It was the biggest two-handed poker game ever played in Blue Wells,
and when “Antelope Jim” Neal, owner of the Blue Wells Oasis Saloon,
raked in the last pot, “Tex” Alden rubbed the back of his hand across
his dry lips and shut his weary eyes. He had lost eight thousand
dollars.
“Is that all, Tex?” asked Neal, and his voice held a hope that the big
cowboy would answer in the affirmative. The game had never ceased for
thirty-six hours.
“As far as I’m concerned,” said Tex slowly. “I don’t owe yuh anythin’,
do I?”
“Not a cent, Tex. Have a drink?”
“Yeah—whisky.”
Tex got to his feet, stretching himself wearily. He was well over six
feet tall, habitually gloomy of countenance. His hair was black, as
were his jowls, even after a close shave. There were dark circles
around his brown eyes, and his hand trembled as he poured out a full
glass of liquor and swallowed it at a gulp.
“Here’s better luck next time, Tex,” said Neal.
“Throw it into yuh,” said Tex shortly. “But as far as luck is
concerned—”
“It did kinda break against yuh, Tex.”
“Kinda, ——! Well, see yuh later.”
Tex adjusted his hat and walked outside, while Neal went to his room
at the back of the saloon, threw off his clothes and piled into bed.
At the bar several cowboys added another drink to their already large
collection and marveled at the size of Tex Alden’s losses.
“’F I lost that much, I’d have a —— of a time buyin’ any Christmas
presents for m’ friends, next December,” said Johnny Grant, a
diminutive cowboy from the AK ranch.
“There ain’t that much money,” declared “Eskimo” Swensen, two hundred
pounds of authority on any subject, who also drew forty dollars per
month from the AK. “It takes over sixteen years of steady work,
without spendin’ a cent, to make that much money. Never let anybody
tell yuh that there is any eight thousand in one lump sum.”
“And that statement carries my indorsement,” nodded the third hired
man of the AK, “Oyster” Shell, a wry-necked, buck-toothed specimen of
the genus cowboy, whose boot-heels were so badly run over on the outer
sides that it was difficult for him to attain his full height.
“There has been that much,” argued Johnny. “I ’member one time when I
had—”
“Eighty,” interrupted Oyster. “Yuh got so drunk you seen a coupla
extra ciphers, Johnny. I feel m’self stretchin’ a point to let yuh
have eighty.”
“I votes for eight,” declared Eskimo heavily.
“Eight thousand ain’t so awful much,” said “Doc” Painter, the
bartender, who wore a curl on his forehead, and who was a human
incense stick, reeking of violets.
Johnny looked closely at Doc, placed his Stetson on the bar and
announced—
“Mister Rockerbilt will now take the stand and speak on ‘Money I Have
Seen.’”
“Misser Rockerbilt,” Oyster bowed his head against the bar and stepped
on his new hat before he could recover it.
“A-a-a-aw, ——!” snorted the bartender. “I’ve seen more than eight
thousand, I’ll tell yuh that. I’ve had—”
“Now, Doc,” warned Eskimo. “Seein’ and havin’ are two different
things. We all know that yuh came from a wealthy family, who gave yuh
everythin’ yuh wanted, and nothin’ yuh needed. But if you ever try to
make us believe that you had eight thousand dollars, we’ll sure as ——
kick yuh out of our Sunday-school, because yuh never came by it
honestly.”
“Yeah, and yuh don’t need to say we ain’t got no Sunday-school,” added
Oyster hastily. “Last Sunday—”
“I heard about it.”
The bartender carefully polished a glass, breathing delicately upon it
the while.
“Lemme have that glass a minute,” said Johnny, and the unsuspecting
bartender gave it to him. Johnny selected a place on the bar-rail and
proceeded to smash the glass.
“What the —— did yuh do that for?” demanded the bartender hotly.
“What for?” Johnny lifted his brows and stared at the bartender with
innocent eyes.
“Yea-a-ah! Why smash that glass?”
“Well, yuh can’t expect anybody to ever drink out of it, could yuh?
After you yawnin’ upon it thataway, Doc. I know—well I don’t want to
draw it.”
“——, that don’t hurt the glass!”
“Well, of all things!” shrilled Oyster. “As long as the glass don’t
get hurt, everythin’ is all right. I’ll betcha he’s yawned upon every
glass he’s got. If we was ever goin’ to drink in this place again, I’d
argue in favor of smashin’ every glass he’s got on that back bar.”
