“Cheer up, son,” says I. “She ain’t married yet. Never give up, not even
when they faces the preacher—somebody might shoot him.”
“Ike, you’re a philosopher,” says he, shaking his head, “but I’m afraid
it’s a hopeless hope for me. Let’s go down-stairs.”
We went down. Frankie drifted away from me, and I sort of got lost. I
wandered around by myself, getting sorer and sorer all the time.
Everybody acts like I got the smallpox. I tried to talk to the fiddler,
but he’s deaf and dumb, and when I asks a lady how her kids are she
sticks her nose in the air, and drifts.
I tries to get near enough to that army officer to ask him where the
water-bucket is but he sees me and lopes out of sight. Auntie passes me
once, but I reckon she figured me a white chip in a big stack of blues,
’cause she didn’t see me at all. I found Marion after while. She’s
surrounded with the duke and a lot of other smaller cards, and that duke
stared hard at me again.
“Take a look, you poor hunk of hash,” says I.
I’m getting tired of being stared at, and I don’t even care about
Marion, ’cause I’m beginning to think she don’t assay any more on brains
than the rest. The duke walks like he’d wintered in a hard pasture and
cracked his hoofs. When I snapped at him, his lower jaw sags, and he
feels to see if his tooth-brush mustache is still with him.
“Aw!” says he. “Cattle!”
“You dang well know it!” says I. “Where your kind would last about as
long as a snowball in ——! Where there’s a strong distinction drawn
between male and female.”
“Mr. Benson!” says Marion, shocked like, but dang me if I don’t think
she winked one eye.
We must have been talking loud, ’cause when I looks around, ’most
everybody is listening.
“Heavens!” I hears auntie gasp. “I’ll have him removed at once.
Simmons!” she yelps. “Simmons!”
“You don’t need to yelp for help,” says I; “I’ll remove him.”
“Mr. Whispering White,” announces that army officer, in a loud voice
just then, and we all turns.
* * * * *
There stands Magpie, with one hand twisted in the army officer’s collar,
and a grin on his face.
“Thanks, Colonel,” says he, shoving him away. “Maybe the next time you
see a man at the door you won’t stick your blasted nose in the air and
refuse him admittance.”
Magpie is still wearing that ice-cream suit and big hat. He hitches up
his hip pocket and grins at everybody.
“Howdy, folks,” says he.
He grins and winks at Marion, and just then I hears a gasp behind me,
and I turns. There stands the duke, staring at Magpie, like he was a
ghost, and Magpie is staring right back at him.
“Holy horned toads!” grunts Magpie, and reaches for his hip.
The duke moved. The dignity all left that jasper, and he turns coyote
for fair. He ducked behind a lot of half-dressed ladies, and went up
them stairs like a bear.
Magpie is sort of handicapped, with so many folks around, but I think
his bullet cut the duke’s necktie off, ’cause we found it on the stairs.
Just as the duke turned the corner he runs slap into Pinky and Pinky
came rolling down-stairs just in time to keep Magpie from going up fast.
Pinky lights setting up, and Magpie races past him. I hops half-way up
them stairs, and pulls a gun, so nobody can interfere with Magpie, but
nobody wanted to go up, I reckon.
“Good evening, folks,” grins Pinky, looking around, foolish like, but
nobody paid any attention to him.
Auntie has fainted flat, and a fat little hombre is fanning her with a
glass of punch. Marion is backed against the wall, and Frankie is trying
to shake hands with her.
Comes a —— of a racket upstairs, and here comes the duke, Magpie and
Homely. Magpie and Homely have each got hold of a coat-tail, and right
at the top step the duke shucks his coat, and comes down like a
pin-wheel, and into that crowd he goes.
Homely slips on the top steps and don’t hit again until he sets down
beside me, halfway down. The duke cuts a swath through the crowd, and
goes out through an open window like a prairie-dog going into his own
home.
_Bang_ goes a gun beside me, and the top pane of the window is busted
into a million pieces. I reckon it caused several ladies to foller
auntie’s example. I turns around and there sets Homely, with a big Colt
in his hand, and a scowl on his face.
“Missed!” he wails. “Might ’a’ knowed he wouldn’t go so high. Allowed
too much, and over-shot.”
