The Girl at the Halfway House Part 18

Ellisville was near the zenith of its bad eminence. The entire country had gone broad-horn. Money being free, whisky was not less so. The bar of the Cottage was lined perpetually. Wild men from the range rode their horses up the steps and into the bar-room, demanding to be served as they sat in the saddle, as gentlemen should. Gla.s.s was too tempting to the six-shooters of these enthusiasts, and the barkeeper begged the question by stowing away the fragments of his mirror and keeping most of his bottles out of sight. More than once he was asked to hold up a bottle of whisky so that some cow-puncher might prove his skill by shooting the neck off from the flask. The bartender was taciturn and at times glum, but his face was the only one at the bar that showed any irritation or sadness. This railroad town was a bright, new thing for the hors.e.m.e.n of the trail--a very joyous thing. No funeral could check their hilarity; no whisky could daunt their throats, long seared with alkali.

It was notorious that after the civil war human life was held very cheap all over America, it having been seen how small a thing is a man, how little missed may be a million men taken bodily from the population. Nowhere was life cheaper than on the frontier, and at no place on that frontier of less value than at this wicked little city.

Theft was unknown, nor was murder recognised by that name, always being referred to as a "killing." Of these "killings" there were very many.

The sheriff of Ellisville looked thoughtful as he tested the machinery of the law. He had a warrant for a new bad man who had come up from the Indian nations, and who had celebrated his first day in town by shooting two men who declined to get off the sidewalk, so that he could ride his horse more comfortably there. The sheriff left the warrant on the table, as was his custom, this paper being usually submitted with the corpse at the inquest. The sheriff hummed a tune as he cleaned his revolver. He was the law.

Bill Watson, the sheriff of Ellisville, was a heavily built man, sandy-haired, red-mustached, and solid. His legs were bowed and his carriage awkward. He had thick, clumsy-looking fingers, whose appearance belied their deftness. Bill Watson had gone through the Quantrell raid in his time. It was nothing to him when he was to be killed. Such a man is careful in his shooting, because he is careless of being shot, having therefore a vast advantage over the desperado of two or three victims, who does not yet accept the fact that his own days are numbered. The only trouble in regard to this new bad man from below was that his mental att.i.tude on this point was much the same as that of Sheriff Bill Watson. Therefore the sheriff was extremely careful about the oiling of the cylinder.

The great cattle drive was at its height. Buyers from the territorial ranges of the North and Northwest, now just beginning to open up, bid in market against the men from the markets of the East. Prices advanced rapidly. Men carried thousands of dollars in the pockets of their greasy "chaps." Silver was no longer counted. There were hardware stores which sold guns and harness-shops which sold saddles.

There were twoscore saloons which held overflow meetings, accommodating those whom the Cottage bar would not hold. There were three barber-shops, to which went only the very weary. The corral of the Cottage, where the drovers stopped, was large enough to hold two hundred horses, with comfortable s.p.a.ce for roping, and the snubbing post was grooved with the wear of many ropes. The central street needed no paving, for it was worn hard as flint. Long rows of cattle chutes lined the railroad yards, whence came continuous din of bellowing, crowding, maddened cattle, handled with ease and a certain exultation by men who had studied nothing but this thing. Hors.e.m.e.n clattered up and down the street day and night--riding, whether drunk or sober, with the incomparable confidence of the greatest horse country the world has ever known. Everywhere was the bustle of a unique commerce, mingled with a colossal joy of life. The smokes from the dugouts and shacks now began to grow still more numerous in the region round about, but there were not many homes, because there were not many women. For this reason men always kill each other very much more gladly and regularly than they do in countries where there are many women, it appearing to them, perhaps, that in a womanless country life is not worth the living. A few "hay ranches," a few fields even of "sod corn," now began to show here and there, index of a time to come, but for the most part this was yet a land of one s.e.x and one occupation. The cattle trade monopolized the scene. The heaps of buffalo bones were now neglected. The long-horned cattle of the white men were coming in to take the place of the curved-horned cattle of the Indians. The curtain of the cattle drama of the West was now rung up full.

The sheriff finished the cleaning of his six-shooter and tossed the oiled rag into the drawer of the table where he kept the warrants. He slipped the heavy weapon into the scabbard at his right leg and saw that the string held the scabbard firmly to his trouser-leg, so that he might draw the gun smoothly and without hindrance from its sheath. He knew that the new bad man wore two guns, each adjusted in a similar manner; but it was always Bill Watson's contention (while he was alive) that a man with one gun was as good as a man with two. Sheriff Watson made no claim to being a two-handed shot. He was a simple, unpretentious man; not a heroic figure as he stood, his weight resting on the sides of his feet, looking out of the window down the long and wind-swept street of Ellisville.

Gradually the gaze of the sheriff focused, becoming occupied with the figure of a horseman whose steady riding seemed to have a purpose other than that of merely showing his joy in living and riding. This rider pa.s.sed other riders without pausing. He came up the street at a gallop until opposite the office door, where he jerked up his horse sharply and sprang from the saddle. As he came into the room he pulled off his hat and mopped his face as far as he could reach with the corner of his neckerchief.

"Mornin', Bill," he said.

"Mornin', Curly," said the sheriff pleasantly. "Lookin' for a doctor?

You're ridin' perty fast."

"Nope," said Curly. "Reckon it's a shade too late fer a doctor."

The sheriff was gravely silent. After a while he said, quietly:"

"Any trouble?"

"Yep. Plenty."

"Who?"

"Why, it's Cal Greathouse. You know Cal. This is his second drive.

