THROWING SAND
After leaving the Starlight, on their way back to the hotel, Racey
said to Swing Tunstall: "Might as well tell Jack Harpe now we ain't
gonna ride for him, huh?"
"Oh, shore," Swing sighed resignedly. "Have it yore own way! Have it
yore own way! I never seen such a feller as you for gettin' his own
way in all my life."
"Yo're young yet--maybe you will," said Racey, consolingly. "So don't
get discouraged."
They did not find Jack Harpe at the hotel, nor was he at the Happy
Heart. But in the saloon Luke Tweezy was drinking by himself at one
end of the bar. Perhaps the money-lender would know the whereabouts of
Jack Harpe.
"'Lo, Luke," was Racey's greeting. "Seen Jack Harpe around anywheres?"
Luke Tweezy's thin and sandy eyebrows lifted up in what would pass
with almost any one for surprise. "Who?"
"Jack Harpe."
"Dunno him." Indifferently--too indifferently.
"You dunno him--long, slim feller, black hair and eyes, and a hawky
kind of nose? Jack Harpe. Shore you know him. Why, I seen--" Racey
broke off abruptly.
"Yeah," prompted Luke Tweezy after an interval. "You seen--what?"
"I don't see why you dunno him," parried Racey (it was a weak parry,
but the best he could encompass at the moment). "I thought you knowed
him. Somebody told me you did. My mistake. No harm done. Have a drink,
Luke."
"Who told you I knowed this here now Jack Harpe?" probed Luke Tweezy,
when he had smacked his lips over a second drink.
"I don't remember now," evaded Racey Dawson. "What does it matter?"
"It don't matter," was the answer--the miffed answer it seemed to
Racey. "It don't matter a-tall. Have one on me, boys. Don't be afraid
to fill 'em up. They's plenty more on the back shelf when this one's
empty."
They filled and drank, filled and drank. Swing thought that he had
never seen Racey overtaken by liquor so quickly. In no time he was
telling Luke Tweezy the most intimate details of his private life.
Swing knew that these details were a string of lies. But Luke Tweezy
could not know that. He put an affectionate hand on Racey's shoulder
and begged for more. He got it.
When Racey ran down and reverted to the bottle, Luke Tweezy generously
purchased a second and invited him and his friend to a vacant table
in the corner of the room. It was an amazing sight. Luke Tweezy the
money-lender, the man who was supposed to still possess the first
dollar he ever earned, had actually bought three eighths of one bottle
of whiskey and the whole of another.
Racey Dawson greatly desired to laugh. But he didn't dare. He was too
busy being drunk and getting drunker. Swing Tunstall, slow in the
uptake as usual, perceived nothing beyond the fact that Luke Tweezy
had suddenly become a careless spendthrift till halfway down the
second bottle when Luke said:
"Shore is funny how you thought I knowed this Jack Harpe."
"Yuh-yeah," assented Racey, and overset a glass in such a way that
four fingers of raw liquor splashed into Luke Tweezy's lap. "S'funny
all right--an' that's fuf-funnier," he added as Luke and his chair
scraped backward to avoid the drip. "D'I wet yuh all up, Lul-luke?
Mum-my min-mis-take. I'm makin' lul-lots of mistakes to-day."
Luke Tweezy twisted his leathery features into his best smile. "It
don't matter," he told Racey. "Not a-tall. I--uh--who was it told you
I knowed this Jack Harpe?"
"Dud-don't remember," denied Racey.
"Think," urged Luke Tweezy.
"Am thu-thinkin'," Racey said, crossly. "What you wanna know for?"
"I don't like to have folks talkin' so loose and free about me," was
the Tweezy explanation.
"Duh-hic-quite right," hiccuped Racey Dawson. "An' you are, too, y'old
catawampus. You a friend o' mim-mine, Lul-luke?"
"Shore," said Luke, with an eye out for another upset glass.
"Then lend me huh-hundred dollars, Lul-Luke."
"Lend you a hundred dollars! On what security?"
"My wuh-word," Racey strove to say with dignity. "Ain't that enough?"
"Shore, but--but I ain't got a hundred dollars with me to-day."
"Bub-but you can gug-get it," Racey insisted, weaving his head from
side to side in a snake-like manner.
