The Coming of Cassidy, Clarence E. Mulford [best free novels .txt] 📗

The crowd roared its appreciation and the sleepy individual turned over again, growling sweeping opinions.

“But if them Injuns are comin’ I shore wish they’d hurry up an’ do it,” asserted Dad. “I ought to ‘a’ been home three days ago.”

“Wish to G-d you was!” came from the floor.

Bill tossed away his half -smoked cigarette, Carter promptly plunging into the sugar barrel after it. “They ain’t comin’,” Bill asserted. “Every time some drunk Injun gets in a fight or beats his squaw th’ rumor starts. An’ by th’ time it gets to us it says that all th’ Apaches are out follerin’ old Geronimo on th’ war trail. He can be more places at once than anybody I ever heard of. I’m ridin’ on tomorrow morning, ‘Paches or no Taches.”

“Good!” exclaimed Jimmy, glancing at Carter. “I’ll have this here carving all done by then.”

There was a sudden scrambling and thumping overhead and hot exclamations zephyred down to them. Carter dashed to the door, while the others reached for rifles and began to take up positions.

“See ‘em, Hank?” cried Carter anxiously.

“See what?” came a growl from above.

“Injuns, of course, you d—d fool!”

“Naw,” snorted Hank. “There ain’t no Injuns out at all, not after Jimmy got that one.”

“Then what’s th’ matter?”

“My dawg’s lickin’ yore dawg. Sic him, Pete! Hi, there! Don’t you run!”

“My dawg still gettin’ licked?” grinned Carter.

“I’ll swap you,” offered Hank promptly. “Mine can lick yourn, anyhow.”

“In a race, mebby.”

“H 1!” growled Hank, cautiously separating himself from a patch of hot resin that had exuded generously from a pine knot. “I’m purty nigh cooked an’ I’m comin’ down, Injuns or 710 Injuns. If they was comin’ this way they’d ‘a’ been here long afore this.”

“But that Pawnee told Price they was out,” objected Carter. “Cassidy heard th’ same thing, too. An’ didn’t Jimmy get one!” he finished triumphantly.

“Th’ Pawnee was drunk!” retorted Hank, collecting splinters as he slipped a little down the roof. “Great Mavericks! This here is awful!” He grabbed a protruding nail and checked him self. “Price might ‘a’ shot a ‘Pache, or he might not. I don’t take him serious no more. An’ that feller Cassidy can’t help what scared folks tells him. Sufferin’ toads, what a roof!”

Carter turned and looked back in the store. “Jimmy, you shore they are out? An’ will you quit cuttin’ that counter!”

Jimmy slid off the counter and closed the knife. “That’s what th’ Pawnee said. When I told you fellers about it, you was so plumb anxious to fight, an’ eager to interrupt an’ ask fool questions that I shore hated to spoil it all. What that scout says was that th’ ‘Paches was out raidin’ down Colby way, an’ was headin’ south when last re—”

, “Colby!” yelled Lefty Dawson, as the others stared foolishly. “Colby! Why, that’s three hundred miles south of here! An’ you let us make fools of ourselves for three days! I’ll bust you open!” and he arose to carry out his threat. “Where’d you git them trophies?” shouted Dad angrily. “Them was genuine!” Jimmy slipped through the door as Dawson leaped and he fled at top speed to the corral, mounted in one bound and dashed off a short distance. “Why, I got them trophies in a poker game from that same Pawnee scout, you Mosshead! He couldn’t play th’ game no better ‘n you fellers. An’ th’ blood is snake’s blood, fresh put on. You will drive me out of town, hey?” he jeered, and, wheeling, forthwith rode for his life. Back in the store Bill knocked aside the rifle barrel that Carter shoved through a loop hole. “A joke’s a joke, Carter,” he said sternly. “You don’t aim to hit him, but you might,” and Carter, surprised at the strength of the twist, grinned, muttered something and went to the door without his rifle, which Bill suddenly recognized. It was the weapon that had made up Jimmy’s “trophies”!

