“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Wing Lee.”
“Why you put me here?”
“Bling you bleakfast,” he said, and shuffled away.
A few minutes and he was back with oatmeal and coffee. I resumed the
conversation.
“Why you no let me eat outside, Wing Lee? What for you bring me back
here?”
The interrogation was couched in the pidgin-English which is the
accepted method of communication with his kind, but he blinked his eyes
vacantly.
“No sabbe,” he remarked. “I go bling ham ’n eggs. You likum ham ’n
eggs?”
There is no use wasting breath on a Chinaman who holds his tongue, or
resorts to the “no sabbe” game. When he brought the ham and eggs I
remained silent, as though the matter were closed.
He hesitated, sucked in his breath as though to speak, and then
slippety-slapped away.
Five minutes later and I heard his voice, crooning away a steady stream
of sing-song English. It was as though he was talking to a horse he was
trying to catch, seeking to distract its attention from the cold-bitted
bridle.
“You no eatum out there. Him no good. I catchum you one piecee room. You
eatum no catchum bothered. Me, I smart man, I heap sabbe. You likum
eatum where nobody ’round. You come me, I fixum. I catchum ham ’n eggs.
You heap likum nice flesh egg?”
Keeping up his perpetual wheedling conversation, he came shuffling along
the rough boards leading some bulky figure to the adjoining booth.
Habit, which has taught me to trust no man, made me shift my eyes from
the Chinaman to the figure which followed, and then I instantly
stiffened. It was the cheap killer of the pool-hall; the man who had
boasted of having had the drop on Black Barr, who had picked up the
crumpled piece of paper which had fallen from my pocket.
“Look here, John....” he was saying, using the conventional name by
which all Chinese are known in the mining and cattle camps of the West.
“You likee make piecum money? You likee shagum powder one cup coffee
make one hundred dollars? You sabbe big man, black hat, black shirt,
black horse, black guns...”
The Chinaman moved to one side, moved just far enough so that there was
no obstruction to my view, so that the other man could see me.
“No-o-o-o sabbe,” he intoned.
The man across the way caught the glitter of my eyes, realized that his
conversation had been overheard, knew that the time for a showdown had
come.
He thought quickly, that man. His hand did not swoop immediately to his
guns, but paused long enough to flip the glass of water which was on the
table in front of him, straight at my face. Then his hands went for his
guns with all the speed they could command.
The shot from my right gun caught the hurtling water glass, smashed it
in the air, into a thousand pieces. My second shot crashed through the
forehead of the would-be poisoner.
There was the silent flitting of a shadow and the Chinaman was at my
elbow.
“You come this way, quick!” he hissed.
I followed him, my hand on my gun, ready for a shot at the first sign of
treachery.
“You climb out window,” he said in his sing-song voice. “You come in
flont door, you eatum one more bleakfast. I say him first time you come
this morning.”
There was much wisdom in what Wing Lee said, and but little time for
meditation upon that wisdom or the reason back of it. Already, feet were
rushing down the boards of the corridor; already men were piling in
through the entrance of the restaurant.
I dived through the window, bent double, ran to the corner of the
building, waited for a moment, and sauntered quietly and unobserved into
the crowd which was packing the doorway.
A moment more and I had forced my way through, and sauntered to one of
the oilcloth-covered tables.
“What’s all the excitement, John?” I asked, casually.
Several pairs of eyes turned at the sound of my voice.
“Somebody shootum,” remarked the Chinaman placidly as he drew a cup of
coffee with a hand that was as steady as a graven image. “You likum
bleakfast? Catchum nice flesh egg. You likum ploached egg?”