THE DEATH OF HAPPY JACK
When Bowles rode back to the Bat Wing Ranch he was a hard-looking
citizen. His aunt, the hypothetical Mrs. Earl-Bowles, would scarcely
have recognized him; Mrs. Lee started visibly at sight of his battered
face; and Dixie smiled knowingly as she glanced at his half-closed eye.
"Aha, Mr. Man," she said, "it looks like you'd been into a juniper,
too!"
"Well, something like that," acknowledged Bowles, gazing lover-like into
her eyes; and from that he led the conversation into other channels,
less intimately associated with common brawls. For though Bowles had
given way to his evil passions and had even gone so far as to call for
his gun in order to beard his rival, he did not wish it known to his
lady. As he contemplated her grace in a plain white dress, and the
witchery of her faintest smile, it seemed indeed a profanation of the
sacred Temple of Love to so much as allude to a fight. Undoubtedly in
the wooings of the stone age the males had competed with clubs, but
certainly for no woman like this. Love, as Bowles had learned it from
the poets, was above such sordid scenes; and as he had learned it from
her--when she had chastened his soul with a kiss--ah, now he could sing
with old Ben Jonson and the deathless Greeks:
"Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss within the cup,
And I'll not ask for wine."
Here was the shrine at which he worshiped, and he wished no carnal
thought to enter in. So he spoke to her softly and went his way, lest
some one should read his heart and break the spell with jeering.
The dust of a day's hard driving was on his face; there was a red weal
over one eye and a bruise on his bearded cheek, but he was a lover
still. Dixie knew it by his eyes, that glowed and kindled; by his voice,
whose every word veiled a hidden caress; and she greeted the others
coldly from thinking of this one who had come. Then she dissembled and
went down among them, but her ways were changed and she only smiled at
their jests.
"Hey, Dix," challenged Hardy Atkins at last, thrusting a grimy hand down
into his shap pocket, "look what I got fer ye!"
He drew out a money-order ring that he had won in a mountain poker game,
and flashed the stone in the sun.
"It's a genuwine, eighteen-carat diamond," he announced. "Come over hyer
and let's see which finger it fits. If it fits yore third finger, you
know----"
"Well, I like your nerve," observed Dixie Lee, smiling tolerantly with
Gloomy Gus. "'Come over hyer!' eh? It's a wonder you wouldn't come over
here--but I don't want your old ring, so don't come."
"W'y, what's the matter?" inquired Hardy Atkins, who loved to do his
courting in public. "You ain't goin' back on me, are you, Dix?"
"Well, if I went very far back on _your_ trail," answered Dixie, "I
reckon I'd find where you _got_ that ring. What's the matter? Wouldn't
she have it? Or did that other girl give it back?"
She turned away with a curl on her lips, and when he saw that she meant
it, Hardy Atkins was filled with chagrin. From a man now, that would be
a good joke; but from Dixie--well, somebody must have blabbed! He turned
a darkly inquiring eye upon Bowles, and looked no farther; but Henry Lee
had spoken, and all that rough work was barred. Still there were ways
and ways, and after thinking over all the dubious tricks of the cow camp
he called in his faithful friends and they went into executive session.
"Now, hyer," expounded the ex-twister, as they got together over the
butchering of a beef, "the way to bump that Hinglishman off is to make a
monkey of 'im--skeer 'im up and laugh 'im out o' camp. He's so stuck on
himse'f he cain't stand to be showed up--what's the matter with a fake
killin'? Here's lots of blood."
He cupped up a handful of blood from the viscera of the newly killed
beef, and his side partners chuckled at the thought.
"Let me do the shootin', and I'll throw in with ye," rumbled Buck
Buchanan.
"I'll hold the door on 'im," volunteered Poker Bill.
"Well, who's goin' to play dead?" grinned Happy Jack. "Me? All right.
Git some flour to put on my face, and watch me make the fall--I done
that once back on the Pecos."
So they laid their plans, very mysteriously, and when the big poker game
began that night there was no one else in on the plot. Buck had the
pistol he had killed the beef with tucked away in the slack of his belt;
Jack had changed to a light shirt, the better to show the blood; and
Hardy Atkins was a make-up man, with bottled blood and a pinch of flour
in his pockets to use when the lights went out.
The game was straight draw poker, and the prize a private horse. Ten
dollars apiece was the price of a chance, and it was freeze-out at
four-bits a chip. That served to draw the whole crowd, and as the
contest narrowed down to Buck Buchanan and Happy Jack, the table was
lined three deep.
