The One-Way Trail Part 7

A storm of bitterness wrung the man's heart. A murky pall of depression hung over his brain, deadening his sense of proportion for all those things that matter. For the time, at least, it crushed down in his heart that spirit of striving, which was one of his best characteristics, and utterly quenched the warm fires of his better nature. All thought was buried in a fog of wrath, which left him a prey to instincts utterly foreign to his normal condition. He had left Eve Marsham's presence in a furious state from which no effort seemed able to clear him. Nothing gripped his understanding--nothing save the knowledge of what he had lost, and the conviction of the low-down trick that had been played upon him by one whom he regarded as a dear, younger brother.

He drew rein at the saloon and flung out of the saddle. He mechanically hitched his horse to the tie-post. Then, with unconscious aggressiveness, he strode up to the building and pushed his way through the swing doors.

The bar was empty, an unusual enough circ.u.mstance at that time of the day to draw comment from any one who knew the habits of the men of Barnriff; but Thorpe did not notice it. His eyes were on the man behind the counter standing ready to serve him. He strode over to him and flung down a ten-dollar bill, ordering a drink of whiskey, and a bottle of the spirit to take away with him. He was promptly served, and Silas Rocket, the proprietor, civilly pa.s.sed the time of day. It elicited no responsive greeting, for Jim gulped down his drink, and helped himself to another. The second gla.s.s of the fiery spirit he swallowed greedily, while Rocket looked on in amazement. As he proceeded to pour out another the man's astonishment found vent.

"A third?" he said stupidly.

Jim deigned no answer, but drank the liquor down, and set the gla.s.s forcefully upon the counter.

The saloon-keeper quickly recovered himself. Nor was he slow to comment.

"Feelin' mean, some?" he observed, with a sympathetic wink. He cared little how his visitor took his remark. He was used to the vagaries of his customers, and cared not a snap of the fingers for them.

Jim's reply came swiftly.

"Yes, mean enough to need your hogwash," he said shortly.

Silas Rocket's eyes snapped. He was never a man to take things sitting down.

"Hogwash it is when a feller o' your manners swills it. Mebbe it'll clear some o' the filth off'n your measly chest. Have one on me; I'd be real glad to help in the cleanin' process."

There was a subtle threat underlying his last words. But Jim cared nothing for what he said.

"I'll pay for all I need," he retorted, turning from the counter, and bearing his bottle away over to the window.

Rocket shrugged and turned to his work of setting some sort of order among his bottles. But, as Jim stood at the window with his back turned, his narrow eyes frequently regarded him and his busy brain speculated as to his humor. The ranchman was well liked in Barnriff, but his present att.i.tude puzzled the worthy host.

However, the object of all this attention was wholly unaware of it.

Even if it had been otherwise, it is doubtful if Thorpe would have cared in the least. He was lost in a rushing train of thought. His brain had cleared under the stimulating potions of raw whiskey, and, just as before his chaotic state had made him unable to grasp things fully, now it was equally chaotic in an opposite direction. His brain was running riot with a clearness and rapidity that showed only too plainly the nervous tension under which he was laboring. He was piecing this latest trick of fortune with the ill-luck which seemed to be ever pursuing him. Under the influence of the burning spirit he seemed to have lost the sting of the actual wrong to himself, and in its place a morbid train of thought had been set working.

It was a persecution that was steadily d.o.g.g.i.ng him. When his early misfortunes had come he had accepted them stoically, believing them to be part of the balance of things, beginning on the wrong side, no doubt, but which would be leveled up later on. Time and again he had received these buffets, and he had merely smiled, a little grimly perhaps, and started to "buck the game" afresh.

Then, when things eventually turned slightly in his favor, very slightly, out here on the prairie amongst the derelicts, the flotsam of the gra.s.sy ocean, he had found a brief breathing s.p.a.ce. He had begun to think the balance had really turned. Hope dawned, and life offered fresh possibilities. And now--now he had been let down afresh.

Before, the attack had been directed against the worldly hopes of a man, such as all see crushed at some time in life, but now it was his spirit that was aimed at. It was that strong, living soul which was the mainspring of his moral existence.

He had lost the woman he loved; that was something he could face, something he could live down. But it was the manner of it. It was the fact of Will's treachery that had opened the vital wound.

The thought chilled his heart, it crushed him. Yet his anger was not all for the man who had so rankly betrayed his trust, his bitterness was not all for the fact itself. It was the evidence it afforded of the merciless hand of an invisible foe at work against him, and with which he was powerless to contend. The subtlety of it--to his exaggerated thought--was stupendous.

