Trail's End Part 3

"Old Joe Lynch; he's loadin' another car of bones," Judge Thayer said.

"He used to pick up meat for me," said Seth in his sententious way, neither surprised nor pleased on finding this a.s.sociate of his adventurous days here in this place of his new beginning.

Joe Lynch drove across the farther side of the square, a block away from the two officials of Ascalon. There he stopped only long enough to allow his pa.s.senger to alight, and continued on to the railroad siding where his car stood.

Judge Thayer lingered under the hotel awning, where the breeze struck refreshingly, perhaps making a pretense of being cooled that was greater than his necessity, curious to see who it was Lynch had brought to town on his melancholy load. The pa.s.senger, carrying his flat bag, came on toward the hotel.

"He's a stranger to me," said the judge. His interest ending there, he went his way to take up again the preparation of his case in defense of the cattle thief whom he knew to be a thief, and nothing but a thief.

Seth Craddock, the new marshal, glanced sharply at the stranger as he approached the hotel. It was nothing more severe than Seth's ordinary scrutiny, but it appeared to the traveler to be at once hostile and inhospitable, the look of a man who sneered out of his heart and carried a challenge in his eyes. The stranger made the mental observation that this citizen was a sour-looking customer, who apparently resented the coming of one more to the mills of Ascalon's obscene G.o.ds.

There was a cl.u.s.ter of flies on the open page of the hotel register, where somebody had put down a sticky piece of chocolate candy and left it. This choice confection covered three or four lines immediately below the last arrival's name, its little trickling rivulets, which the flies were licking up, spreading like a spider's legs. There was n.o.body in the office to receive the traveler's application for quarters, but evidence of somebody in the remote parts of the house, whence came the sound of a voice more penetrating than musical, raised in song.

With her apurn pinned round her, He took her for a swan, But oh and a-las, it was poor Pol-ly Bawn.

So she sang, the words of the ancient ballad cutting through the part.i.tion like a saw. There was a nasal quality in them, as if the singer were moved to tears by the pathos of Poor Polly's end. The traveler laid a finger on the little bell that stood on the cigar case, sending his alarm through the house.

The song ceased, the blue door with DINING-ROOM in pink across its panels, shut against the flies, opened with sudden jerk, as if by a petulant hand. There appeared one who might have been Polly Bawn herself, taken by the white ap.r.o.n that shrouded her figure from shoulders to floor. She stood a moment in the door, seeing that it was a stranger, half closing that gay portal to step behind it and give her hair that swift little adjustment which, with women the world over, is the most essential part of the toilet. She appeared smiling then, somewhat abashed and coy, a fair short girl with a nice figure and pretty, sophisticated face, auburn curls dangling long at her ears, a precise row of bangs coming down to her eyebrows. She was a pink and white little lady, quick on foot, quicker of the blue eyes which measured the waiting guest from dusty feet to dusty hat in the glance that flashed over him in business-like brevity.

"Was you wishin' a room?" she inquired.

"If you can accommodate me."

"Register," she said, in voice of command, whirling the book about. At the same time she discovered the forgotten confection, which she removed to the top of the cigar case with an annoyed e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n under her breath that sounded rather strong. She applied her ap.r.o.n to the page, not helping it much, spreading the brown paste rather than removing it.

"You'll have to skip three or four lines, mister, unless you've got a 'delible pencil."

"No, I haven't. I'll write down here where it's dry."

And there the traveler wrote, the girl looking on sharply, spelling the letters with silently moving lips as the pen trailed them:

Calvin Morgan, Des Moines, Ia.

"In and out, or regular?" the girl asked, twisting the book around to verify the upside-down spelling of his name.

"I expect it will be only for a few days," Morgan replied, smiling a little at the pert sufficiency of the clerk.

"It's a dollar a day for board and room--in advance in this man's town."

"Why in this man's town, any more than any other man's town?" the guest inquired, amused.

"What would you think of a man that would run up a three weeks' bill and then walk out there and let somebody put a bullet through him?" she returned by way of answer.

"I think it would be a mean way to beat a board bill," he told her, seriously. "Do they do that right along here?"

"One smarty from Texas done it three or four months ago. Since then it's cash in advance."

Morgan thought it was a very wise regulation for a town where perils were said to be so thick, all in keeping with the notoriety of Ascalon.

He made inquiry about something to eat. The girl's face set in disfavoring cast as she tossed her head haughtily.

"Dinner's over long ago," she said.

