IN most circumstances, being padded with bills to the amount of six
thousand dollars would be comfortably warming. But in my case the
possession of that sum only provoked irritation.
I had set out to save Zebulon Kingsley’s name and the peace of mind of
his family. The sum I had replevined by my scheme of justice fell far
short of what we needed--and there was the promise I had given Dodovah
Vose, as well.
From the hotel porch I saw my friend, the stage-driver, humping it
toward me.
“I have tripped, tied, and gagged him. That was the only thing to do!
He got here and he got two drinks into himself before I could slip the
bridle on him. In another two minutes he would have been jumping clear
off’n the ground, head and tail up, snorting out everything he knows.
But I got to him--and I’ve laid him away, tied and gagged. Go to it, Mr.
Mann, go to it, I tell you!”
He certainly was some excited!
“Are you talking about a man or a cayuse?” I asked. “I’m talking about
‘Dirty-shirt’--he’s just in from Blacksnake Gully ahead of the news.
Say, they’ve struck a brown crumble in ‘Bright Eyes’ with gold set into
the mush like raisins in a drunken cook’s pudding. You’re a sport and a
friend of mine. I’m letting you in. Come along!”
He ran away a little distance and whirled and halted with the eager air
of a dog who is inviting his master to follow. I’ll bet if he had had
long ears he would have perked them; if he had had a tail he would have
wagged it.
“You’re a sport--and I know it. Come along,” he called.
Along the street came loafing the individual who had tried to sell me
“Bright Eyes” stock, and he heard that call.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, pard,” he advised the driver. “He’s
no sport. I have tried him out. He won’t take a chance. I gave him a
chance on some mining shares.”
“What shares?” asked the stage-driver.
“‘Bright Eyes’ in the Blacksnake.”
My friend was truly a good actor. He showed no interest.
“Shift the name to ‘blacked eyes.’ Yes, and both of ’em closed at
that. No good!”
“I tell you there’s something in the air,” insisted the other. “It’s a
fair gamble at twenty-five cents a share.” He pulled out some papers and
walked up to me.
“You look like ready money, my friend. I’d rather play the wheel just
now than be rich. I’m tied in here by the mud and it’s getting on to my
nerves. Take ten thousand at twenty-five cents. I’ll close out to you.”
“Hold on!” sang out the driver, and he managed to smuggle a wink to me
while he was tugging papers out of his pocket on his way back to join
us. “If you’re in the market for ‘Bright Eyes,’ Eastern fellow, here’s
ten thousand shares for fifteen cents a share.”.
“Don’t you come butting in on my market,” protested the prospector,
elbowing the driver away. “I got to this gent first.”
“Those shares have been used all over this section for counters in poker
games when beans got too expensive,” sneered the driver.
The prospector pulled out more papers.
“If you’ll take twenty thousand at ten cents a share I’ll pass ’em
over. I was intending to hold on to ten thousand shares for a gamble. I
tell you there’s something, somehow, somewhere, that says the hunch is
out for ‘Bright Eyes.’ But I’ll let go for ten cents if you’ll take the
bunch.”
“That’s no better offer than you made the other night,” I stated.
“I was pretty drunk, then, and I didn’t mean to make it. I’m daffy now,
I reckon, or I wouldn’t be doing it over again.”
I stood there and looked them over and for the first time I gave a
little real thought to that gold-mine proposition. Up to then the matter
had been mere sound, shooting into one ear and out the other. I had been
having plenty to think about in other lines.
It struck me that I was being played for a sucker by a couple of mighty
awkward amateurs. Talk about Zebulon Kingsley buying a gold brick! That
affair had been well buttered by some slick operators. What those two
chaps were trying on me was truly raw work. That stage-driver--I didn’t
even know his name--must have a healthy hate for me hidden deep down
in him! I have cuffed a dog in my life and had him show more affection
afterward, but I couldn’t believe that such treatment helped to mellow
love in a human being. I knew it wouldn’t improve my own disposition
any. In my thoughts I had some excuse for the two. They had probably
been brought up to believe that the ordinary Easterner who had not
already bought some punk gold-mine stock was thriftily saving up to buy
some.
“There’s one of ’em born every minute,” I remarked to the
stage-driver, “but I didn’t know I looked so much like one. Run away,
the two of you, and fan yourselves with that stock; that’s the only way
you’ll ever raise any wind with it.”
“You ain’t talking to me, are you--to me--Wash Flye?” inquired the
driver.
“I am, if that’s your name--and it seems to fit you! But you are not fly
enough!”
He opened eyes and mouth on me, stepped back a few feet, and visibly
swelled.
“Well, my-y-y Ga-a-awd!” he wailed. “If that ain’t using the butt end of
the whip on a willing friend, may I never sort webbin’s again!”
There was truly something sincere in his distress. But that sudden
warming-up to me on the prairie after I had manhandled him, his
unaccountable friendliness, his jacking his job for a few days in order
to dog me about Breed City--the whole thing was too openly a plant.
“You’re a good actor. No wonder you’re in the stage business, Flye,” was
my poor joke.
He looked at me for a full minute. Then he turned on the other man.
“It’s you, you horn-gilled wump, with your sashay prices and your
drunken man’s gab--it’s you that has put me in wrong with a friend,” he
squealed. “He thinks I’m like you are! He thinks I’m in mush with you on
a brace! I’ll show him and you!” He leaped forward and began to kick the
prospector with fury. The latter was a big and rather torpid person and
he seemed to be in a sort of daze at first, and stood still while Mr.
Flye kicked him. Then he turned and knocked Mr. Flye down; he picked him
up and knocked him down again.
It struck me that if this were acting between friends it was getting too
realistic. The driver’s face was bloody and he lay where he fell, his
eyes closed.
I jumped between and pushed the prospector away. He struck at me and I
was obliged to hit him a clip or two before he would hold off. We had
a fairly good audience, but fisticuffs in Breed, when the muddy season
made tempers short, seemed to stir only mild interest.