The Spoilers of the Valley Part 56

"Ay!--Dalton put one over on me that time, all right. But it's the very last. Can't stand for this happening again. It hurts, right on my professional dignity. Won't he have the haw-haw on me?

"Ah, well! What's done can't be undone. 'My deed's upon my head.'"

"Gosh, but he's a rotter," growled Phil. "Put a thing like that over on a drunken man!"

"Hush! Not drunk, Phil;--call it indisposed! You know I am an aesthete on these matters.

"But wasn't it some bait though, Phil?"

"Oh, great stuff all right! The ranch must be worth six or seven thousand dollars. But a fat chance you had of ever getting it. Why, he had you every way you turned. All you did was to give him a present of nine horses worth five hundred dollars."

"He'll never get his spuds back, that's one blessing."

"Go to it;--be philosophic! Lovely consolation that! A ton and a half of potatoes for five hundred bucks!"

"That's right, Shadow, dearie,--rub it in."

Phil did not answer, but sat on Jim's bed and looked at the carpet in evident disgust.

After a few minutes of silence, Jim grunted, then he began to laugh.

"You seem to be quite pleased with your performance," commented Phil sarcastically.

"Man,--I was just thinkin' what a grand thing it would be if only I could make these payments."

"A fine chance you have--about fifty dollars in the wide world and five days left in which to make two thousand. n.o.body in this town will lend you a red cent. They are all too anxious putting their money in a hole in the ground themselves. Of course, you might write forty dime novels at fifty dollars apiece and make it that way:--that means just eight a day for five days."

Phil got up and clapped Jim on the shoulder. "Guess you'd best forget it, old boy! Let the tail follow the dog."

"But you must admit, Phil, that the weak spot in this deal of Rattlesnake's, after all, is right on the question of my ability to raise the dough."

"Yes!--I admit it--but the real weak point is one he never reckoned on."

"And what's that, pray?"

"He knew you had just gone on one of your crazy bouts. The law of averages informed him that you would get back to your--ahem!--sober senses in about a month's time, when the date of your second payment would be long gone by and your precious Agreement for Sale, if ever you happened to remember it again, would be simply so much waste paper. He would throw half a dozen fits, right now, if he knew you were--ahem!--_compos mentis_, with five days still to go to make two thousand dollars--maybe. But I'm wasting your precious time, Jim," he continued. "Get out your pen, and ink, and paper, and get busy;--eight dime novels of thirty thousand words apiece--two hundred and forty thousand words a day for five days! Shades of Sir Walter Scott and Balzac!"

He laughed. "I wouldn't do it, Jim;--no, not for a farm!"

And Phil went back to the smithy as Jim continued dressing, doing a little special thinking, the while, on the side.

All that day, the mystery of who painted DeRue Hannington's horse was the talk of the town.

Several painters and paper-hangers, as they went about their business in garments that betrayed their calling, were glared at in open suspicion. The reward of one hundred dollars read very good and a sort of hidden-treasure-hunt look was in the eyes of many.

The next day blue notices instead of white were tacked to the telegraph poles and the h.o.a.rdings. With DeRue Hannington's anger and indignation, the reward had risen in the night. It now stood at five hundred dollars.

In unison, the keenness of the hunt for the perpetrator of the so-called dastardly outrage rose four hundred per cent.

Meanwhile, Jim did not go to work at the Court House as he had practically said, nor yet did he go outside. He sat quietly in his own room, smoking his pipe and reading Emerson and Professor Drummond, which, of course, was quite in keeping with the peculiarities of his temperament. He had little to say to Phil as the latter dropped in to see him from time to time; and the all-absorbing topic of the town--DeRue Hannington's big reward--seemed to interest him about as much as did the approaching dissolution of his hold on the ranch he had contracted to purchase from Rattlesnake Dalton.

Phil looked in vain for signs of diligence in the direction of stories from the pen of Captain Mayne Plunkett, and articles on the affairs of the heart by Aunt Christina.

In the language of the farm, Jim was simply _sawing wood_.

For two days, the signs on the telegraph poles remained blue in colour.

On the evening of that second day Jim ventured only a little into conversation.

"Phil,--do you know I'm heart sick of playing the darned idiot. I've a good mind to start work."

"Jee-rusalem! You don't say!" exclaimed his astounded friend.

"Honest to goodness! Man, I wish, though, that I could beat Dalton to it on that deal."

"I wish you could too, for he is bragging all over the town how he put one over on you, and that you're on the loose somewhere, worse than ever, too shamefaced to show up in your own town."

By way of answer, Jim twisted his gaunt face in an enigmatical smile.

"It's a good ranch!" continued Phil.

"Of course it is! That is why I'd give my head to fool him on it."

"Well!--I've a thousand bucks and one dollar in the Commercial Bank, and I'm willing to go halves if you can raise the balance."

Jim started up excitedly, but he subsided almost as quickly. He pulled out the linings of his pockets and with them came a little roll of bills.

"One hundred and sixteen dollars!" he said ruefully. "I've counted them one hundred and sixteen times, backwards, forwards and upside down, these last three days, and I can't get them to grow a dollar more."

"Won't somebody stand good for you?"

"Somebody might,--but I am not borrowing. That is one thing Jim Langford never did in his life and he is not going to start in now with it to help him out of a tom-fool boozing stunt he never should have got into. I don't mind your money so much, Phil, for it would be a partnership affair between two pals, but I am not crawling all over town begging for loans, especially after Dalton has had his say.

No,--it's no good!"

At noon next day, Jim was still in the doldrums.

Phil rushed in all excitement.

"What do you know about that fool Hannington? The town is ablaze with red posters now, and he is offering a thousand dollars reward, for one day only--like a bargain sale--to anyone who will lay information that will lead to the conviction of the horse painter."

Jim laid down his book, put his pipe out by smothering it with his little finger, then got up and went to the clothes closet. He took down his hat and jacket.

"What's up now?" asked Phil.

"I'm after that thousand, sonny!"

"What?"