Morgan made amends for this unwitting breach of the rules, wondering what there was in the air of Ascalon that made people combative. Even this fresh-faced girl, not twenty, he was sure, was resentful, snappish without cause, inclined to quarrel if a word got crosswise in a man's mouth. As he turned these things in mind, casting about for some place to stow his bag, the girl smiled across at him, the mockery going out of her bright eyes. Perhaps it was because she felt that she had defended the ancient right of hostelers to rise in dignified front when a traveler spoke of a meal out of the regular hour, perhaps because there was a gentleness and sincerity in the tall, honest-looking man before her that reached her with an appeal lacking in those who commonly came and went before her counter.

"Put your grip over there," she nodded, "and I'll see what I can find.

If you don't mind a snack--" she hesitated.

"Anything--a slab of cold meat and a cup of coffee."

"I'll call you," she said, starting for the blue door.

The girl had reached the dining-room door when there entered from the street a man, lurching when he walked as if the earth tipped under him like the deck of a ship. He was a young and slender man, dressed rather loudly in black sateen shirt and scarlet necktie, with broad blue, ta.s.sel-ornamented sleeve holders about his arms. He wore neither coat nor vest, but was belted with a pistol and booted and spurred, his calling of cowboy impressed in every line.

The girl paused, hand on the door, waiting to see what he wanted, and turned back when he rested his arms on the cigar case, clicking the gla.s.s with a coin. While she was making change for him, the cowboy stood with his newly bought cigar in his mouth, scanning the register. He seemed sober enough when standing still, save for the vacant, liquor-dead look of his eyes.

"Who wrote that?" he asked, pointing to Morgan's name.

"That gentleman," the girl replied, placing his change before him.

The cowboy picked up his money with numb fingers, fumbled to put it in his pocket, dropping it on the floor. He kicked at it with a curse and let it lie, scowling meantime at Morgan with angry eyes.

"Too good to write your name next to mine, are you?" he sneered. "Afraid it'd touch your fancy little handwritin', was you?"

"I didn't know it was your name, pardner," Morgan returned, conciliating him as he would an irresponsible child. "Why, I'd walk a mile to write my name next to yours any day. There was something on the book----"

"You spit on it! You spit on my name!" the foolish fellow charged, laying hand to his pistol. "A man that's too good to write his name next to mine's too good to stay in the same house with me. You'll hit the breeze out of here, pardner, or you'll swaller lead!"

The girl came swiftly from behind the counter, and ran lightly to the door. Morgan put up his hand to silence the young man, knowing well that he could catch his slow arm before he could drag his gun two inches from the holster.

"Keep your gun where it is, old feller," he suggested, rather than warned, in good-natured tone. "I didn't mean any insult, but I'll take my hat off and apologize to you if you want me to. There was a piece of candy on the book right----"

"I'll put a piece of hot iron in your guts!" the cowboy threatened. He leaned over the register, hand still on his pistol, and tore out the offending page, crumpling it into a ball. "You'll eat this, then you'll hit the road back where you come from!"

The girl was beckoning to somebody from the door. Morgan was more annoyed and shamed by his part in this foolish scene than he was disturbed by any feeling of danger. He stood watching the young man's shooting arm. There was not more than five feet between them; a step, a sharp clip on the jaw, and the young fool would be helpless. Morgan was setting himself to act, for the cowboy, whose face was warrant that he was a simple, harmless fellow when sober, was dragging on his gun, when one came hastening in past the girl.

This was a no less important person than the new city marshal, whom Morgan had seen without knowing his official standing, as he arrived at the hotel.

"This man's raisin' a fuss here--he's tore the register--look what he's done--tore the register!" the indignant girl charged.

"You're arrested," said the marshal. "Come on."

The cowboy stood mouthing his cigar, a weak look of scorn and derision in his flushed face. His right hand was still on his pistol, the wadded page of the register in the other.

"You'd better take his gun," Morgan suggested to the marshal, "he's so drunk he might hurt himself with it."

Seth Craddock fixed Morgan a moment with his sullen red eyes, in which the sneer of his heart seemed to speak. But his lips added nothing to the insult of that disdainful look. He jerked his head toward the door in command to his prisoner to march.

"Come out! I'll fight both of you!" the cowboy challenged, making for the door. He was squarely in it, one foot lifted in his drunken balancing to step down, when Seth Craddock jerked out his pistol between the lifting and the falling of that unsteady foot, and shot the retreating man in the back. The cowboy pitched forward into the street, where he lay stretched and motionless, one spurred foot still in the door.