Loaded Dice Part 14

Anyways a mining man. Too bad it's Sat.u.r.day afternoon, though. That's a regular half holiday here now. Boys mostly lay around and enjoy themselves. We'll find most of 'em out at the park, I guess, doin'

stunts."

The stranger looked at him inquiringly. "Stunts?" he queried.

Harrison grinned. "Athletic craze struck here about a month ago," he answered. "Kind o' funny, too, when you come to think of it, ain't it?

Here's a crowd o' big miners slavin' away five days an' a half a week gettin' out copper, workin' like truck horses, an' then when Sat.u.r.day afternoons come they've got to get out an' work just about twice as hard playin' baseball an' runnin' an' throwin' weights. It's a pretty d.a.m.n lucky thing they've got Sunday to rest up in, or they'd be one o'

these fallin' offs in copper production you minin' fellers tell of."

Gordon's face betrayed his interest. "It does seem funny," he acquiesced, "but I know how it is, just the same. I used to do a little in that line myself once on a time, and pretty good fun it was, too," and he smiled reminiscently as he spoke, as if the memories that came to mind were pleasant ones.

Half a mile or so from town they came to the smelting works, as Harrison had predicted, shut down for the afternoon. Beyond the line of low buildings, a flat open field, the gra.s.s burned brown by the sun, stretched away for a quarter of a mile or more. The heat of the afternoon was just changing to the cool of evening, and, in the center of the field, true to Harrison's prophecy, two rival ball teams were playing with all the zest of boys. Nearer at hand a dozen brawny miners were throwing the hammer. Even as Gordon looked, one of them picked up the missile, swung it around his head, and hurled it far out from the circle. The stranger's eyes gleamed. "Rotten form," he muttered under his breath, and then, with apparent irrelevance, he added, "and they say there's no such thing as luck."

They had reached the little group, and Harrison, evidently well known and well liked, was greeted with rough good will. Responding, he introduced the visitor. "Boys," he said, "let me make you acquainted with Mr. Gordon. He's another one o' these eastern minin' sharps, come out on purpose to buy the whole township, if we'll give him a cheap enough rate on it; so you want to look out an' treat him good."

There was a general laugh, in which Gordon joined. "Oh, we easterners are easy, I admit," he said good-naturedly. "Don't soak it to me too hard, that's all I ask. Jack's got no license, though, to go to talking business on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, just for the fun of getting after me. We're on a vacation now. Let's see somebody throw that hammer again."

"That's right," cried Harrison; "let Bill Martin give her a toss. He's the man can do it."

The others drew back, and as Martin willingly enough stepped forward, Gordon looked him over with undisguised admiration. He was perhaps thirty-five years of age, well over six feet, and a much bigger man than Harrison even. His woolen shirt, open at the neck, showed the play of the corded muscles in his ma.s.sive throat and neck, and his uprolled sleeves disclosed the arms of a giant. Taking his stand somewhat awkwardly, he swung the hammer stiffly around his head, and then, with one final tremendous heave, sent it hurling a good ten feet beyond the farthest mark.

There was a chorus of good-natured approval. "Put the tape on it,"

cried three or four at once, and the hundred-foot measure was slowly unrolled until the mark was reached, and then pulled tight.

"Ninety-four feet, eight inches," called the measurer, and there was another murmur of satisfaction. Harrison turned to Gordon. "How's that?" he grinned. "Beat that back east?"

Gordon smiled too. "Well, that's a good throw," he answered noncommittally, "a mighty good throw from a stand, but the real way to throw a hammer's to turn with it; you can get up so much more speed that way."

The little group gazed at him in astonishment. One or two grinned derisively. Old Jim Stickney, with deep meaning, spat upon the ground, then looked up at Gordon.

"Would you show us?" he asked, with mild and deceptive politeness. "We all hail from Missouri here."

Harrison looked distressed. He felt in a way responsible for the stranger. "Oh, h.e.l.l, Jim," he expostulated, "ain't you got no manners?"

Gordon laughed easily. "I guess it's up to me, boys," he said quietly, and, leisurely removing his coat, collar and tie, he laid them methodically on the ground.

The group eyed him with surprised interest. Stickney grinned malevolently and moved away. "Goin' to git out o' range, boys," he said; "don't want to git hit."

Gordon showed no resentment, but on the contrary nodded with the utmost cheerfulness. "That's a good idea," he said; "it's a long time since I've thrown one of these things. Can't tell what'll happen. I don't know that I ought to be throwing, anyway. My lungs aren't any too strong."

Harrison, in mute distress, dreading a scene, laid a hand on his arm.

