was about again, but he was not interested enough to make him forget what was his present paramount concern. He gave a desperate glance toward the letter in Bill's hand.

But Bill had no intention of leaving until his own possessive intention was fulfilled. He backed away from the bed where he had placed the bag, slowly retreating until he came to the door, which Harper had left open for Bill's exit. When he reached the sill he grasped the k.n.o.b with one hand, half closing it, while he stood in front of it on the inside. The anxiety in Harper's contracted brow met the slow grin that wrinkled about Bill's eyes and mouth. A question started from Harper's tongue.

Bill forestalled it. "I'm sorry," he said, slowly and gently, but with a wise twinkle in his blue eyes, "thet there ain't no bar. Mother she doesn't like drink." He paused a moment to see what effect his words were having. As he saw his intention was slowly penetrating through Harper's absorption in his own affairs, Bill made his final coup. "She lifted my flask from the desk, or I could be askin' you to have a swig."

Harper threw back his head and laughed. "So that's it!" he exclaimed, hurriedly opening his bag and extracting the flask. "Well, I tell you what I'll do. If you'll beat it in quick time with that note I'll treat you to the whole darned flask."

Bill needed no second bidding. With flask secure in his back pocket he lost no time in descending the California stairs and mounting the flight to the Nevada half of the hotel and leaving the letter with Mrs. Harper.

On the way back to the lobby he slightly diminished the contents of the flask.

He entered the lobby with a smile whose target was the whole world and threw himself whole-heartedly into the pleasure of tormenting Blodgett.

He knew that Blodgett was furious at the manner of Marvin's escape as much as at the fact itself. So he dropped into the chair next to the sheriff, drawling, "You goin' over to Truckee to get a California warrant?"

Blodgett gave Bill a mean look, sneering, as he sniffed at the air, "Say, you're collecting something, ain't you?"

"I didn't get nothin' from you," Bill answered, shortly. Which answer was not without its point, Blodgett's reputation as one of the closest men in Washoe County not being unknown to Bill.

"Don't get sore. I wished I was in your place," said Blodgett, as he fidgeted about in his chair and looked through the doorway.

Thomas, who had been on the veranda all this time, came indoors just as Blodgett finished his remark.

Bill caught it quickly, his smile flashing into a gleam of humor toward Thomas.

"In my place?" asked Bill, with a twinkle. With a nod toward Thomas, he added, "You're like that other fellow."

Thomas flushed, but ignored the innuendo. Taking a paper from his pocket, he looked through it. At the California desk he stopped to sign his name at the end of it. Then he called to Bill, "Did you tell your wife we were waiting for her?"

"No, I didn't. I've been up visiting my friend Harper. He's a big millionaire. Havin' trouble with his wife. Patched it up. Told him to write her a note 'n' I brought it to her. He gimme this fer the idea."

Bill produced the flask from his pocket and extended it toward Blodgett, but when it was half-way on its journey he jerked it back, just as Mrs.

Harper emerged from between the portieres of the Nevada upper hallway.

Clad in a fluffy, silken negligee, she tiptoed half-way down the stairs before she saw Thomas, who had left the desk and was standing in the doorway with his face toward the moonlit lake. She gave a smothered cry and was about to turn back. Bill held up a warning finger toward Blodgett, who quickly obeyed the injunction to look straight ahead.

Arising from his seat, the old man made a friendly motion toward the frightened little creature on the stairs and she came down to where he stood in the middle of the floor, casting bewildered glances to right and left and trembling as he whispered in her ear:

"He's in Number Four. Hurry now, before any one catches on."

"Do they all know he's my husband?" she flittered as she sped lightly up the California stairs.

"I won't say nothin' about it." Bill could not resist a wink, which met with a toss of Mrs. Harper's pretty head as she glided between the portieres toward her husband's room.

Bill went back to his chair again. Everett Hammond came into the room from the porch outside. Laying his hat on the California desk, he went around behind the counter and turned the pages of the register.

Bill did not sit down, but wandered over to the desk where Hammond stood and gazed at him through half-open eyes. "Oh, you runnin' the place now?" he questioned.

Hammond did not answer him at once, but kept on running over the names on the list. But there was a compelling force in the mild gaze of the old man which made Hammond stop to reckon with him. "Yes," he said, bruskly, while he frowned at Bill. "I've just settled everything with your wife. All that's needed now is for you to sign that deed."

There was no answer forthcoming from Bill. Instead, he slowly took the flask from his pocket and held it in front of him. "I'll take a drink with you," he said, with a slow smile.

Hammond did not glance up, but answered, with a half-smile, "I'm sorry, but I, haven't got anything."

"I have," said Bill, shuffling toward him with the flask.

Blodgett twisted about in his chair and called, "You look and act as if you'd had enough."

Bill left the desk and seated himself beside Blodgett again. "I don't want it for myself," he said, putting the spurned flask back in his pocket; "it's just for social--ability. I don't drink."

"Don't tell me that," scoffed the sheriff. "You're a booze-fighter."

"No, I ain't," Bill answered, quickly.

Then seeing a chance for romance, he added, "I'm an Indian-fighter."

"Is that so?" Blodgett drew out his answer in an accent that spoke of disbelief.

"You bet it's so. Did you ever know Buffalo Bill?" Bill leaned forward so he could see what impression he was making upon the sheriff.