“Blame his hide!” spluttered Lefty, not knowing whether to shoot or laugh. A queer noise behind him made him turn, a movement imitated by the rest. They saw Bill rolling over and over on the floor in an agony of mirth. One by one the enraged garrison caught the infection and one by one lay down on the floor and wept. Lefty, propping himself against the sugar barrel, swayed to and fro, senselessly gasping. “They allus are raidin’ down Colby way! Blame my hide, oh, blame my hide! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-haha! They allus are raidin’ down Colby way!”

“Three days, an’ Hank on th’ roof!” gurgled George Bruce. “Three days, by Scott!”

“Hank on th’ roof,” sobbed Carter, “settin’ on splinters an hot rosim! Whee-hee-hee! Three-hee-hee days hatchin’ pine knots an’ rosim!”

“Gimme a drink! Gimme a drink!” whispered Dad, doubled up in a corner. “Gimme a ho-ho-ho!” he roared in a fresh paroxysm of mirth. “Lefty an’ George settin’ up nights watchin’ th’ shadders! Ho-ho-ho!”

“‘An’ Carter boardin’ us freer!’ yelled Baldy Martin. “Oh, my G-d! He’ll never get over it!”

“Yessir!” squeaked Dad. “Free; an’ scared we’d let ‘em burn his store. ‘Better stand ‘em off in my place,’ he says. ‘It’s full of grub,’ he says. He-he-he!”

“An’ did you see Hank squattin’ on th’ roof like a horned toad waitin’ for his dinner?” shouted Dickinson. “I’m goin’ to die! I’m goin’ to die!” he sobbed.

“No sich luck!” snorted Hank belligerently. “I’ll skin him alive! Yessir; alive!”

Carter paused in his calculations of his loss in food and tobacco. “Better let him alone, Hank,” he warned earnestly. “Anyhow, we pestered him nigh to death las’ time, an’ he’s shore come back at us. Better let him alone!”

Up the street Jimmy stood beside his horse and thumped and scratched the yellow dog until its rolling eyes bespoke a bliss unutterable and its tail could not wag because of sheer ecstasy.

“Purp,” he said gravely, “never play jokes on a pore unfortunate an’ git careless. Don’t never forget it. Last time I was here they abused me shameful. Now that th’ storm has busted an’ this is gettin’ calm-like, you an’ me’ll go back an’ get a good look at th’ asylum,” he suggested, vaulting into the saddle and starting toward the store. No invitation was needed because the dog had adopted him on the spot. And the next morning, when Jimmy and Bill, loaded with poker-gained wealth, rode out of town and headed south, the dog trotted along in the shadow made by Jimmy’s horse and glanced up from time to time in hopeful expectancy and great affection.

A distant, flat pistol shot made them turn around in the saddle and look back. A group of the leading citizens of Sharpsville stood in front of the Emporium and waved hats in one last, and glad farewell. Now that Jimmy had left town, they altered their sudden plans and decided to continue to populate the town of Sharpsville.

“DID you ever see a dog like Asylum?” demanded Jimmy, looking fondly at the mongrel as they rode slowly the second day after leaving Sharpsville.

Bill shook his head emphatically. “Never, nowheres.”

Jimmy turned reproachfully. “Lookit how he’s follered us.”

“Follered you?” hastily corrected Bill. “He ought to. You feed an’ scratch him, an’ he’ll go anywhere for that. But he’s big,” he conceded.

“Mostly wolf-hound,” guessed Jimmy, proudly.

“He looks like a wolf—God help it—at th’ end of a hard winter.”

“Well, he ain’t yourn!”

“An’ won’t be, not if I can help it.”

“He ain’t no good, is he?” sneered Jimmy.

