would happen. Chances was a dollar apiece--the dates for thirty days
ahead being written on bits of paper, and the bits crumpled up and
put into a hat, and you took one--and the pool went to whoever got
the right date, with consolation stakes to whoever got the day before
and the day after. Charley made a comical speech, after the drawing,
telling the boys it was what you might call a quick return investment,
and he guessed all of 'em had got left who'd drawed dates more'n a
week away. Hill took it all right, same as usual; and just to show 'em
he didn't bear no malice he bought a chance himself. He was one of the
best-natured fellows ever got born, Hill was. There wasn't no Apache
in him nowhere. He was white all the way through. So he bought his
chance, that way, and then he give it to the Hen--telling her if he
pulled the pot himself it wouldn't be much good to him, and saying he
hoped she'd get it if anybody did, and asking her--if she did get
it--to have some extry nice touches put on the board.
Well, will you believe it? When Hill give that Hen his chance she
begun to cry over it! She knew it wouldn't do to cry hard--seeing
what a mess it would make with her color when the tears got
running--and so she pulled herself up quick and mopped her eyes dry
with her pocket-handkerchief. And then she let out with all four legs
at once, like a Colorado mule, and everlastingly gave it to all hands!
It was just like the Hen, being so good-hearted, and thinking so much
of Hill, to fire up like that about Santa Fé's pool on when he'd get
his medicine; and all the boys knowed that beside the address she was
making to the whole congregation Santa Fé was going to get another,
and a worse one, when she had him off where she could play out to him
a lone hand. But the boys didn't mind the jawing she give 'em--except
they was a little ashamed, knowing putting such a rig on Hill was a
mean thing to do--and I guess the whole business would have ended
right there (only for the dressing-down Santa Fé was to get later) if
Hart's nephew hadn't taken it into his head to chip in--being
drunker'n usual, and a fool anyway--and so started what turned out to
be a fresh game.
I do suppose Hart's nephew was about the meanest ever got born. Bill
Hart was a good enough fellow himself, and how he ever come to have
such a God-forsaken chump for a nephew was more'n anybody could tell.
Things must have been powerful bad, I reckon, on his mother's side. He
was one of the blowing kind, with nothing behind his blow; and his
feet was that tender they wasn't fit to walk on anything harder'n
fresh mush. The boys all the time was putting up rigs on him; and he'd
go around talking so big about what he meant to do to get even with
'em you'd think he was going to clean out the whole town. But he took
mighty good care to do his tall talking promiscuous: after making the
mistake of trying it once on a little man he thought he could
manage--a real peaceable little feller that looked like he wouldn't
stand up to a kitten--and getting his nose and his mouth and his eyes
all mashed into one. The little man apologized to the rest for doing
it that way, saying he'd a-been ashamed of himself all the rest of his
life if he'd gone for a thing like that with his gun.
Well, it was this Hart's nephew--like enough he had some sort of a
name that belonged to him, but he wasn't worth the trouble of finding
out what it was--who chipped in when the Hen took to her tirading, and
so give things a new turn. Standing up staggery, and talking in his
drunk fool way, he told her the road across to Santa Fé was as safe as
a Sunday-school; and he said he'd be glad to be in Hill's boots and
drive that coach himself, seeing what an interest she took in
stage-drivers; and he asked her, sort of nasty, how she managed to get
along for company when Hill was at the other end of his run. Hart's
nephew was drunker'n usual that night, same as I've said, or even he'd
a-knowed he'd likely get into trouble talking that way to the Hen.
For about a minute things looked real serious. The Hen straightened
right up, and on the back of her neck--where it showed, she not being
fixed red there to start with--she got as red as canned tomatoes; and
some of the boys moved a little, sort of uneasy; and Santa Fé reached
out over the piles of chips for his gun. He didn't get it, because
the Hen saw what he was doing and stopped him by looking at him
quick--and knowing what Charley was when it come to shooting, you'll
know the Hen sent that look at him about as fast as looks can go! The
game had stopped right there; and it was so quiet in the room you'd
a-thought the snoring of the two drunks asleep on benches in one
corner was a thunder-storm coming down the cañon!