"We-ell, I dunno. You see, Racey--"
"I nun-need the money," interrupted Racey. "I'm broke--bub-broke
bad. Swing's broke, too. That's too bad--I mean that's two bub-boke
brad--whistle twice for the crossing--I mean--Aw, hell, I know
whu-what I mean if-fif you don't. You lul-lend me that mum-money,
Lul-Luke, like a good feller."
Luke Tweezy shook a regretful head. "I'm shore sorry you and Swing are
busted, Racey, I'd do anything for you I could in reason. You know
damwell I would, but money's tight with me just now. I ain't really
got a cent I can lend. Got a mortgage comin' due next month, but that
ain't now, of course."
"Of course not. Huh-how could you think it was now? Huh-how could you,
Lul-Luke? Dud-do you know the child ain't a year old yet?"
"Child? What child?" Luke Tweezy began to look alarmed.
"What child?" frowned Racey Dawson, sitting up very straight and
throwing a chest. "That child over there by the doorway--there in the
streak o' sush-shine. Aw, the cute li'l feller! See him playin' with
Windy Taylor's spurs. Ain't he cunnin'?"
"With most of 'em it's elephants and snakes an' such," proffered Luke
Tweezy.
"Yeah," assented Swing Tunstall. "A kid is something new."
"Thu-then you can't lend me that money?" Racey inquired, querulously.
"No, Racey, I can't. Honest, I'd like to. Nothin' I'd like better.
Only the way I'm fixed just now it's plain flat impossible."
"Then I s'puh-s'puh-s'pose I'll have to touch the Bar S folks or the
Cross-in-a-box. I gotta have money. Gug-gotta. They're my friends.
They'll give it to mum-me. Shore they will gimme all I want. They're
all my _friends_, I tell you!"
As Racey uttered the word "friends" his toe pressed Swing Tunstall's
instep.
"They're Swing's friends, too," continued Racey. "Ain't they,
Sus-Swing?" Again the Dawson toe bore down upon the Tunstall foot.
"Shore they are," chimed in Swing, watching his friend closely--so
closely that he was able to catch the extremely slight nod of
approbation given by Racey.
"Thu-there's Tom Loudon an' Tim Pup-pup-page of the Bub-bar S,"
stuttered Racey, gazing blearily at Luke Tweezy. "Bub-best fuf-friends
I ever had, them tut-two fellers. An' Old Man Sus-Saltoun. There's a
pup-prince for you. Gug-give you the shirt off his bub-back."
Which last was stretching it rather. For Old Man Saltoun, while not
precisely stingy, was certainly not the most generous person in the
territory. Nor did it escape Racey Dawson that Luke Tweezy eyed him
sharply as he made the remark. At once Racey began to roll his head
from side to side and rock his body to and fro, and laugh crazily.
"The Bub-bub-bar S is the bub-best ranch in the worl'." Again Racey
took up the thread of his discourse. "I tell you that outfit is great
friends o' mine. Juh-juh-just tut-to shuh-show yuh, Lul-luke. Ol' Man
Sush-Saltoun let three punchers go lul-last week an' then turned
round an' gives us both jobs. That's huh-how we stand with Ol' Man
Sush-Saltoun."
"That's fine," complimented Luke Tweezy.
"An' that ain't all," Racey galloped on, one toe pressing Swing's
instep. "I'm gonna tell him, Swing. He ain't no friend o' Jack
Harpe's. If I tell you you won't tell nobody, Lul-Luke, wuh-will yuh?"
Luke was understood to state that no clam could be tighter-mouthed.
"I knowed you wouldn't tell, Lul-luke," Racey declared, solemnly,
reaching across the table and affectionately pawing the Tweezy sleeve.
"I mum-maybe dud-drunk, but I know a friend when I see him. Yuh
bub-bet I do. Lul-lookit, Luke, lean over--" Here Racey pressed
heavily on Swing's instep. Then, when Luke leaned forward, Racey did
the same and possessed himself of the money-lender's ear by the simple
method of gripping it tightly between fingers and thumb. "Lul-luke,"
resumed Racey, "Jack Harpe's offered us a job, too, an' we're gonna
take him up instead of the Bar S. Huh-how's that?"