“Where did you have that gun?” I asked. “I searched you.”
“In my boot, Ike. No pocket in these pants, and the waist is too tight.”
Magpie throws that coat down, disgusted like, and puts his gun back in
his pocket.
“Dang the luck!” he snorts. “Lost him again!”
“Again?” I asks. “Did you say again?”
Magpie leans against the corner-post of the stairs, and smooths out his
necktie.
“That was the feller what we used to know as ‘Diamond Duke,’ down in
Mesquite,” says he. “He’s a duke, I reckon, and one of the slickest card
sharks on earth. He’s a crook from his belt both ways, and ain’t got the
nerve of a rabbit. Hellwinder with fool women, and talks like a
dictionary. Rung in a cold deck on me one night, in a big pot, and was
foolish enough to reach for a gun, when I called him. We both shot. I
killed him dead, and his bullet went into the ceiling. I went over and
gave myself up to the sheriff, and when he went back over there the duke
had gone. He’d fainted—that’s all. Somehow I can’t seem to kill the
breed.”
“Same here!” grunts Homely, disgusted like. “Allowed too much for the
rise.”
Auntie has recovered from her faint, and hears Magpie’s testimony. She
drops like a wilted lily, and looks a million years old.
“Ruined!” says she, wailing like. “Everything is ruined.” Then she turns
to Magpie, and says in a weak voice: “Samuel, will you leave us, please?
Tomorrow we will talk things over.”
“Yes’m,” agrees Magpie. “Come on, Ike.”
Everybody is either left or leaving, and there don’t seem to be much
animation left in the party.
“Our hats are in that shack where we left the automobile,” states
Homely. “Let’s get them and go home.”
When we went out of the door we looked back. There sets auntie, sad and
deserted like, and over in the corner by the music-stand is Pinky. He’s
got a fiddle that somebody forgot, and he’s discording something awful,
and singing:
“I’m a buckaroo from Bucktown, and I drinks my whisky clear.
I’m a rearin’, tootin’ tooter, a son of a gambolier.”
It sure was a grand night for Pinky Van Veen. We went out to that house,
and started to scratch a match to locate them hats, when we hears a
noise.
“Sounds like somebody walking in mud,” chuckles Magpie, and then we
hears Frankie say:
“Boys, I never can thank you. Have you fellers got time to shake hands
with the future Mrs. Franklyn Burt?”
We sure took time.
“That money is in the bank at Silver Bend,” whispers Frankie. “Maybe
some day I can do something for you to pay you for this.”
“Had a lovely time at your party,” says Homely. “Enjoyed it fine, and I
sure wish you a lot of luck. Sorry I held that gun too high, but a
feller can’t be lucky all the time.”
We tells them good-by, and goes back to the hotel. Magpie walks up to
the counter, and says to the man—
“When do we get a train going West?”
“Ten-thirty,” says he, and we all goes upstairs. Magpie begins to pack
his valise.
“Where you going?” asks Homely. “Ain’t leaving, are you?”
“On that train. Pack up, Ike. I don’t like this town, and I’ll be danged
if I talks things over with auntie, ’cause there ain’t nothing left to
talk about except the weather. I’m sick for the smell of sagebrush, and
I’m sick of the smell of perfume.”
Homely packed up, too, and went to the depot with us.
“Come on back to Piperock with us, Homely,” says Magpie. “Dang your old
hide, you’d fit in fine with the rest of us old pelicans.”
“Sure like to,” says he, “but I can’t. I got to go East on business, but
likely some day I’ll see you both again. Sure hope so.”
We climbs on the steps of the car, and shakes hands with him.
“Come out our way, Homely,” says I. “Dog-gone, I’d sure like to see your
homely old face out there. The cabin door is open.”
“I know it is, Ike,” says he. “If you fellers ever get as far south as
Brazil look me up, will you?”
“Brazil?” wonders Magpie. “Did you say Brazil, Homely?”
“Uh-huh,” yelps Homely, as our train rolls away, “Pernambuco, Brazil.
Ask for Whispering White—that’s me.”
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in Adventure Magazine,
December 3, 1918. It is believed to be in the public domain in the
United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]