The Twins of Suffering Creek Part 36

He stood wondering, all his washing forgotten in this newly raised hope so subtly stirred by the gambler. Had someone else discovered what he had missed for so long? He hadn't been near his claim for some days. Had someone--?

"Who says about the gold?" he demanded, with sudden inspiration.

"The folks."

The gambler pa.s.sed the point without committing himself.

Scipio shook his head, puzzling. Something must surely have transpired, and yet--

"You got me beat, Bill. You have, sure." The smile that accompanied his words was good to see. But somehow the gambler found the far horizon of more interest just then.

"You're a wide one all right," he said thoughtfully. "There's no gettin' upsides with you. Give me them quiet, simple sort o' fellers every time. They got the gas machine beat so far you couldn't locate him with a forty-foot microscope. Gee!" He chuckled, and turned again to contemplate his companion, much as he would a newly discovered wonder of the world.

But poor Scipio was really becoming distressed. He hoped, merely because the other forced him to hope, by his own evident sincerity.

But the charge of shrewdness, of conspiring to keep a secret he had never possessed, worried him.

"I take my oath I don't know a thing, Bill," he declared earnestly. "I sure don't. You've got to believe me, because I can't say more. I seen my claim days back, an' I hadn't a color. I ain't seen it since.

That's fact."

It was strange to see how readily the disbelief died out of the other's face. It was almost magical. It was as though his previous expression had been nothing but acting and his fresh att.i.tude the result of studied preparation.

"Well, Zip," he said seriously, almost dejectedly, "if you put it that way, I sure got to b'lieve you. But it's queer. It sure is. There's folks ready to swear ther's rich gold on your claim, an' I'll tell you right here I come along to git in on it. Y'see, I'm a bizness man, an'

I don't figger to git a crop o' weeds growin' around my feet. I sez to myself, I sez, directly I heerd tell, 'Here's Zip with an elegant patch o' pay dirt, an' here am I with a wad of bills handy, which I'd sure like to turn over some.' Then I sez--I want you to understand jest how I thought--I sez,'Mebbe I've kind o' bin useful to Zip.

Helped him out some, when he was fixed awkward.' You see, it ain't my way to do things for nothing. An' I do allow I bin useful to you.

Well, I thought o' these things, so I come along right smart to get in on the plum. Sez I, 'Zip, bein' under obligation to me some, mebbe he'll let me buy ha'f share in his claim,' me handin' him a thousand dollars. It 'ud be a spot cash deal, an' me puttin' in a feller to work--an' see things right fer me--why, I guess there'd be no chance o' you gettin' gay--an' fakin' the output. See? I don't guess you're on the crook, but in bizness a feller don't take chances. Y'see I'm pretty bright when it gits to bizness, an', anyway, I don't stand fer no play o' that kind. Get me?"

The gambler's manner was wholly severe as he explained his proposition, and impressed his views of business. Scipio listened without the slightest umbrage. He saw nothing wrong, nothing unfriendly in the precautions the other had intended to take. As a matter of fact, the one thing that concerned him was the disappointment he must cause him.

"There's nothing like straight talk, Bill," he said, cordially. "I allus like straight talk. You kind of know just where you are then.

There's not a doubt you've been real good to me," he went on, with evident feeling, "and I'll never be able to forget it--never. I tell you right here, if there was anything in the world I could do in return, I'd do it."

He smiled quaintly and pushed his stubby fingers through his spa.r.s.e hair in his most helpless manner.

"If there was gold on my claim, I'd let you in all you need, and I wouldn't want your dollars. Dollars? No, Bill, I don't want dollars for doing anything for you. I sure don't. I mean that. Maybe you'll understand, y'see I'm not a business man--never was."

The gambler averted his eyes. He could not look into the other's face so shining with honesty and grat.i.tude.

"But there ain't no gold found on that claim yet," Scipio went on.

"Leastways, not that I know of, so what's the use deceivin' you? An'

dollars, why, there's no question of 'em between us. You can stand in ha'f my claim, Bill, an' welcome, but you ain't going to pay me dollars for gold that ain't been found. Yes, you're sure welcome to ha'f my claim, an' you ken set a man working for you. I'll not say but I'll be glad of the help. But don't make no mistake, gold ain't been found, as far as I know, an' there may be none there, so I'd be glad if you don't risk a lot of dollars in the work."

The gambler felt mean as he listened to the quiet words ringing with such simple honesty. Time and again his beady eyes lifted to the steady blue ones, only to drop quickly before their fearless sincerity. He stirred irritably, and a hot impatience with himself drove him so that the moment Scipio finished speaking he broke out at once.

"Here," he cried, without the least gentleness, "you're talkin' a heap o' foolishness. I'm a bizness man offerin' a bizness proposition. I don't want nuthin' given. I'm out to make a deal. You say there's no gold there. Wal, I say there sure is. That bein' so I'd be a low down skunk takin' ha'f your claim fer nix, jest because you guess you owe me things--which I 'low you sure do, speakin' plain. I got a thousand dollars right here,"--he pulled out a packet of bills from his hip pocket, and held them up for the other's inspection--"an' them dollars says ther's gold on your claim. An' I'm yearnin' to touch ha'f that gold. But I'm takin' no chances. I want it all wrote down reg'lar so folks can't say I sneaked around you, an' got it for nix. Gee, I'd look mighty small if you turned around on me afterwards. No, sir, you don't get me that way. I'm only soft around my teeth. If you're the man I take you for, if you're honest as you're guessin', if you feel you want to pay me fer anything I done for you, why, cut the gas an'

take my dollars' an' I'll get the papers made out by a Sp.a.w.n City lawyer. They're all that crooked they couldn't walk a chalk-line, but I guess they know how to bind a feller good an' tight, an' I'll see they bind you up so ther' won't be no room for fool tricks. That's bizness."

