"It"s two to one you don"t have to," said Mormon. "If you"re a sport you"ll do as Molly asks an" draw cards fo" the privilege. It"s a sure-fire cinch she"ll never give you one of them salutes she hints at when she comes home ef she knows you backed out. Wait till I git the cards."
It was plain to Sandy that Sam and Mormon, despite Sam"s protest, took Molly"s pleasantry in earnest and he made no comment as Mormon deftly shuffled the deck and riffled it out over the table. He picked a jack, Mormon a three of clubs and Sam an eight of hearts. Sam whooped at sight of Mormon"s card.
"Hold on, Molly said "High man out." That"s Sandy. You an" me got to draw again. Ain"t that so, Sandy?"
"Sure is," said Sandy gravely. "You hollered too soon, Sam. Prob"ly crabbed yore luck."
Both chose their cards and drew them to the edge of the table, face down, taking a peep at the index corners.
"Bet you ten dollars I got you beat," said Mormon cheerfully.
Sam turned up his card disgustedly. It was the deuce of spades.
"Oh, h.e.l.l!" he exclaimed. "Now I got to kiss a dawg!"
At his voice and face Mormon and Sandy bent double with laughter that brought water to their eyes and nearly sent Mormon into convulsions. Sam surveyed them with gloomy contempt.
"Laf, you couple of ring-tailed snakes in the sage!" he said bitterly.
"I"m stuck an" I"m game, but if either of you ever whisper a word of it to a livin" soul, outside of Molly, I"ll plumb scalp, skin an" silence both of you. _Kiss a dawg!_ h.e.l.l"s delight!"
They started to follow him, still weak with laughter, but he threatened them with his gun and they fell back in mock alarm while Sam went round back of the corral and they heard him whistling for Grit. When he reappeared, straddling along on his bowed legs, his good humor had returned.
"How"s he like it?" asked Mormon.
Sam grinned at him.
"You bald-headed ol" badger, you, he acted plumb like yore wives must have, when I salutes him on the snoot. Licks my nose first an" then curls up his tongue an" licks off his own. Wipes out all trace of the oskylation p.r.o.nto an" thorough. Most unappreciative animile I ever see."
"I"ll tell you straight out that none of my wives ever acted thataway,"
started Mormon, and the laugh swung at his expense.
"I didn"t mind the operation so much," Sam confided to them, "when I figger out that I was just handin" it on fo" Molly, an" that she owes me one, whether she decides to salute you two galoots or not."
Molly"s letters were prime events at the Three Star. She wrote every week telling of life at the Keiths". Miranda made up the quartet to read them. Molly wrote:
It is full of excitement, this life at the Keiths", and they are just lovely to me. There is a lot of company always at the house and every one seems to be enjoying himself, but somehow it strikes me as not quite real. I want to be back where n.o.body pretends.
I go automobiling a good deal, with Mrs. Keith and once in a while with Donald, but I"d give anything, sometimes, for a good gallop through the redtop and sage and rabbit-brush on my pony. I can go riding here, but it is in the Park and you should see the saddle! Imagine a real saddle with the cantle taken away, the horn gone, the pommel trimmed down to almost nothing, no skirts to it, just pared to the core. And the poor horse bob-tailed and roach-maned, taught to go along with its knees high, like a trained horse in a circus.
High-school gaited, they call it.
There was more talk of dinners and dances, of receptions and theaters, with mention of Donald Keith here and there, chat of new clothes, kind words for the elder Keiths. "Don"t think I"ve changed," she said. "I"m the same Molly underneath even if I have been revamped and decorated."
The famous _White Gold_ prospectuses and advertis.e.m.e.nts duly followed the news stories. Three Star saw no copies of the last, nor, it seemed, did Molly. Neither did prospectuses or advertis.e.m.e.nts come their way, for that matter. Casey Town boomed with some bona-fide strikes that sent Keith"s stocks soaring high. The porphyry d.y.k.e at the Molly Mine began to yield rich results almost from the first and dividends were paid in such quant.i.ties as to stagger the Three Star outfit who saw themselves in a fair way to become rich. All over the barren hills, where the first futile shafts had been driven and abandoned, buildings sprang up like mushrooms, housing machinery, sending up plumes of white smoke that tokened the underground energies. The Keith properties were being developed with much show of outlay, prices jumping at every report from the Molly Mine or other successful developments. None of the investors in these Keith undertakings knew that he owned forty-nine per cent of the shares of the Molly and of none other, save for the s.p.a.ce between issuing them and selling them.
The three partners held consultation as to their disposal of the checks that were sent them.
"Molly, she"s gettin" the same amount we"re splittin" both ways," said Sam, "but somehow it don"t seem right to me the way we come in. It was her dad"s mine. He found it. All we did was to find her--an" Grit done that. The dawg ought to have a gold collar an" we might accept a gold plated collar-b.u.t.ton, apiece, that"s the way it sizes up to me."
"The gal w"udn"t promise to go to school "less we shared even-Steven,"
said Mormon.
"She didn"t know how much money she c"ud use then," demurred Sam. "Now she"s bein" shown how to spend it. It ain"t that she"d kick, but some might think we"d taken advantage of her. Darn me if I don"t feel thataway myse"f."