Of course what we all expected the Hen to do was to wipe up the floor
with Hart's nephew by giving him such a talking to--she could use
language, the Hen could, when she started in at it--as would make him
sorrier'n usual he'd ever been born; and I guess, from the looks of
her, that was what at the first jump she meant to do. But she was a
quick-thinking one, the Hen was, and she had a way of getting more
funny notions into that good-looking head of hers than any other woman
that ever walked around on this earth alive--and so she give us all a
real jolt by playing out cards we wasn't expecting at all. Just as
sudden as a wink, she sort of twitched and twinkled--same as she
always did when she was up to some new bit of deviltry--and when she
set her stamps to going she talked like as if she was real pleased.
She didn't look, though, as good-natured as she talked--keeping on
being straightened up, and having a kind of setness in her jaws and a
snappiness in them big black eyes of hers that made everybody but
Hart's nephew, who was too drunk to know anything, dead sure she still
was mad all the way through.
"If he'll lend 'em to you, and I guess he will, why don't you get into
Mr. Hill's boots?" she said to Hart's nephew. And then she fetched up
a nice sort of smile, and said to him real friendly-sounding: "I do
like stage-drivers, and that's a fact--and there's no telling how
pleasant I'll make things for you if you'll take the coach across to
Santa Fé to-morrow over that Sunday-school road! Will you do it?" And
then the Hen give him one of them fetching looks of hers, and asked
him over: "Will you do it--to oblige _me_?"
Now that was more words at one time than the Hen had dropped on Hart's
nephew since he struck the camp; and as the few he'd ever got from her
mostly hadn't been nice ones, and these sounding to him--he being
drunk--like as if they was real good-natured, he was that pleased he
didn't know what to do. Of course he was dead set on the Hen, same as
everybody else was--she truly was a powerful fine woman--and it just
was funny to see how he tried to steady himself on his legs
gentlemanly, and was all over fool smiles.
So he said back to the Hen--speaking slow, to keep his words from
tumbling all over each other--he'd just drive that coach across to
Santa Fé a-hooping if Hill'd lend it to him; and then he asked Hill if
he might have it--and told him he could trust him to handle it in good
shape, because everybody knowed he was a real daisy at driving mules.
For a fact, Hart's nephew did manage well at mule-driving. It was one
of the blame few things that fool knowed how to do. Denver Jones
allowed it was because he was related to 'em--on the father's side.
"Just for this once, Mr. Hill," said the Hen, speaking coaxy. And she
got her head round a little--so Hart's nephew couldn't see what she
was doing--and give Hill a wink to come into the game.
Hill didn't know what in the world the Hen was up to--nobody ever did
know what that Hen was up to when once she got started--but he
reckoned he could take it back in the morning if he didn't think what
she wanted would answer, so in he come: telling Hart's nephew he might
have the coach to do anything (Hill was a kind of a careless talker)
he damn pleased with; and saying he'd have it hitched up and ready
down at the deepo next morning, same as usual, so he could start right
off when the Denver train come in.
When things was settled, all quick that way, Hart's nephew took to
squirming--he seeing, drunk as he was, he'd bit off a blame sight
more'n he cared to chew. But with the Hen right after him--and Hill
and all the rest of the boys backing her, they being sure she'd dandy
cards up her sleeve for the queer game she was playing--he couldn't
make nothing by all his squirms. The boys got at him and told him
anybody could see he was afraid; and the Hen got at him and told him
anybody could see he wasn't, and she said she knew he was about the
bravest man alive; and Hill got at him and told him the road had
improved so, lately, the nearest to road-agents you ever seen on it
was burros and cotton-tail rabbits; and all of 'em together kept
getting more drinks in him right along. So the upshot of it was: first
Hart's nephew stopped his squirming; and then he took to telling what
a holy wonder he was at mule-driving; and then he went to blowing the
biggest kind--till he got so he couldn't talk no longer--about what
he'd do in the shooting line if any road-agents come around trying
their monkey-shine hold-ups on _him_! So it ended, good enough, by
their getting him fixed tight in his hole.
The boys kept things going with him pretty late that night, and when
he showed up in the morning at the deepo--a delegation seeing to it he
got there, and Hill having the coach all ready for him--he still had
on him a fairly sizable jag. But he'd sobered up enough--having slept
quite a little, and soaked his head at the railroad tank--to want to
try all he knew how to spill himself out of his job. It took all the
Hen could do--the Hen had got up early and come down to the deepo
a-purpose to attend to him--and all the boys could do helping her, to
get him up on that coach-box and boosted off out of town.
