THE GOPHER BITES.
Vera Bright found that Buffalo Bill was right in his conjecture that
she would have no difficulty in securing her former position and that
the manager would consider her recent notoriety an added attraction.
So she appeared in the show that evening in her former part.
When the performance was ended and she went back to the wine rooms,
she was told that Gopher Gabe wished to see her.
One of the waiters brought the invitation.
“He’s in that little den he uses, back of the saloon,” she was
informed. “You’d better see him.”
Vera Bright shivered, in spite of herself; she recalled the fact that
some one, possibly White-eyed Moses, had eavesdropped at the door of
Buffalo Bill’s room at the Eagle House.
“He isn’t in a temper?” she said anxiously.
“I don’t think so; he seemed in good enough humor. But the way he
said it when he told me to tell you made me know that he meant it. So
I’d advise you to go.”
For a moment Vera Bright thought of bolting out of the place and
giving up the task she had assumed. Then her native courage came to
reassure her.
“He may talk rough,” she thought; “but so long as the waiter knows
that he sent for me he won’t do anything more than that. And if I’m
to stay here and play spy I must expect to meet him.”
So she girded up her courage and went to the room which Gopher Gabe
used at times, where he would sit giving his orders.
His round, fat, flushed face showed only the utmost kindness as she
came into the room after pausing timidly on the threshold. The hour
was late--the performance had lasted a long time. She wondered if she
was not doing a foolish thing.
“So you came!” he said. “I thought you would.”
He got up, gave her a chair, then closed the door; but she observed
that he did not lock it.
“Good show to-night, they tell me,” he observed as he came back, “and
a good audience. I suppose the manager raised your pay. He ought to.”
She felt afraid of him; he was so large and strong, such a very giant
of a man--his jaws were heavy, his neck thick, his shoulders big
and broad. He was a huge, coarse leviathan, and she felt that if he
wished he could crush her between his fat, thick fingers. Again the
feeling came on her strongly that in mixing in this matter she was
putting her life in danger.
There was a slight trembling of her voice when she asked him why he
had sent for her.
“Well,” he said, leaning back in his big chair and looking steadily
at her, “I understand that you have gone over to my enemies; I wanted
to ask you if it was true.”
“Not in the sense you perhaps think,” she assured him, knowing now
that White-eyed Moses had heard and told, and that she could not
deceive the man before her as to what had passed at the Eagle House.
“In what sense, then?” he asked.
“I have nothing against _you_,” she told him.
“Against some of my friends, eh?”
“Not unless you call Juniper Joe and Tim Benson your friends,”
she declared. “I don’t need to explain about that matter, as you
understand it.”
“You’ve got it in fer them because you think they killed Ward, and
you was sweet on Ward! That’s it, eh?”
She clinched her hands tightly together in her lap.
“Something like that,” she admitted.
“Well, what is it you’re goin’ to do?” he asked.
“If I can find out where they are I’m going to notify the sheriff.”
“And Buffalo Bill?”
“Yes, I shall tell him, too.”
“Well, now, do you think all that gives you any cause to ask them to
watch my establishment?”
He saw her tremble.
“I--I----”
He stopped her with a wave of his fat hand, leaning toward her.
“Before you answer that, which will be with a lie, I reckon, tell me
what you know about this feller on top o’ Folly Mountain?”
“I don’t know anything about him.”
“We’d like to know somethin’ about him, more than we do.”
“I’ve heard it hinted that he is a road agent, playing a game there
to fool the people.”
“I’ve heard the same, and I’d like to know the truth. Now, I get
right down to why I sent fer you. By offerin’ to go in with Buffalo
Bill and Matt Shepard, you’ve showed that you’re a good deal of a
fool. I’m speakin’ straight, you see. What can they offer you? And
what have you got in common with them, anyhow? Your kind is the
kind that hangs out at the Casino and round the wine rooms; not the
law-and-order crowd. You know it.”
“Yes, I know that, though I’m ashamed of it.”
“Get over that!” he said roughly. “You’ll receive more kindness from
your own crowd than you ever will from any other. Take it from me
straight, that you will. So, in the end, you ain’t goin’ to gain
anything by goin’ in with that crowd. Cut it out!”
She returned his steady look.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“That sounds more like it. In the first place, I want to say to you
that you can’t stay round here and me not know everything you’re
doin’; just recollect that, and it may be of help to you. I’ve
got friends in plenty; men you wouldn’t think of, too. When that
law-and-order crowd gets through with you, and that will be just as
soon as they ain’t got no further use for you, you’ll get no favors
from them; you ought to know that. With your own crowd you can always
have friends and help when you want it. I know what’s troublin’ you.
You think you want to got even with Benson and Juniper Joe. Now, let
me tell you that you don’t. You’d better forgit that old jealousy
quarrel and let it go.”
But he saw her eyes blaze when he said it.
“You won’t?” he asked.
“Not until both of them are back in jail or hung for it,” she told
him, her voice tense with sudden emotion.
“A fine spirit for a woman to get into!” he declared, with a forced
laugh. “But I think you’ll get over it when you’ve had a little time.
Now, I’m goin’ to make you a proposition. It’s got money in it, too.
I’ll pay you twice what you’re gettin’ at the Casino, if you’ll
scrape an acquaintance with the Fool of Folly Mountain and find out
just what he is up to.”
He studied her face. Long experience had made him apparently able to
see to the heart of this woman, right through the powder and paint.
“You won’t do it?”
She shook her head.
“No!” she declared.
“Why won’t you?”
“Because, right now, I’ve got other work to do. Besides, I don’t care
to.”
“You can’t waste time on that feller on Folly Mountain?”
“No; and I don’t want to.”
“So you’re goin’ to stick to this thing of bringin’ Benson and Joe to
the gallows?”
“That’s just what I’m going to do!” she told him.
“You told Buffalo Bill to git one of my waiters out of the way and
put a spy in here in his place.”
She did not answer.
“That’s so, ain’t it? Out with it!”
“I see I’m a little fool.”
“I think you are, myself.”
“I mean, I’m a fool, or I would have lied to you, and made you think
I would do whatever you told me to do; now, I’ll have to get out of
that Casino company, and out of the wine rooms, and won’t be able to
do any of the things I had planned.”
“Still, you won’t come round to my idea, even when you know that?”
“No! I can’t.”
“You’ve got in you the making of a mighty good woman!” He sneered.
“But let me tell you why you didn’t lie to me. It’s because you
couldn’t. You know you couldn’t fooled me, if you had tried it. So,”
he paused, and drew a deep breath, “I’m givin’ you now the last
chance. Say the word, and you’ll not want for friends, or money,
while you’re in this town. But if you still want to stand in with
that law-and-order crowd--well!”
He drew up his shoulders and threw out his hands.
“If you do,” he ended, “that’s your lookout. I’ll----”
“You’ll do what?” she said, rising, terrified by his answer.
He rose, too.
As it chanced, his chair was nearer the door than hers, so that now,
apparently without having intended it, he blocked her way out.
“I’ll do this!” he said, stepping toward her.
She stared at him, frozen and stupefied with sudden horror, because
of the alteration in his face and manner; it was as if a smiling man
had changed into a snake before her very eyes. And though she tried
to recoil, she did not seem able to do it.
“I’ll do _this_!” he repeated, putting out his hand--a fat, pudgy
hand, that now had a clammy look, as if the fingers were brown eels.
She tried to step backward and cry out.
But the hand shot out, and the next moment it had clutched her
throat. She fell to the door, writhing in that deadly, serpent grip.