“I ain’t no fighter--I don’t pretend to be a fighter,” he mumbled. “I
knew he was going to lick me if I kicked him. But that’s all right!
There’s three teeth loose and my eyes are bunging! I can feel ’em! But
it’s all right. If anybody thinks it was a scuffle between friends, he’d
better take another think. I’ve took a licking to show some folks that
there’s such a thing as being mistook in a man.”
I hadn’t straightened out my opinions, exactly, but I felt sudden pity
and new respect for Mr. Flye, and some emotion even deeper. I helped him
to his feet and took him into the wash-room of the hotel and fixed him
up as best I could.
“I don’t blame you so very much,” he kept assuring me, whimpering
through his bruised and bleeding lips. “It probably hasn’t seemed
natural to you--it hasn’t seemed natural to me. This world is full of
crooks and I s’pose you’ve been up against a lot of ’em. I done one
crooked thing myself once when I kept water away from a drove of hogs
for two days and then let ’em drink all they could hold just before
I sold ’em live weight to a Snake River drover. But that drover had
stolen two cayuses off’n my uncle! I didn’t know what I could do to show
you, sir! Probably what I have done don’t show you. But I’ve done my
best. It was all I could think of on short notice. I’ll let a dozen men
beat me up if you will only understand that I ain’t going to do you or
try to do you!”
That spirit of humble martyrdom was certainly getting to me!
“Look here, Mr Flye,” I blurted, “I don’t understand at all. Why in
blazes are you taking all this interest in me?”
He gazed at me out of those pathetic, pale-blue eyes around which
blue-black circles were settling. It was a lingering and wistful gaze.
“I don’t know, sir. It came over me all of a sudden. It ain’t often I
take to anybody. It just came over me. You’re a real gent--you knowed
just how to handle me. You know how to handle me now! Ain’t you doing
the friendly act, hey?”
We were alone in the wash-room; the guests of the hotel flocked there
only at meal-time.
“You can see how it looked to me--a stranger here--you two fellows
chasing me up!”
“I don’t blame you, sir,” he agreed, meekly. “This world is full of
crooks.”
“I have some money with me. It isn’t mine. I need more in a hurry--it’s
to save a man’s name--save him from death, perhaps!” I couldn’t hold in.
“It’s to save his daughter, too. I’m in love with her. I have been for
years! It’s all I can think about. When you spoke of ‘Bright Eyes’ I
felt--I felt--” I stopped and gulped.
“I reckon I know how you feel,” stated Mr. Flye, wagging that mussed-up
head of his. “I know a girl. There’s hardly a minute when I ain’t
thinking about her. She hasn’t paid no attention to me, but I’m going
to her after I make my clean-up on ‘Bright Eyes’! It makes ’em think
twice when there’s money. I ain’t much--”
“I’m desperate--I’m half crazy, Flye! This mine! Are you fooling me?”
He straightened and put his hand up like a man taking the oath. .
“I wanted you to get in because I liked you, sir. That’s why I was after
you. But now that you say that you need money I’m begging and imploring
you! If money will do what you say it will in your case, I say ’fore
God you’ll commit a sin if you don’t grab in! I know it! It has come.
‘Dirty-shirt’ don’t know how to lie about it. The strike has been made.
Take my word,” he pleaded.
“I’ll do it,” I told him. “I believe you’re trying to do an honest turn
for me.” I put out my hand and he took it.
“Thank the Lord!” he said, and there was a lot of manliness about Mr.
Wash Flye at that moment. “That licking was a good investment.” He said
it devoutly.
“But will that fellow sell now?”
“Can you handle his twenty thousand shares at ten cents--two thousand
dollars?”
“Yes.”
“When I offered at fifteen I was trying to beat him down to ten. Don’t
give a cent more. Go show him the money and say you’re willing to be
buncoed once in your life. And hurry--for the love of Sancho, hurry!”
I found the prospector watching a roulette game with the sour gaze of a
busted gambler. He went into the corner with me when I jerked invitation
with my chin.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he growled, when I mentioned the stock. “And I
wouldn’t do business with you anyway, you--”
I unfolded four five-hundred-dollar bills. He stopped his declaration as
suddenly as if I had pinched his throat.
“Money is money, I suppose,” said he, “though your shin-plasters from
the East are poor things alongside the good hard coin.”
“There’s the bank across the street, and they’ll give you the good hard
coin, mister.”
He pulled out his packet and I verified the amount of the certificates.
I went to the bank in his company, for he seemed to be bothered with the
notion that those five-hundred-dollar bills needed me as introducer
and sponsor. Then he hotfooted out, weighted with the coin. In spite
of myself and of my fresh faith in Mr. Flye, my heart sank considerably
when I saw that money take legs. The cashier was one of the amiable
citizens I had met in the delegation from the Chamber of Commerce.
“Making a little investment?” he inquired, sociably.
“A foolish one, I am afraid. But an Easterner who hasn’t had a flier in
a gold-mine at least once in his life gets to feeling lonesome after a
time. That chap has been chasing me around with stock and a story and I
have tossed a little spare change to him.”
The cashier peered through the wicket and beamed with new respect on a
man who could speak of two thousand dollars as spare change.
“There are mines--and then there are mines,” he suggested.