Racey released the Tweezy ear, leaned back in his chair, and breathed
triumphantly through his nose.
Luke Tweezy likewise leaned back as far as his chair would permit,
and fingered tenderly a tingling ear. "Whatcha gonna take Harpe's job
for?" he asked, puzzled. "I thought you liked the Bar S such a lot."
"We do," chirped Racey, laying a long finger beside his nose and
pressing again the Tunstall instep. "That's why we're gonna ride for
Jack Harpe." Grinning at the mystification of Luke Tweezy, he leaned
forward and whispered, "We got a idea we can help the Bar S most by
bein' where we can watch Jack--and his outfit."
Luke Tweezy sat up very suddenly. Swing clapped a hand over Racey's
mouth and shoved him backward.
"Shut up!" commanded Swing. "He dunno what he's talkin' about, the
poor drunk."
Thus did Swing Tunstall come up to the scratch right nobly. Racey
could have hugged him. Instead he bit him. This in order that Swing
should pull his hand away in a natural manner. Having achieved his
purpose, Racey smiled sottishly at Luke Tweezy.
"But what's Jack Harpe done?" Luke Tweezy inquired swiftly.
"It ain't what he's done," Racey replied. "It's what he's gug-gonna
do. He's out to cuc-colddeck the Bub-bar S, an' they nun-know it."
Whereupon Swing began to shake him severely. "Stop yore ravin!" he
commanded, and contrived to bang Racey's head against the wall with a
bump that went a long way toward curing the pain of Racey's bite.
Racey, with real tears in his eyes, looked up at Swing and guggled,
"I'm sho shleepy!" Then he laid his head upon his arms and slept. Luke
Tweezy did not attempt to awaken him. Swing Tunstall advised against
it. Luke Tweezy and he had a parting drink together. Then the
money-lender took what was left of the second bottle of whiskey--the
first was but a memory--to the bar and endeavoured to chivvy a rebate
out of the bartender. But such a procedure was decidedly not the Happy
Heart's method of doing business. Luke Tweezy, much to his disgust,
for he never drank except in the way of trade, was forced to carry his
bottle with him when he went.
Swing, sapient young person, walked casually to the window and watched
Luke Tweezy cross the street to Calloway's store. Then he returned to
Racey's table. Racey turned his tousled head sidewise and whispered
from a corner of his mouth, "Help me out to Tom Kane's stable. He's
out o' town, and there won't anybody bother us."
"C'mon, Racey, come alive," urged Swing Tunstall, making a great
business of shaking awake his drunken friend. "You don't wanna stay
here no longer. I know a fine place where you can sleep it off."
Ten minutes later Racey and Swing were sitting comfortably on a pile
of hay in Tom Kane's new stable. Racey pulled off his boots, flopped
down on the hay, and clasped his hands behind his head. He wiggled his
toes luxuriously and laughed.
"Gawd," said he. "Think o' that old skinflint buying nearly two
bottles of whiskey! Bet that'll lay heavy on his mind for as much as a
month. What you lookin' at me like that for?"
"Yeah, I'd ask if I was you. I shore would. What was yore bright idea
of tellin' Luke Tweezy we were gonna ride for Jack Harpe so's to watch
him?"
"So he'd know it."
"So he'd know it! So he'd know it! The man sits there and says '_so
he'd know it_'! And you call me a thickskull! Which yore head has got
mine snowed under thataway. Can't you see, you droolin' fool, that now
they'll know as much as we do?"
"No, oh, no," Racey denied with a superior smile. "Not never a-tall. I
ain't saying they mightn't know as much as you do by yoreself. But not
while you got the benefit of my brains they won't know as much as we
do. 'Tain't possibil."
"And what did you bite me for?" pursued Swing, disregarding the slur.
"Hell's bells, if you'd bit Luke I wouldn't have a word to say, but
why pick on me?"
"Well, you bumped my head so hard I saw sparks, so we're even. Say,
stop squallin' about yore hand! I didn't bite you half as hard as I
might have. Not half. You can still use the hand all right, can't you?
Yeah. Well, then, you ain't got anything to cry about, not a thing."
"Talk sense, will you? You got us into a fine mess, you have. A fi-ine
mess."
"Guess I fooled him, all right," Racey said with irritating
complacency.