"Don't let 'em make a fool of you," he whispered; "they'll tell it all over the county; unless," he added, "you really can throw the darned thing."

Gordon nodded in quick appreciation of the other's good will. "Don't you worry, Jack," he whispered in answer; "I wouldn't try it if I couldn't get by. We've got to take the good chances when they come along. They're not apt to turn around and come back again."

Harrison looked puzzled, and a little dubious, but as Gordon took his stand within the circle the miner's face cleared. There was a masterful ease in the way in which the easterner took his position very different from the awkward pose of the others. Once, twice, three times, the hammer circled around his head, and then, like lightning, he spun around in his tracks, once, twice, so quickly that the eye could scarcely follow the whirling missile. Then, in a flash, it leaped from his hands, and Gordon was left standing motionless in the ring, while the hammer shot up and out in a high, graceful curve, sailing along as if on wings until it landed with a thud so far beyond Martin's mark as to make comparison ridiculous.

There was silence, bewildered, complete, absolute. Gordon, not seeming to notice, stepped from the circle. "A little low," he said, with a note of apology in his tone, "and I didn't quite get my weight behind it. A little out of practice, I guess, but the turn's a great thing."

And then over the group swept a sudden revulsion, and there burst forth a mighty roar of laughter. Stickney spat again, but, if the phrase be permissible, with a far different intonation; and then voiced the sentiment of the crowd. "Well, by G.o.d," he cried nasally, "all I can say is I'm glad you ain't kept in steady practice, an' I'll say further that you can bet I ain't wastin' a mite of sympathy on them pore weak lungs o' yourn. No, sir, I ain't, an' not by a d.a.m.ned sight, neither."

Bill Martin eyed the stranger with increased respect. "I'd like to know that trick," he volunteered. "Want to learn it to me?"

Gordon nodded. "Certainly," he said; "glad to. Only you can't expect to get it right away. It looks easy enough, but I had to practise it every day for three months before I could get it down right. Here's the idea. I won't throw it. Just to show you"--He picked up the hammer, ill.u.s.trating as he talked--"See? Pull back from it like this.

Keep pulling against it all the time, and when you swing it around your head the third time, turn right on your toes, this way; once, twice, and then let her go for all there is in you. See?"

Martin nodded, and took the hammer again in his hands, while Gordon and the others stepped quickly back. Once, twice, three times, he swung the missile with ever-increasing speed, and then, as he tried to turn rapidly, there ensued a sudden amazing tangle of arms and legs, hammer and man mixed in hopeless, whirling confusion, and two hundred and thirty pounds of bone and muscle and misdirected energy struck the ground with a mighty, jarring crash.

Each man in the little knot of spectators expressed himself according to his temperament. One or two howled their joy aloud, others rolled p.r.o.ne upon the ground. Jim Stickney, holding his sides, the tears coursing down his cheeks, shook his head from side to side in helpless merriment. As a tableau the picture appeared to his delighted eyes too beautiful, too perfect, to spoil with mere words.

Slowly Martin picked himself up from the ground, a flush of anger darkening his face. "Shut up, you d.a.m.n fools," he growled, "the whole thing's a trick. There ain't no fair test to it. But if any one of you jacka.s.ses, when you get through your braying, wants to try and see how strong he is, I'll fight any three of you in succession, and I'll knock the everlasting stuffing out of you, too." He paused a moment, glaring blackly at the group; then, as an afterthought, added with deliberation: "West--or east. No bar. First come, first served."

His words had a sudden sobering effect upon the crowd. The laughter died away. Gordon felt rather than actually saw all eyes turned curiously in his direction. He hesitated, but only for a moment.

"Oh, the devil," he began good-naturedly, "n.o.body wants to fight--" but Martin's ill humor was not to be so easily appeased.

"Oh, no," he jeered; "n.o.body wants to fight, and it's lucky for them they don't. It's lucky for them they're afraid--"

On the instant Gordon stepped forward, an ugly little smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "Meaning me?" he asked quietly.

Martin eyed him malevolently. "Sure," he grinned, with all the disagreeable effrontery he could put into his tone, "meaning you; and why not, I'd like to know."

"Only this," said Gordon in a perfectly level tone; "that you're not the man to use that word quite so freely without knowing first what you're talking about. And you'll apologize to me right away before these gentlemen--or I'll fight you with all the pleasure in life, three-minute rounds, one minute rests, no hitting in clinches, Harrison to referee."

Martin, the l.u.s.t of battle glowing in his deep-set eyes, breathed a sigh of content. "Come on," was all that he said.