And the bartender knew that the AK outfit were entirely capable of
doing just such a thing. But they were not quite drunk enough to
accept Oyster’s suggestion. At any rate their minds were diverted by
the entrance of “Scotty” Olson, the big lumbering sheriff of Blue
Wells, whose sense of humor was not quite as big nor as lively as a
fever germ.
Scotty wore a buffalo-horn mustache, which matched the huge eyebrows
that shaded his little eyes. He was a powerful person, huge of hand,
heavy-voiced, rather favoring a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun,
which he handled with one hand.
“The law is among us,” said Johnny seriously. “Have a little drink,
Mister Law?”
“No.” Scotty was without finesse.
“Have a cigar?” asked Eskimo.
“No.”
“Have a chaw?” queried Oyster pleasantly.
“No. I was just talkin’ with the preacher.”
“Tryin’ to reform yuh?” asked Johnny.
“Reform? No. He wants to know which one of you punchers tin-canned his
horse?”
The three cowboys looked at each other. Their expression of amazement
was rather overdone. The bartender chuckled, and Johnny turned
quickly.
“What in —— is so funny about it, Doc?” he demanded. “It’s no laughin’
matter, I’d tell a man,” he turned to the sheriff.
“You surely don’t think we’d do a thing like that, Sheriff.”
“I dunno,” the sheriff scratched his head, tilting his hat down over
one eye.
“My ——, that would be sacrilege!” exclaimed Eskimo.
“The Last Warnin’,” corrected Oyster seriously, not knowing the
meaning of sacrilege. The Last Warnin’ was an ancient sway-backed
white horse, which the minister drove to an old wobble-wheeled buggy.
He had a mean eye and a propensity for digging his old hammer-shaped
head into the restaurant garbage cans.
“It ain’t funny,” said the sheriff. “There ain’t nothin’ funny about
tin-cannin’ a horse. Louie Sing’s big copper slop-can is missin’, and
Louie swears that he’s goin’ to sue the preacher. I reckon it’s up to
you boys to pay the preacher for his horse and Louie Sing for his
copper can. The preacher says that fifty is about right for the horse,
and Louie swears that he can’t replace the can for less than ten.”
“Well,” sighed Johnny, “all I can say is that you and the preacher and
the Chink are plumb loco, if you think we’re goin’ to pay sixty
dollars for a—for somethin’ we never done.”
“Where’d we get sixty dollars—even if we was guilty?” wondered Oyster.
“Yuh might make it in Sunday-school,” suggested the bartender.
“In Sunday-school? What do yuh mean?”
“Well,” grinned Doc, “I hear that one of yuh put a four-bit piece in
the collection plate and took out ninety-five cents in change.”
Whether or not there was any truth in the statement, Johnny Grant took
sudden exceptions to it and flung himself across the bar, pawing at
the bartender, whose shoulders collided with the stacked glassware on
the back bar, as he tried to escape the clawing hands.
“Stop that!” yelled the sheriff.
He rushed at Johnny, trying to save the worthy bartender from assault,
but one of his big boots became entangled with the feet of Oyster
Shell, and he sprawled on his face, narrowly missing the bar-rail,
while into him fell Eskimo Olson, backward, of course, his spurs
catching in the sheriff’s vest and shirt and almost disrobing him.
With a roar of wrath the sheriff got to his feet, made an ineffectual
swing at Eskimo, and ran at Oyster, who had backed to the center of
the room, holding a chair in both hands. The sheriff was so wrathy
that he ignored the chair, until Oyster flung it down against his
shins, and the sheriff turned a complete somersault, which knocked all
the breath out of him.
Johnny Grant had swung around on the bar in time to see the sheriff
crash down, ignoring the perspiring bartender, who, armed with a
bottle, had backed to the end of the bar. The sheriff got to his feet,
one foot still fast between the rounds of the chair, and looked
vacantly around. Then he grinned foolishly and headed for the front
door, dragging the chair.
It tripped him as he went across the threshold and he fell on his
knees outside. Then he got to his feet, tore the offending chair
loose, flung it viciously out into the street, and went lurching
toward his office, scratching his head, as if wondering what it was
all about.
“Knocked back seven generations,” whooped Eskimo, as he clung to
Johnny Grant, who in turn was hugging Oyster.
“Mamma Mine, I hope t’ die!” whooped Johnny. “Oh, don’t show me no
more! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! He never even seen that chair!”
They went into more paroxysms of mirth, while the bartender smoothed
his vest, placed his bottle back behind the bar and got a broom to
sweep up the broken glassware. He knew that he was forgotten for a
while, at least.