"What was you trying to do, anyway?" Swing snarled, glaring at his
friend. "What was the notion of tearin' off all them confidences about
bein' busted and yore dear friends at the Bar S and how you and me
was gonna play detective? And to think Providence lets a
what-you-may-call-it like you go on living! It ain't reasonable."
"That business of telling Luke we was busted," grinned Racey, "and
asking him for a loan was just so I could work up roundabout and
natural like to how the Bar S bunch was my personal friends and how
we were gonna ride for Jack Harpe and watch him on their account. I
wanted him to know those things, and I couldn't slam out and tell him
dry so, could I? It wouldn't sound natural. It would make him think
the wrong way, you bet. Luke Tweezy ain't a plumb fool, for all he
made the mistake of denying he knowed Jack Harpe. That was a bad one."
"Yeah, but--"
"Lookit, Swing, we know that when Lanpher spoke of a front yard there
in the hotel corral he meant the Bar S range. Aw right. While we're
shore Jack Harpe wants to hire us to do his dirty work--which means
being rubbed out by our own friends likely--would he let us ride for
him if he thought the Bar S was paying us to watch him?"
"Not if he knowed what he was doing," admitted Swing.
"That's why I got so greasy and confidential with Mister Luke Tweezy.
So Jack Harpe will know."
"And Luke will tell him?"
"Will Luke tell him? Luke will run to him a-pantin'. I'll gamble Jack
Harpe knows the awful worst already. So we'll be safe enough to go to
Jack to-morrow morning bright and early and tell him we've decided to
give him the benefit of our services."
"But I thought we figured not to ride for him," said the now
thoroughly bewildered Swing.
"Of course we ain't. In words of one syllable, Swing, I want to find
out if it is the Bar S Jack Harpe's going against. Well, then, we
knowing what we know, and Jack Harpe knowing what we know he knows, if
he turns us down to-morrow after offering us the job yesterday, it'll
not only give us the absolute proof we want, but it'll make him turn
his wolf loose P D Q. And that last will be good medicine, because
if I'm any judge he ain't ready to start anything yet awhile, and I
notice when a gent ain't ready and has to jump anyhow he's a heap
likely to fall down and smear himself all over the landscape."
"The man's right," said Swing. "But it's the oddest number alla same I
ever did see. All kinds of clues to a crime, and no crime yet."
"It'll come," said Racey Dawson, grimly. "Jack Harpe is one bad
actor."
"What you got against him--I mean, anything particular besides yore
natural dislike?" Swing Tunstall at times was blessed with flashes of
penetrating shrewdness.
"I ain't got any use for him, thassall." Much emphasis on the part of
Racey Dawson.
Swing nodded. "See him at Moccasin Spring?" was his drawled question.
"I didn't say so." Stiffly.
"You didn't have to. And you don't--not now. I see it all. And you
yawpin' out real loud how interested you are in seeing how the Bar S
gets a square deal, and letting out only a small peep about old Dale,
and thinking yo're foolin' Swing to a fare-you-well. Oh, yeah. It's
the Dale's li'l ranch that's been worrying you alla time. I know.
Racey's actually got a girl at last. I kind of suspicioned it, but
I didn't think it was so heap big serious. Don't you fret, Racey,
old-timer, I'll keep yore secret. Till death does--Ouch! Leggo me, you
poor hickory! Yo're supposed to be sleeping off a drunk, remember!
G'wan now! Lie down, Fido! Charge, you bad dog!"
"But lookit," resumed Swing Tunstall, when the dust of conflict was
beginning to settle and he was poking about in the hay in search of
three shirt-buttons and his pocket knife, "lookit, Racey, you didn't
say anything to Luke about yore being friendly with this Dale party.
Guess you forgot that, huh?"
"Guess I didn't forget it," returned Racey Dawson, placidly. "It ain't
good euchre to lead all yore trumps before you have to. I'm saving
that about Dale to tell to Jack Harpe after he turns us down. I'm a
heap anxious to see what he says then."
"Maybe he won't say anything."
"Maybe he won't turn us down. But will you bet he won't? Give you
odds. Any money up to a hundred."
"I will not," said Swing Tunstall, shaking a decided head. "Yo're too
lucky. Oh, lookit, lookit!"