His cows is down on the Rattlesnake bottoms now. He was camped there two weeks, not fur from my place. Last week he goes off west a ways, a-lookin' fer some winter range that won't be so crowded. He goes alone. Now, to-day his horse comes back, draggin' his lariat. We 'lowed we better come tell you. O' course, they ain't no horse gettin'

away f'm Cal Greathouse, not if he's alive."

The sheriff was silent for some time, looking at his visitor straight with his oxlike eyes. "Did Cal have much money with him?" he asked, finally.

"Not so awful much, near's the boys can tell. Mebbe a few hundred, fer spendin' money, like."

"Had he had any furse with ary feller down in there lately?"

"Nope, not that any one knows of. He just done went off over the range, an' fanned out, seems like, without no special reason."

The sheriff again fell into thought, slowly chewing at a splinter.

"I'll tell you," he said at length, slowly, "I kain't very well git away right now. You go over an' git Cap Franklin. He's a good man.

Pick up somebody else you want to go along with you, an' then you start out on Cal's trail, near as you can git at it. You better take along that d----d Greaser o' yourn, that big Juan, fer he kin run trail like a houn'. You stop at all the outfits you come to, fer say fifty miles.

Don't do nothin' more'n ask, an' then go on. If you come to a outfit that hain't seen him, an' then another outfit furder on that has seen him, you remember the one that hain't. If you don't git no track in fifty mile, swing around to the southeast, an' cut the main drive trail an' see if you hear of anything that-away. If you don't git no trace by that, you better come on back in an' tell me, an' then we'll see what to do about it furder."

"All right, Bill," said Curly, rising and taking a chew of tobacco, in which the sheriff joined him. "All right. You got any papers fer us to take along?"

"Papers?" said the sheriff contemptuously. "Papers? h.e.l.l!"

CHAPTER XXVI

IKE ANDERSON

Ike Anderson was drunk--calmly, magnificently, satisfactorily drunk.

It had taken time, but it was a fact accomplished. The actual state of affairs was best known to Ike Anderson himself, and not obvious to the pa.s.ser-by. Ike Andersen's gaze might have been hard, but it was direct. His walk was perfectly decorous and straight, his brain perfectly clear, his hand perfectly steady. Only, somewhere deep down in his mind there burned some little, still, blue flame of devilishness, which left Ike Anderson not a human being, but a skilful, logical, and murderous animal.

"This," said Ike Anderson to himself all the time, "this is little Ike Anderson, a little boy, playing. I can see the green fields, the pleasant meadows, the little brook that crossed them. I remember my mother gave me bread and milk for my supper, always. My sister washed my bare feet, when I was a little, little boy." He paused and leaned one hand against a porch post, thinking. "A little, little boy," he repeated to himself.

"No, it isn't," he thought. "It's Ike Anderson, growing up. He's playing tag. The boy tripped him and laughed at him, and Ike Anderson got out his knife." He cast a red eye about him.

"No, it isn't," he thought. "It's Ike Anderson, with the people chasing him. And the shotgun. Ike's growing up faster, growing right along. They all want him, but they don't get him. One, two, three, five, nine, eight, seven--I could count them all once. Ike Anderson.

No mother. No sweetheart. No home. Moving, moving. But they never scared him yet--Ike Anderson. . . . I never took any cattle!"

An impulse to walk seized him, and he did so, quietly, steadily, until he met a stranger, a man whose clothing bespoke his residence in another region.

"Good morning, gentle sir," said Ike.

"Good morning, friend," said the other, smiling.

"Gentle sir," said Ike, "just lemme look at your watch a minute, won't you, please?"

Laughingly the stranger complied, suspecting only that his odd accoster might have tarried too long over his cups. Ike took the watch in his hand, looked at it gravely for a moment, then gave it a jerk that broke the chain, and dropped it into his own pocket.

"I like it," said he simply, and pa.s.sed on. The stranger followed, about to use violence, but caught sight of a white-faced man, who through a window vehemently beckoned him to pause.

Ike Anderson stepped into a saloon and took a straw from a gla.s.s standing on the bar, exercising an exact and critical taste in its selection. "I'm very thirsty," he remarked plaintively. Saying which, he shot a hole in a barrel of whisky, inserted the straw, and drank lingeringly.

"Thank you," he said softly, and shot the gla.s.s of straws off the counter. "Thank you. Not after me." The whisky ran out over the floor, out of the door, over the path and into the road, but no one raised a voice in rebuke.

The blue flame burned a trifle higher in Ike Anderson's brain. He was growing very much intoxicated, and therefore very quiet and very sober-looking. He did not yell and flourish his revolvers, but walked along decently, engaged in thought. He was a sandy-complexioned man, not over five feet six inches in height. His long front teeth projected very much, giving him a strange look. His chin was not heavy and square, but pointed, and his jaws were narrow. His eye was said by some to have been hazel when he was sober, though others said it was blue, or gray. No one had ever looked into it carefully enough to tell its colour when Ike Anderson was drunk, as he was to-day.

Ike Anderson pa.s.sed by the front of the Cottage Hotel. A negro boy, who worked about the place, was sweeping idly at the porch door, shuffling lazily about at his employment. Ike paused and looked amiably at him for some moments.

"Good morning, coloured scion," he said pleasantly.

"Mawnin', boss," said the negro, grinning widely.

"Coloured scion," said Ike, "hereafter--to oblige me--would you mind whoopin' it up with yore broom a leetle faster?"

The negro scowled and muttered, and the next moment sprang sprawling forward with a scream. Ike had shot off the heel of his shoe, in the process not sparing all of the foot. The negro went ashy pale, and believed himself mortally hurt, but was restored by the icy tones of his visitor, who said, evenly and calmly:

"Coloured scion, please go over into that far corner and begin to sweep there, and then come on over the rest of the flo'. Now, sweep!"