Slowly his bitterness resolved itself to an unutterable pessimism; the acuteness of the stimulant was wearing off. There was an unhealthy streak in his mind somewhere, a streak that was growing under these blows which had been so liberally dealt him. Where was the use in struggling? he began to ask himself. And the poison of the thought acted like a sedative. He grew strangely calm; he almost experienced pleasure and comfort under its influence. Why struggle? Nothing could go right with him. Nothing. He was cursed--cursed with an ill-starred fortune. This sort of thing was his fate. Fate. That was it. Why struggle against it?

He had but this one short life to live. He would live it. He would live it in the way he chose, without regard to the ethics of civilization. What mattered if he shortened it by years, or if he lived to what might be looked upon as an honored old age? And what was there afterward? He even began to doubt if there was anything before--if there was any just---- He paused and shivered as the thought came to him. And he was glad he paused. To question the Deity was to rank himself at once with a sect he had always despised as self-centred fools, and pitied them as purblind creatures who were in some degree mentally deficient.

He pulled himself together and returned to the bar.

"Give me another whiskey," he demanded.

But Silas Rocket had not forgotten; he rarely ever did forget things in the nature of rudeness.

"I'd hate to," he said quickly; "but I guess I'll sell you 'most anything."

Jim accepted the snub silently, drank his whiskey, paid for it, and went out.

Rocket looked after him. His eyes were unfriendly, but then they were generally unfriendly. As the doors swung to behind his customer he turned and looked in through the doorway behind him.

"Ma!" he cried, "Jim Thorpe's been in. He's had four drinks o'

whiskey, and took a bottle with him. He's been thinkin' a whole heap, too. Guess he's goin' on a sky-high drunk."

And a shrewish voice called back to him in a tone of feminine spleen.

"Guess it's that Marsham gal," it said conclusively.

A woman's instinct is a wonderful thing.

Meanwhile Jim was riding across the market-place. Half-way across he saw Smallbones. He hailed him, and the little man promptly hurried up to his horse's side.

Jim knew that Smallbones disliked him. But just now he was only seeking ordinary information.

"Where'll I find Restless?" he inquired. "Where's he working?"

"Guess I see him over by Peter Blunt's shack. Him an' Peter wus ga.s.sin' together, while you wus up ther' seein' Eve Marsham,"

Smallbones replied meaningly. "I 'lows Peter's mostly nosin' around when----"

"Thanks, I'll ride over."

Jim made as though to ride off. He understood the spiteful nature of this little busybody, and was in no mood to listen to him now. But Smallbones was something of a leech when he chose. He had seen the whiskey bottle sticking out of Jim's coat pocket, and his Barnriff thirst and curiosity were agog, for Jim was at no time a man to waste money in drink.

"Say, givin' a party?" he sneered, pointing at the bottle.

"Yes, a party to a dead friend," replied Jim, with a wintry smile.

"It's inexpensive, less trouble, and there's more for myself. So long."

A minute or two later Smallbones was serving Angel Gay in his store.

He had just sold him a butcher's knife of inferior quality at double New York prices.

"Say," he observed, in the intimate manner of fellow villagers. "Who's dead? I ain't heard nuthin'. Mebbe you'll know, your bizness kind o'

runnin' in that line."

"Ain't heerd tell," the butcher replied, with a solemn shake of his large head. "An' most o' them come my way, too," he added, with thoughtful pride. "Here, wait." He drew out a greasy note-book. "Y'see I kind o' keep re-cords o' likely folks. Mebbe some o' the names'll prompt you. Now ther's M. Wilkes, she's got a swellin', I don't rightly know wher'--ther's folk talks of it bein' toomer--deadly toomer. You ain't heerd if she's gone?" he inquired hopefully, while he thumbed the pages of his book over.

"Nope. I ain't heerd," said Smallbones. "But I don't guess it's a woman. Friend o' Jim Thorpe's."

"Ah," murmured the happy butcher, lifting his eyes to the ceiling for inspiration. "That kind o' simplifies things. Jim Thorpe," he pondered. "He ain't got a heap o' friends, as you might say. Ther's Will Henderson," he turned over the pages of his book. "Um, healthy, drinks a bit. Hasty temper, but good for fifty year 'less he gits into a shootin' racket. 'Tain't him now?" he inquired looking up.

"No, 'tain't him. I see him this mornin'. He was soused some. Kind o'

had a heavy night. Wot about McLagan of the 'AZ's'?"

Again the butcher turned over the pages of his note-book. But finished by shaking his head mournfully.