Scipio shook his head. And Bill flushed angrily.

"It ain't square," the little man protested. "Maybe you'll lose your money."

"That's up to me," the gambler began fiercely. Then he checked himself, and suddenly became quite grieved. "Wal, Zip, I wouldn't ha'

b'lieved it. I sure wouldn't. But ther'--life's jest self. It's all self. You're like all the rest. I've been chasin' a patch o' good pay dirt ever since I bin around Sufferin' Creek, an' it's only now I've found one to suit me. I sure thought you'd let me in on it. I sure did. Howsum, you won't. You want it all yourself. Wall, go ahead. An'

you needn't worry about what I told you this morning. My word goes every time. This ain't going to make no difference. I'm not goin' to squeal on that jest because you won't 'blige me."

He made as though to return his dollars to his pocket. He had turned away, but his shrewd eyes held his companion in their focus. He saw the flush of shame on Scipio's face. He saw him open his mouth to speak. Then he saw it shut as he left his tub and came towards him.

Bill waited, his cunning telling him to keep up his pretense. Scipio did not pause till he laid a hand on his arm, and his mild eyes were looking up into his keen, hard face.

"Bill," he said, "you can have ha'f my claim and--and I'll take your dollars. I jest didn't guess I was bein' selfish about it--I didn't, truth. I was thinkin' o' you. I was thinkin' you might lose your bills. Y'see, I haven't had the best of luck--I--"

But the gambler's face was a study as he pushed his hand off and turned on him. There was a fine struggle going on in his manner between the harshness he wished to display and the glad triumph he really felt.

"Don't slob," he cried. "Here's the bills. Stuff 'em right down in your dip. Ha'f that claim is mine, an' I'll have the papers wrote reg'lar. I didn't think you was mean, an' I'm glad you ain't."

Scipio took the money reluctantly enough, and pushed it into his pocket with a sigh. But Bill had had enough of the matter. He turned to go, moving hastily. Then, of a sudden, he remembered. Thrusting his hand into a side pocket of his jacket he produced a paper parcel.

"Say, Zip, I come nigh forgettin'," he cried cheerfully. "The hash-slinger down at Minky's ast me to hand you this. It's for the kiddies. It's candy. I'd say she's sweet on your kiddies. She said I wasn't to let you know she'd sent 'em. So you ken jest kep your face closed. So long."

He hurried away like a man ashamed. Scipio had such a way of looking into his eyes. But once out of sight he slackened his pace. And presently a smile crept into his small eyes, that set them twinkling.

"Guess I'm every kind of a fule," he muttered. "A thousand dollars!

Gee! An' ther' ain't gold within a mile of the doggone claim--'cep'

when Zip's ther'," he added thoughtfully.

CHAPTER XX

HOW THE TRUST BOUGHT MEDICINE

Wild Bill ate his supper that evening because it was his custom to do so. He had no inclination for it, and it gave him no enjoyment. He treated the matter much as he would have treated the stoking of a stove on a winter's night. So long as he was filled up he cared little for the cla.s.s of the fuel.

Birdie waited on him with an attention and care such as she never bestowed upon any other boarder at the store, and the look in her bright eyes as she forestalled his wishes, compared with the air with which she executed the harshly delivered orders of the rest of the men, was quite sufficient to enlighten the casual onlooker as to the state of her romantic heart. But her blandishments were quite lost upon our hero. He treated her with much the same sort of indifference he might have displayed towards one of the camp dogs.

To-night, particularly, nothing she could do or say seemed to give him the least satisfaction. He ignored her as he ignored all the rest of the boarders, and devoured his meal in absolute silence--in so far as any speech went--wrapt in an impenetrable moroseness which had a damping effect upon the entire company.

Truth to tell, he was obsessed with his thoughts and feelings against the man James. With every pa.s.sing day his resentment against him piled up, till now he could think of nothing much else but a possible way to dislodge him from the pinnacle of his local notoriety, and so rid the district of the threat of his presence.

How much of this feeling was purely personal, inspired by the natural antagonism of a strong, even violent, nature against a man whose very existence was an everlasting challenge to him, and how far it was the result of an unadmitted sympathy for Scipio, it would have been impossible to tell in a man like Wild Bill. Reason was not in such things with him. He never sought reasons where his feelings were concerned. James must go. And so his whole mind and force was given up to a search for adequate means to accomplish his purpose.

The problem was not easy. And when things were not easy to him, Bill's temper invariably suffered. Besides, scheming was never pleasant to him. He was so essentially a man of action. An open battle appealed to him as nothing else in the world appealed to him. Force of arms--that was his conception of the settlement of human differences.

He admitted to himself that the events of the day had stirred his "bile." He felt that he must hit out to ease himself, and the one direction to hit out in which would have given him any satisfaction was not yet available. So he brooded on, a smoldering volcano which his acquaintances avoided with a care inspired by past experience.

But his mood was bound to find an outlet somehow. It is always so. If the opportunity does not come naturally, ill-temper will make one. It was this way with the gambler. A devilish impulse caught him just as supper was nearing its finish.

The thought occurred with the entrance of Sandy Joyce, who took the empty place at the table on Bill's right. Birdie was hovering near, and, as Sandy took his seat, she suddenly dumped a fresh cup of coffee before the gambler. She giggled coyly as the cup clattered on the bare table.