"Let"s ride over to Camas; all the other fellows have gone," Pink proposed listlessly, drawing in his line.
Rowdy as listlessly consented. Camas as a town was neither interesting nor important; but when one has spent three long weeks communing with nature in her sulkiest and most unamiable mood, even a town without a railroad to its name may serve to relieve the monotony of living.
The sun was piling gorgeous ma.s.ses of purple and crimson clouds high about him, cuddling his fat cheeks against their soft folds till, a Midas, he turned them to gold at the touch. Those farther away gloomed jealously at the favoritism of their lord, and huddled closer together--the purple for rage, perhaps; and the crimson for shame!
Pink"s face was tinged daintily with the glow, and even Rowdy"s lean, brown features were for the moment glorified. They rode knee to knee silently, thinking each his own thoughts the while they watched the sunset with eyes grown familiar with its barbaric splendor, but never indifferent.
Soon the west held none but the deeper tints, and the shadows climbed, with the stealthy tread of trailing Indians, from the valley, chasing the after-glow to the very hilltops, where it stood a moment at bay and then surrendered meekly to the dusk. A meadow-lark near-by cut the silence into haunting ripples of melody, stopped affrighted at their coming, and flew off into the dull glow of the west; his little body showed black against a crimson cloud. Out across the river a lone coyote yapped sharply, then trailed off into the weird plaint of his kind.
"Brother-in-law"s in town to-day; Bob Nevin saw him," Pink remarked, when the coyote ceased wailing and held his peace.
"Who?" Rowdy only half-heard.
"Bob Nevin," repeated Pink naively.
"Don"t get funny. Who did Bob see?"
"Brother-in-law. Yours, not mine. Jessie"s tin G.o.d. If he"s there yet, I bid for an invite to the "swatfest." Or maybe"--a horrible possibility forced itself upon Pink--"maybe you"ll kill the fattest maverick and fall on his neck--"
"The maverick"s?" Rowdy"s brows were rather pinched together, but his tone told nothing.
"Naw; Harry Conroy"s a fellow"s liable to do most any fool thing when he"s got schoolma"amitis."
"That so?"
Pink snorted. The possibility had grown to black certainty in his mind.
He became suddenly furious.
"Lord! I hope some kind friend"ll lead me out an" knock me in the head, if ever I get locoed over any darned girl!"
"Same here," agreed Rowdy, unmoved.
"Then your days are sure numbered in words uh one syllable, old-timer,"
snapped Pink.
Rowdy leaned and patted him caressingly upon the shoulder--a form of irony which Pink detested. "Don"t get excited, sonny," he soothed. "Did you fetch your gun?"
"I sure did!" Pink drew a long breath of relief. "Yuh needn"t think I"m going t" take chances on being no human colander. I"ve packed a gun for Harry Conroy ever since that rough-riding contest uh yourn. Yuh mind the way I took him under the ear with a rock? He"s been makin" war-talk behind m" back ever since. Did I bring m" gun! Well, I guess yes!" He dimpled distractingly.
"All the same, it"ll suit me not to run up against him," said Rowdy quite frankly. He knew Pink would understand. Then he lifted his coat suggestively, to show the weapon concealed beneath, and smiled.
"Different here. Yuh did have sense enough t" be ready--and if yuh see him, and don"t forget he"s got a sister with a number two foot, d.a.m.ned if I don"t fix yuh both a-plenty!" He settled his hat more firmly over his curls, and eyed Rowdy anxiously from under his lashes.
Rowdy caught the action and the look from the tail of his eye, and grinned at his horse"s ears. Pink in warlike mood always made him think of a four-year-old child playing pirate with the difference that Pink was always in deadly earnest and would fight like a fiend.
For more reasons than one he hoped they would not meet Harry Conroy.
Jessie was still in ignorance of his real att.i.tude toward her brother, and Rowdy wanted nothing more than to keep her so. The trouble was that he was quite certain to forget everything but his grievances, if ever he came face to face with Harry. Also, Pink would always fight quicker for his friends than for himself, and he felt very tender toward Pink. So he hoped fervently that Harry Conroy had already ridden back whence he came, and there would be no unpleasantness.
Four or five Cross L horses stood meekly before the Come Again Saloon, so Rowdy and Pink added theirs to the gathering and went in. The Silent One looked up from his place at a round table in a far corner, and beckoned.
"We need another hand here," he said, when they went over to him. "These gentlemen are worried because they might be taken into high society some day, and they would be placed in a very embarra.s.sing position through their ignorance of bridge-whist. I have very magnanimously consented to teach them the rudiments."
Bob Nevin looked up, and then lowered an eyelid cautiously. "He"s a liar. He offered to learn us how to play it; we bet him the drinks he didn"t savvy the game himself. Set down, Pink, and I"ll have you for my pretty pardner."