“I wouldn’t say that, Kid,” grunted Bill. “You know there’s good Injuns; but he looks purty healthy right now. Why didn’t you call him Hank? They look—Good G-d!” he exclaimed as he glanced through an opening in the hills. The ring of ashes that had been a corral still smoldered, and smoke arose fitfully from the caved-in roof of the adobe bunkhouse, whose beams, weakened by fire, had fallen under their heavy load.

“Injuns!” whispered Jimmy. “Not gone long, neither. Mebby they ain’t all ain’t all—” he faltered, thinking of what might lie under the roof. Bill, nodding, rode hurriedly to the ruins, wheeled sharply and returned, shaking his head slowly. There was no need to explain Apache methods to his companion, and he spoke of the Indians instead. “They split. About a dozen in th’ big party an’ about eight in th’ other. It looks sorta serious, Kid.”

Jimmy nodded. “I reckon so. An’ they’re usually where nobody wants ‘em, anyhow. Wouldn’t Sharpsville be disgusted if they went north? But let’s get out of here, ‘less you got some plan to bag a couple.”

“I like you more all th’ time,” Bill smiled. “But I ain’t got no plan, except to move.”

“Now, if they ain’t funny,” muttered Jimmy. “If they only knowed what they was runnin’ into!”

Bill turned in surprise. “I reckon I’m easy, but I’ll bite: what are they runnin’ into?”

“I don’t mean th’ Injuns; I mean that wagon,” replied Jimmy, nodding to a canvas-covered “schooner” on the opposite hill. “Come here, ‘Sylum!” he thundered. Bill wheeled, and smothered a curse when he saw the woman. “Fools!” he snarled. “Don’t let her know,” and he was galloping toward the newcomers.

“They shore is inner cent,” soliloquized Jimmy, following. “Just like a baby chasin’ a rattler for to play with it.”

Bill drew rein at the wagon and removed his sombrero. “Howd’y,” he said. “Where you headin’ for?” he asked pleasantly.

Tom French shifted the reins. “Sharpsville. And where in thunder is it?”

His brother stuck his head out through the opening in the canvas. “Yes; where?”

“You see, we are lost,” explained the woman, glancing from Bill to Jimmy, whose spectacular sliding stop was purely for her benefit, though she knew it not. “We left Logan four days ago and have been wandering about ever since.”

“Well, you ain’t a-goin’ to wander no more, ma’am,” smiled Bill. “We’re goin’ to Logan an’ we’ll take you as far as th’ Logan-Sharpsville trail,” he said, wondering where it was. “You must ‘a’ crossed it without knowin’ it.”

“Then, thank goodness, everything is all right. We are very fortunate in having met you gentlemen and we will be very grateful to you,” she smiled.

“You bet!” exclaimed Tom. “But where is Sharpsville?” he persisted.

“Sixty miles north,” replied Jimmy, making a great effort to stop with the reins what he was causing with his shielded spur. His horse could cavort beautifully under persuasion. “Logan, ma’am,” he said, indifferent to the antics of his horse, “is about thirty miles east. You must ‘a’ sashayed some to get only this far in four days,” he grinned.

“And we would be ‘sashaying’ yet, if I hadn’t found this trail,” grunted Tom. There was a sudden disturbance behind his shoulder and the canvas was opened wider. “You found it!” snorted George. “You mean, I found it. Leave it to Mollie if I did n’t! And I told you that you were going wrong. Didn’t I?” he demanded.

“Hush, George,” chided his sister.

“But didn’t I? Didn’t I say we should have followed that moth-eaten road running er north?”

“Did you?” shouted Tom, turning savagely. “You told me so many fool things I couldn’t pick out those having a flicker of intelligence hovering around their outer edges. You drove two days out of the four, didn’t you?”

“Tom!” pleaded Mollie, earnestly.

“Oh, let him rave, Sis,” rejoined George, and he turned to the punchers. “Friends, I beg thee to take charge of this itinerant asylum and its charming nurse, for the good of our being and the salvation of our souls. Amen.”

Tom found a weak grin. “Yes, so be it. We place ourselves and guide under your orders, though I reserve the