"I see it this way," said Sandy. "I"ve done a heap of thinkin" over the matter. I don"t believe that Molly has changed--still she might be influenced by folks who w"ud look at it that she made the deal when she was a minor an" we c"udn"t enfo"ce it. Bein" her guardeen, I"m responsible fo" what she makes an" what she loses. Jim Redding fixed up things in that line He an" Ba"bara Redding understand it all but others mightn"t. I"m plumb sure that if we-all didn"t take the money Molly "ud pull out her picket-pin an" say we wasn"t playin" fair an" square with her. It was a deal an", at the time, I had no mo" idee the mines w"ud pan out than I have that Sam"s laigs"ll grow straight. I figger we can do this. We can use the money, keepin" account of it, puttin" it into stock an" improvements that"ll pay fo" themselves long befo" Molly comes of age an" my guardeen papers play out. That way we"ll have the benefit of the capital an" keep it ready to turn over to her if she ever needs it. I don"t believe she"ll ever take one red cent of it. It was a gamble with her an" she"s a thoroughbred sport. To my mind, she"d sooner be slapped in the face by us than have us try an" wiggle out of the deal.
But, in case anything ever turns up, or she gits married, we"ll have it handy."
"Figger she"s goin" to marry that young Keith? She writes a heap of Donald"s this an" Donald doin" that. I"d like to take a slant at him. I sure hate to think of Molly hitchin" up with a tenderfoot."
"What put that in yore head?" Sam asked Mormon.
"Mirandy was wonderin" whether Ma Keith "ud like to keep Molly"s money in the family. Mirandy"s allus "spicioned a motive to that invite."
"Shucks! She asked her befo" the mine made a showin". An" every dollar Molly makes, Keith makes five or six, out of the sale of them shares.
But I subscribe to Sandy"s scheme on these here dividends of ours."
""Count me in," said Mormon. And so the affair was settled.
Of Plimsoll little was heard. The gambler had deserted that now unpopular profession, since suffrage ruled, and stayed close to his horse ranch. It lay alone, and few visited it save Plimsoll"s own a.s.sociates. Rumors drifted concerning Plimsoll"s remarkable herd increase of saleable horses but, unless proof of actual operation was forthcoming, there was small chance of pinning anything down in the way of illegal work. There was always the excuse of having rounded up a bunch of broom-tail wild horses to account for growing numbers, and, if he stole or not, Plimsoll left the horses of his own county alone. No neighbor was injured and though stories of wild happenings at the horse ranch were current it was considered n.o.body"s business. Wyatt once, staggering out of some blind pig in Hereford, still existent despite the suffrage sweeping, babbled in maudlin drunkenness of his determination to get even with Plimsoll for stealing his sweetheart. For Wyatt, for the sake of the girl, had gone back to Plimsoll"s employ. The new sheriff took Wyatt"s guns away and locked him up overnight in the "cooler," letting him go in the morning, soberer and more silent.
"But," said the sheriff to his cronies, "some day there"ll be one grand shoot-up an" carry-out at Plimsoll"s. Wyatt"s sore clean through."
"He ain"t got the sand in his craw to make a killing," said one of the listeners. "Sandy Bourke backed him off the map to Casey Town."
"Just the same, he"s got something in his craw," replied the sheriff.
"He may not shoot Plimsoll, but he"s primed to pull something off first chance he gets. I spoke to him about what he"s been firing off from his mouth the night before an" he shuts up like a clam. "I was foolish drunk," he says, but there was a look in his eyes that was nasty. If Plim"s wise he"ll get rid of Wyatt. He knows too much an" he"s liable to tip it off."
"Wyatt an" Plim"s both of "em side-swipers," returned the other. "They"d throw dirt but not lead. Plumb yeller as a Gila monster"s belly.
Plimsoll told it all over the county he"d tally score with Sandy Bourke.
Has he? He ain"t even bought him a stick of chalk."
"He ain"t had the chance he"s lookin" for. That"s all that"s holding Plimsoll. Same way with Wyatt. Two buzzards of a feather, they are."
Thoughts of Plimsoll and his revenges did not bother Sandy"s head. The "old man" of the Three Star--bearing the cowman"s inevitable t.i.tle for the head of the management, whether young or old, male or female--carried out his long cherished plans for additional water-supply, for alfalfa planting, for registered bulls and high-grade cows. Now that there was money in sight the success of the ranch was a.s.sured. He studied hard, he got in touch with the state experimental developments, he subscribed for magazines that told of cattle breeding, he sent soils for a.n.a.lysis and young Ed, coming home from his first term, found, somewhat to his chagrin, that Sandy was far ahead of him in both the theory and practise of ranching.
The days multiplied into weeks and the weeks into months. Sandy received one letter from Brandon that seemed to presage another visit across the line. It was terse, characteristic of the man.
MY DEAR BOURKE:
We are still losing three-and four-year-olds, and the evidence points plainly to their drifting over toward Plimsoll. We have traced up some of the links leading from this end. To be quite frank, the authorities of your own county do not seem over-disposed to bother in the matter, and we are taking things in our own hands. We have set a trap for Jim Plimsoll and have hopes he will walk into it if he is the guilty party.
If it springs and catches him you"ll probably see us over your way again--after we have concluded our business with J.
P. There are some of us old-timers--and I believe you are of our way of thinking or I would not write asking you to do this favor for me--who look at horse-stealing just as it used to be looked at--and dealt with. To be plain, we have been losing a lot of valuable animals and we are all considerably "riled."
The favor I want of you is to tip me off if Plimsoll appears about to leave the country. We have had a tip that he expects to do so before long. If you get wind of this a wire would be much appreciated by me.
Sincerely yours, W. J. BRANDON.