He was that nervous he was shaking all over; and what made him
nervouser was having no passengers--nobody for Santa Fé having come in
on the Denver train. It was just a caution to see his shooting outfit!
The box of the coach looked like it was a gun-shop--being piled up
with two Winchesters and a double-barrelled shot-gun (the shot-gun, he
said, was to cripple anybody he didn't think it was needful to kill);
and beside that he had a machete some Mexican lent him hooked on to
his belt, and along with it a brace of derringers and two forty-fives.
Hill was the only one who didn't laugh fit to kill himself over that
layout. Hill said Hart's nephew done just right to take along all the
guns he could get a-hold of; and Hill said he'd attended to the proper
loading of every one of them weepons himself.
At last--with all the boys laughing away and firing fool talk at him,
and the Hen keeping him up to the collar by going on about how brave
he was--he did manage to whip up his mules and start off. Sick was no
name for him--and he was so scared stiff he looked like he was about
ready to cry. After he'd got down the slope, and across the bridge
over the Rio Grande, and was walking his mules on that first little
stretch of sandy road on the way to La Cañada, we could see him
reaching down and fussing over his layout of guns.
For a cold fact, there was a right smart chance that Hart's
nephew--and 'specially because his fool luck made most things come to
him contrary--really might run himself into a hold-up; and, if he did,
it was like as not his chips might get called in. For all Hill's
funny talk about meeting nothing worse'n burros and cotton-tail
rabbits, that road was a bad road--and things was liable to occur.
Hill himself was taking his chances, and he blame well knowed it,
every day. But it was the sense of the meeting that if a hold-up of
that coach attended by fatalities was coming, it couldn't come at a
better time than when Hart's nephew was on the box--the feeling being
general that Hart's nephew was one that could be spared. I guess Bill
Hart felt just the same about it as the rest of us--leastways, he
didn't strain himself any trying to keep his nephew home.
* * * * *
Things went kind of nervous that day at Palomitas. All the boys seemed
to have a feeling, somehow, there was going to be happenings; and we
all just sort of idled round waiting for 'em--taking more drinks 'n
usual, and in spite of the drinks getting every minute lower and lower
in our minds. Except the day Hart's aunt spent with him, and Santa Fé
Charley run the kindergarten, I reckon it was the quietest day we ever
went through--at least till we got along to the clean-up that turned
Palomitas into what some of us felt was a blame sight too much of a
Sunday-school town.
One reason why we all was so serious was because the Sage-Brush
Hen--who started most of what happened--didn't show up as usual; and
all hands got a real jolt when some of the boys went off to the Forest
Queen to ask about her, and old Tenderfoot Sal told 'em she was laying
down in her room and wasn't feeling well. The Hen being always an
out-and-out hustler, and hard as an Indian pony, her not being well
shook us up bad. Everybody was friends with her, same as she was
friends with everybody--even when she got into one of her tantrums,
and took to jawing you, you couldn't help liking her--and knowing she
wasn't feeling like she ought to feel put a big lot more of a damper
on all hands. So we just kept on taking drinks and getting miserabler
with 'em--and feeling all the time surer something was coming bouncing
out at us from round the corner, and wondering what kind of a stir-up
we was likely to have.
It was along about four o'clock in the afternoon the cyclone struck
us; and it was such a small-sized one, when we did get it, we didn't
know whether to laugh or swear. But the cyclone himself didn't think
there was anything small about him: being Hart's nephew--so scared to
death all the few wits he ever had was knocked clean out of him--who
come into Palomitas, white as white-wash, riding bareback one of the
coach mules.
He just sort of rolled off the mule, in front of the Forest Queen, and
went in to the bar and got four drinks in him before he could speak a
word--and then he said he'd been held up at the Barranca Grande by
about two hundred road-agents who'd opened up on him and killed all
the mules except the one he'd got away on; and his getting away at
all, he said, was only because he'd put up such a fight he'd scared
'em--and after that because they couldn't hit him when once he was
off, and had the mule going on a dead run. Then he took two more
drinks, and told his story all over again; and as it was about the
same story both times--and he so scared, and by the time he told it
over again so set up with his drinks, it didn't seem likely he'd sense
enough left to be lying--the boys allowed like enough it was true.