"How many?" asked Buck, picking up the deck.
"Gimme one!" said Jack, and when he got it he looked grave and turned
down his hand, the way all good poker players do when they have tried to
fill a flush and failed.
"I bet ye ten!" challenged Jack.
"Go you--and ten more!" came back Buck.
"Raise ye twenty!"
"What ye got?" demanded Buck, shoving his beans to the center, and then,
with a sudden roar, he leaped up and seized the stakes. "Keep yore hands
off that discyard!" he bellowed, hammering furiously on the table. "You
lie, you----"
_Whack!_ came Happy Jack's hand across his face, and Buchanan grabbed
for his gun. Then, as the crowd scattered wildly, he thrust out his
pistol and shot a great flash of powder between Happy Jack's arm and his
ribs.
"Uh!" grunted Jack, and went over backward, chair and all.
Then Hardy Atkins blew out the lamp, and the riot went on in the dark.
Bowles was only one of ten frantic punchers who struggled to get out the
door; Brigham Clark was one of as many more who burrowed beneath the
beds; and when Hardy Atkins lit the lamp and threw the dim light on
Happy Jack's wan face he was just in time to save his audience. True,
the older punchers had been in fake fights before; but they had been in
real ones, too--where the bullets flew wide of the mark--and this had
seemed mighty real. In fact, if one were to criticize such a finished
production, it was a little too real for the purpose, for the conduct of
Bowles was in no wise different from the rest. There had been a little
too much secrecy and not quite enough team-work about the play, but
Poker-face Bill was still at his post and the victim was caught in the
crowd.
"Oh, my Gawd!" moaned Hardy Atkins, kneeling down and tearing aside
Jack's coat. "Are you hurt bad, Jack?"
The red splotch on his shirt gave the answer, and the room was silent as
death. Then Poker Bill began to whisper and push; delighted grins were
passed and stilled; and, moving in a mass, with Bowles up near the
front, the crowd closed in on the corpse.
"He's dead!" rumbled Buck Buchanan, making a fierce gesture with his
pistol. "I don't make no mistakes. You boys saw him cheat," he went on,
approaching nearer to the crowd. "And he slapped me first! You saw that,
didn't you, Bowles?"
"Oh, hush up!" cried Hardy Atkins, tragically shaking his fallen friend;
and then as he worked up to the big scene where Happy Jack was to come
to life and run amuck after Bowles, the door was kicked open and gloomy
Gus strode in.
"What's the matter with you fellers?" he demanded, his voice trembling
with indignation at the thought of his broken sleep, and then, at sight
of Jack, he stopped.
"Jack's dead," said Hardy Atkins, trying hard to give Gus the wink; but
the cook was staring at the corpse. Perhaps, being roused from a sound
sleep, his senses were not quite as acute as usual; perhaps the
play-acting was too good; be that as it may, his rage was changed to
pity, and, he took the center of the stage.
"Ah, poor Jack!" he quavered, going closer and gazing down upon him.
"Shot through the heart. He's dead, boys; they's no use workin' on
'im--I've seen many a man like that before."
"Well, let's try, anyway!" urged Atkins, in a desperate endeavor to get
rid of him. "Go git some water, Gus! Haven't you got any whisky?"
"Oh, he's dead," mourned the cook; "they's no use troublin' him--it's
all over with poor old Jack. You'll never hear _him_ laugh no more."
A faint twitch came over the set features of the corpse at this, and
Hardy Atkins leaped desperately in to shield his face.
"He was a good-hearted boy," continued Gloomy Gus, still intent upon his
eulogy--and then Happy Jack broke down. First he began to twitch, then a
snort escaped him, and he shook with inextinguishable laughter. A look
went around the room, Brigham Clark punched Bowles with his elbow and
pulled him back, and then Gus glanced down at the corpse. His peroration
ceased right there, and disgust, chagrin, and anger chased themselves
across his face like winds across a lake; then, with a wicked oath, he
snatched the gun away from Buck and struggled to get it cocked.
"You young limb!" he raved, menacing Happy Jack with the pistol and
fighting to break clear of Buck. "You'll play a trick on me, will ye--an
old man and punched cows before you was born! Let go of that gun, Mr.
Buchanan! I'll show the blankety-blank----" And so he raged, while the
conspirators labored to soothe him, and Brig dragged Bowles outside.