The Silent One shuffled the cards thoughtfully. "To make it seem like bona-fide bridge," he began, "we should have everybody playing."
"Aw, the common, ordinary brand is good enough," protested Bob. "I ain"t in on any tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs."
The Silent One smiled ever so slightly. "We should have prizes--or favors. Is there a store in town where one could buy something suitable?"
"They got codfish up here; I smelt it," suggested Jim Ellis. Him the Silent One ignored.
"What do you say, boys, to a real, high society whist-party? I"ll invite the crowd, and be the hostess. And I"ll serve punch--"
"Come on, fellows, and have one with me," called a strange voice near the door.
"Meeting"s adjourned," cried Jim Ellis, and got up to accept the invitation and range along the bar with the rest. He had not been particularly interested in bridge-whist anyway.
The others remained seated, and the bartender called across to know what they would have. Pink cut the cards very carefully, and did not look up.
Rowdy thrust both hands in his pockets and turned his square shoulder to the bar. He did not need to look--he knew that voice, with its shoddy heartiness.
Men began to observe his att.i.tude, and looked at one another. When one is asked to drink with another, he must comply or decline graciously, if he would not give a direct insult.
Harry Conroy took three long steps and laid a hand on Rowdy"s shoulder--a hand which Rowdy shook off as though it burned. "Say, stranger, are you too high-toned t" drink with a common cowpuncher?" he demanded sharply.
Rowdy half-turned toward him. "No, sir. But I"ll be mighty thirsty before I drink with you." His voice was even, but it cut.
The room stilled on the instant; it was as if every man of them had turned to lay figures. Harry Conroy had winced at sight of Rowdy"s face--men saw that, and some of them wondered. Pink leaned back in his chair, every nerve tightened for the next move, and waited. It was Harry--handsome, sneering, a certain swaggering defiance in his pose--who first spoke.
"Oh, it"s you, is it? I haven"t saw yuh for some time. How"s bronco-fighting? Gone up against any more contests?" He laughed mockingly--with mouth and eyes maddeningly like Jessie"s in teasing mood.
Rowdy could have killed him for the resemblance alone. His lids drooped sleepily over eyes that glittered. Harry saw the sign, read it for danger; but he laughed again.
"Yuh ought to have seen this bronco-peeler pull leather, boys," he jeered recklessly "I like to "a" died. He got piled up the slickest I ever saw; and there was some feeble-minded Canucks had money up on him, too: He won"t drink with me, "cause I got off with the purse. He"s got a grouch--and I don"t know as I blame him; he did get let down pretty hard, for a fact."
"Maybe he did pull leather--but he didn"t cut none, like you did, you d.a.m.n" skunk!" It was Pink--Pink, with big, long-lashed eyes purple with rage, and with a dead-white streak around his mouth, and a gun in his hand.
Harry wheeled toward him, and if a new light of fear crept into his eyes, his lips belied it in a sneer. "Two of a kind!" he laughed. "So that"s the story yuh brought over here, is it? h.e.l.l of a lot uh good it"ll do yuh!"
Something in Pink"s face warned Rowdy. Harry"s face turned watchfully from one to the other. Evidently he considered Pink the more uncertain of the two; and he was quite justified in so thinking. Pink was only waiting for a cue before using his gun; and when Pink once began, there was no telling where or when he would leave off.
While Harry stood uncertain, Rowdy"s fist suddenly spatted against his cheek with considerable force. He tumbled, a cursing heap, against the foot-rail of the bar, scrambled up like a cat--a particularly vicious cat--and came at Rowdy murderously. The Come Again would shortly have been filled with the pungent haze of burned powder, only that the bartender was a man-of-action. He hated brawls, and it did not matter to him how just might be the quarrel; he slapped the gaping barrels of a sawed-off shotgun across the bar--and from the look of it one might imagine many disagreeable things.
"Drop it! Cut it out!" he bellowed. "Yuh ain"t going t" make no slaughter-pen out uh this joint, I tell yuh. Put up them guns or else take "em outside. If you fellers are h.e.l.l-bent on smokin" each other up, they"s all kinds uh room outdoors. Git! Vamose! Hike!"
Conroy wheeled and walked, straight-backed and venomous, to the door.
"Come on out, if yuh ain"t scared," he sneered. "It"s two agin" one and then some, by the look uh things. But I"ll take yuh singly or in bunches. I"m ready for the whole d.a.m.n" Cross L bunch uh coyotes. Come on, you white-livered--!"
Rowdy rushed for him, with Pink and the Silent One at his heels. He had forgotten that Harry Conroy ever had a sister of any sort whatsoever.