What he had to tell--except he piled on more road-agents than was
needed--was about reasonable. He said he'd done well enough as far as
Pojuaque--where he'd had his dinner and changed mules, same as usual,
at old man Bouquet's. And after he'd left Pojuaque he'd got along all
right, he said, except he had to go slow through the sandhills, till
he come to the Barranca Grande.
It's a bad place, that barranca is. The road goes sharp down into it,
and then sharp up out of it--and both banks so steep you want all the
brakes you've got to get to the bottom of it, and more mules than
you're likely to have to get to the top on the other side.
Well, Hart's nephew said he'd just got the coach down to the bottom of
the barranca--he'd took the last of the slope at a run, he said, and
was licking away at his mules for all he was worth to start 'em up
the far side--when the road-agents opened on him, being hid in among
the cedar-bushes, from the top of the bank and from both sides of the
trail. You never seen such a blaze of shooting in all your life,
Hart's nephew said; and he said before he'd a chance to get a gun up
all his mules was hit but one. He said he jumped quick from the box,
taking both Winchesters and the shot-gun with him, and having his guns
and the derringers in his belt beside, and got behind the one mule
that hadn't been downed and opened up on the bushes where the smoke
was and let go as hard as he knowed how. He said he must a-killed
more'n twenty of 'em, he guessed, judging by the yelling and groaning,
and by the way they slacked up on their fire. Their slacking that way
give him a chance, he said, and he took it--cutting the mule loose
from the harness with one hand, while he kept on blazing away over her
back with the other; then letting 'em have it from both hands for a
minute, from what guns he had left that wasn't empty, to sort of
paralyze 'em; and then getting quick on the mule's back and starting
her down the barranca on a dead run.
He had balls buzzing all about him, he said, till he got out of sight
around a turn in the barranca; and he said before he made that turn he
looked back once and saw a big feller up on top of the bank letting
off at him as hard as he could go. Just to show he still had fight in
him, he said, he let off back at him with his two derringers--which
was all he had left to shoot with--and he was pretty sure, though of
course it was only luck did it with the mule bouncing him so, the big
feller went down. He was a tremendous tall man, he said; and he
guessed he was a Greaser, seeing he had a big black beard and was
dressed in Greaser clothes.
He said he didn't mind owning up he was scared bad while he was in it;
but he said he guessed anybody would a-been scared with all them
fellers shooting away at him--and, as he'd made as good a fight of it
as he knowed how, he didn't think he was to be blamed for ending by
running from such a crowd. He kept on down the barranca for about two
miles, he said, till he struck the cross-trail to Tesuque; and he
headed north on that till he got to Pojuaque--where he give the mule a
rest, she was blowed all to bits, the mule was, he said; and he got
some of old man Bouquet's wine in him, feeling pretty well blowed to
bits himself; and then he come along home.
Well, that seemed a straight enough story. The only thing in it you
really could pick on--except the number of road-agents, he only having
seen one, and the rest being his scared guesswork--was the mule not
being hit while he was doing all that firing over the back of her. But
all fights has their queer chances in 'em; and that was a chance that
might a-happened, same as others. Of course, the one big general thing
that didn't seem likely was that such a runt as Hart's nephew should
have stood up the way he said he did to as much as one road-agent--let
alone to the half-dozen or so that like enough had got at him. But
even a thing like Hart's nephew sometimes will put up a fight when
it's scared so bad it really don't more'n half know what it's
doing--and the boys allowed he might have done his fighting that way.
That the size of his scare had been big enough to make him do a'most
anything showed up from the way he kept on being scared after it was
all over--he coming into Palomitas looking like a wet white rag when,
by his own showing, he'd been out of reach of anybody's hurting him
for four or five hours anyway, and had had a chance to cool off at
Pojuaque while he was loading in old man Bouquet's wine. And so,
taking the story by and large, the boys allowed that likely most of it
was true; and some of 'em even went so far as to say maybe Hart's
nephew wasn't more'n half rotten, after all.
It was a good story to hear, anyway; and everybody was sorry the Hen
wasn't around to hear it. But when some of the boys tried to rout her
out, Tenderfoot Sal stood 'em off savage--telling 'em to go about
their business, and the Hen's head was aching bad. So the boys had to
take it out in making Hart's nephew keep on telling all he had to
tell over and over; and he was glad of the chance to, and did--till he
got so many drinks in him he couldn't tell anything; and then his
uncle, with Shorty Smith helping, took him off home.