With the readiness born of much experience, Harrison and Stickney in a twinkling had the simple preparations under way. The rough dimensions of a twenty-four-foot ring were paced off; the spectators took their places where corner posts and ropes should have been, and a messenger was despatched to the ball field for the two players' benches there in use. In short order he returned, aided with his burden by many willing hands; behind him trailing some two score eager followers, for in the eyes of the Lake a fist fight still took precedence without compet.i.tion over all else in the line of true diversion.

There was a moment's silence, and then Stickney, spitting furiously in his excitement, looked at his watch, and nodded. "All ready!" he cried, his voice vibrant with excitement, and at the word the two men, stripped to the waist, stepped quickly forward and shook hands.

Gordon smiled at his burly antagonist. "No ill-feeling?" he queried good-naturedly.

The miner shook his ma.s.sive head. "Oh, no, not a bit," he said grimly, and his tone and the smoldering wrath in his eyes belied his words.

Both men turned and walked slowly toward their corners; then "Time!"

yelled Stickney, and, turning again, they put up their hands and warily faced each other.

Martin stood upright in the center of the ring, body a little thrown back, his left arm held straight in front of him, and his right doubled across his chest. Gordon, standing easily and loosely, with muscles relaxed, eyed his man for a moment, and then suddenly dropped into the more modern fighting pose, crouched catlike, his weight well over his hips, shoulders hunched, both arms held loosely in front of him. Slowly he walked around the miner with quick and cautious steps, Martin pivoting slowly to meet him as he advanced. Nearer, nearer still, they came; imperceptibly the distance between them grew less and less, and then, all at once, like a flash, Gordon jumped in.

Thud! came his right on Martin's ribs, and crack! came his left on Martin's face. The miner's head jerked suddenly back; he gave an involuntary grunt of pain; and from his twitching nostrils there came a sudden dark red stream of blood.

Just for an instant he stood motionless, inert; then, smarting with pain, and half mad with rage, he lowered his head and charged like a bull. Gordon, hard-pressed, gave ground at once, stalling off as best he might the angry giant's reckless charge. Once the miner's right found his ribs, and his face contracted with a sudden spasm of pain, while the angry red blotches showed mottled against the clear white skin. Twice a mighty left swing just missed his jaw, and both times the indrawn breath of the crowd expended itself in a sigh, half of relief, half of disappointment, as they saw the easterner still unharmed.

Thus two minutes of the round had gone, and then all at once there came a change, for by this time it had become evident to Gordon, long skilled in all the craft and science of the ring, that he had opposed to him a man, unskilful, to be sure, but untireable as well, and that the longer the fight lasted the better it would be for the miner and the worse for him. Thus, his mind made up, he summoned to his aid every particle of strength and cunning at his command, and when next the miner rushed, he no longer gave ground, but for an instant met the attack squarely and then again forced the fighting in his turn. Three times he landed straight lefts on Martin's face that should have put an ordinary man away for good, and three times the giant grunted and came on for more. Again Gordon drove home a smashing blow on the miner's gory nose, and then, in trying to get his right to the heart, he left himself for an instant unprotected, and in that instant Martin, fighting more craftily in his turn and biding his time, landed one of his wild right swings on Gordon's left cheek, just under the eye. Gordon staggered back, reeling; earth and sky blazed suddenly in a mist of swimming red; the wild yells of the miners reached him as the faintest buzzing of a swarm of bees; and, flushed and eager, Martin came on to finish his man. Like a drunken man Gordon blocked weakly, clenched mechanically with the fighter's instinct for an instant's respite, and then as Harrison, pitying but firm, walked between them, pushing them roughly apart and ordering them to take the center of the ring, in that blessed moment the mist cleared from Gordon's eyes, the red tide of life pulsed again through every vein, and brave heart and cunning brain waked again to life.

Fortunate it would have been for Martin had he realized the change, but all unmindful he came gaily on, thrilling with the triumph of the fighting beast. Carelessly, recklessly, well-nigh disdainfully, he started in to demolish his weakening foe, and then--sudden, unlooked-for, amazing--Gordon's left caught him with a lightning jab in the ribs, Gordon's right caught him full on the point of the jaw, and, like a pole-axed bullock, he stood still for the veriest instant of time, and then, crashing face downward, lay motionless on the field.

With the inrush of the crowd Gordon laid a hand on Harrison's arm, lifting his eyes in mute appeal, and Harrison, understanding, picked him up bodily in his arms and got him away to one side. Here, for ten minutes, he lay weakly enough, his head against Harrison's knee, his eyes half closed. Then, somewhat unsteadily, he struggled to his feet, and walked over to his still prostrate foe. Martin's grin, this time, was sincere, and his faint handshake had a friendly pressure.

"All right," he said weakly; "no kick comin'. I know when I'm up against a better man, and you done me fair."