Oddly enough, he saw fit to believe her. Perhaps it was because he had
just eaten and was at bodily ease with the world. She stood before
him, arms limp, eyes on the floor. He drew the cork from the bottle
and took a long pull.
"Good whisky," he vouchsafed between the third and fourth drags. "I'll
take what's left with me--if you don't mind."
He was going then! Her poor terrified heart beat with a trifle more
spirit. She looked up. Their eyes met.
"Don't look so happy!" he snarled. "Maybe I'll take you with me!"
He eyed her discomfiture with a sinister look. He uttered a short bark
of a laugh. "Dontcha fret. I ain't got time to fuss with any female.
Not that I would, even if I had time, so don't go flatterin' yourself
any. Women ain't in my line. You're all a squalling bunch of Gawd's
mistakes, every last one of you, and you can stick a pin in that.
Women? Phutt!"
So saying, Dan Slike turned his head slightly and spat accurately
through the open draft into the stove. An engaging gentleman, Mr.
Slike!
"I saw two mules and a horse in the corral when I came by," he resumed,
dandling the whisky bottle on his knee. "Looks like a good
horse--better than the one I left up in the timber. I'll ride your
horse and lead the other. Where do you keep your saddle and bridle?
In the shed, huh? Aw right, you can show me when we go out. Listen, I
expect to-morrow some time you'll have a few gents a-callin' on you.
Yeah, to-morrow. It'll likely take those Golden Bar citizens till
about then to pick up my trail. You needn't to look too hopeful.
Those jiggers don't know they're alive. I saw 'em scatterin' off
hell-bent the wrong way before I ever started this way, you bet. Why,
hells bells, I even topped a horse behind a corral with the woman right
in the house gettin' supper, and she never knowed it. Tell you, girl,
I'm slick. And if I didn't have more sense in the tip of my finger
than all those fellers and their li'l tin sheriff and his li'l tin
deputies, I'd be a heap ashamed of myself. Say--about that sheriff; I
heard folks talkin' in the street this afternoon and they said the
sheriff had skedaddled because he'd murdered a sport named O'Gorman. A
fi-ine sheriff he is, to slop around turnin' tricks like that. A
fi-ine sheriff, and you can tell him I said so."
He drove in the cork with the heel of his hand and slipped the bottle
into a side pocket of his coat. Standing up, he tapped her smartly on
the shoulder. "Get me that hat over there on the hook. I left town in
such a hurry I clean forgot to fetch mine along."
Silently she brought the hat.
"Why do you women always wear hats too big for you?" he grumbled, after
trying it on. "I couldn't keep this thing on my head."
She had brought an Omaha newspaper from town that day. It lay
outspread on the table. He tore off a half page, plaited it neatly and
stuffed the thickened strip in behind the sweatband of the hat.
"It will fit me now," he said briskly, pulling on the hat. "Gimme
those cantenas and saddle pockets hanging on the wall."
She obeyed stumblingly. Into the cantenas, from her store of
provisions, he packed bacon, coffee, a sack of flour a third full, a
tin can full of salt, another can filled with matches, a salt pack full
of sugar, several cans of tomatoes and peaches, a frying-pan and a
small can of lard. In the saddle pockets he stowed away the twelve
boxes of rifle cartridges, the six boxes of revolver cartridges and a
knife, fork and spoon. The long-bladed butcher knife he nonchalantly
slipped down his boot-leg.
"I'll tie the coffee pot on the saddle," he said, buckling the billet
of a cantena flap. "It's too wet to go in here. Can't take a chance
on spoiling my flour. C'mon, le's go find the saddle."