* * * * *
Next morning, having pretty much slept himself sober, Hart's nephew
went cavorting around Palomitas--that little runt did--like he was
about ten foot tall! He had the whole thing over, in the course of the
day, a dozen times or more; and as he kept on telling it--now he was
sober enough to add things on--it got to be about the biggest fight
with road-agents that ever was. The thing that was biggest was the one
man he allowed he'd really seen. Why, Goliath of Gath wasn't in it
with that fellow, according to Hart's nephew! And he was that
desperate and dangerous to look at, he said, not many men would a-had
the nerve to try at him with only a derringer--and, what was more, to
bring him down. It was well along in the afternoon before we got it
for a fact that Hart's nephew really had killed the Greaser. The
thing growed that way--from his first telling how he thought he'd hit
him--until it ended with the Greaser giving a yell like a stuck pig;
and then staggering and throwing his arms up; and then rolling over
and over down the side of the barranca to the bottom of it--with his
goose cooked all the way through!
We was all down at the deepo waiting for the Denver train to pull out,
same as usual, while Hart's nephew was doing his tallest talking--and
while he was hard at it somebody jumped up and sung out the Santa Fé
coach was coming along on the other side of the river from Santa Cruz.
Well, that was about the last thing anybody was expecting--and
everybody hustled up off the barrels and boxes where they was
a-setting and looked with all their eyes.
Sure enough, there the old coach was--just as it always was, about
that time of day--coming along as natural as you please. After a
while, it keeping on getting nearer, we could see it was old Hill
himself up on the box driving his mules in good shape; and when he
got along near the bridge we could hear him swearing at 'em--Hill did
use terrible bad language to them mules--in just his ordinary way.
Then he rattled the mules over the bridge and brought 'em a-clipping
up the slope this side of it; and then in another minute he pulled
right up at the deepo platform where we all was. Hill was laughing all
over as he come up to us, and so was a Mexican who was setting on the
box with him--a nice tidy little chap, with a powerful big black beard
on him--and Hill sung out: "Have you boys heard about the hold-up?"
And then he and the little Mexican got to laughing so it was a wonder
they didn't fall off.
Nobody was thinking nothing about Hart's nephew--till he let off a
yell and sung out: "That's the man held the coach up! Get a bead on
him with your guns!" And he got his own gun out--and like enough would
a-done some fool thing with it if Santa Fé Charley, who was right by
him, hadn't smacked him and jerked it out of his hand.
Santa Fé smacked so's to hurt him; and he put his hand up to his face
and said, kind of whimpery: "What are you hitting me like that for,
Charley? I ain't done nothing. I tell you that man on the box with
Hill is the one I was held up by yesterday. He's dangerous. If we
don't get a-hold of him quick he'll be doing something to us with his
gun!" And Hart's nephew a'most broke out crying--being all worked up,
and Santa Fé having smacked him blame hard.
At that, Denver Jones cut in with: "I thought you said the one you was
held up by was more'n fourteen foot high, and you killed him? This man
ain't big enough to hold up a baby-carriage with you in it--and he's
sure enough alive. What are you giving us--you blame fool?"
There's no telling what kind of an answer Denver would a-got from
Hart's nephew--for he hadn't a chance to give him no answer at all.
Just then Hill did the talking, and what Hill said was: "Boys, he's
dead right about it. This here's the bad man that held the coach
up--and as I was there, and seen it done, and drove the coach on with
five mules to Santa Fé afterwards, I guess I know!" And Hill, and the
little Mexican with him, just roared.
When Hill could talk for laughing, he went on: "I'll own up right now,
boys, I was extry over-precautious when I fixed up with empty shells
that gun-shop Hart's nephew took along on the coach when he started
out with it. For all the harm he done with them guns, I might just as
well a-left 'em loaded the usual way. He was that scared when this
here gigantic ruffian stopped him--I just happened to be a-setting in
among the cedar-bushes at the time, smoking a seegar and looking on
sort of casual--he couldn't do nothing more'n yell out he wasn't going
to shoot, and not to murder him; and then down he jumped from the
box--me a-smoking away looking at him, and this here ruffian
a-shooting his Winchester across the top of the coach to where he said
he thought he seen a jack-rabbit--and cut out the near wheeler; and
then he scrambled up anyhow on that mule's back, and away he went
down the barranca as hard as hell!" (Hill oughtn't to have said that
word. But he was careless in his talk, Hill was, and he did).