Going Some, Rex Beach [best android ereader .TXT] 📗

quitter. Fresno would get her sure."

"What's the difference if you're astraddle of a cloud with a gold guitar in your lap?"

"Oh, they won't kill us."

"I tell you these cow-persons is desp'rate. If you stay here and run that race next Saturday, she'll tiptoe up on Sunday and put a rose in your hand, sure. I can see her now, all in black. Take it from me, Wally, we ain't goin' to have no luck in this thing."

"My dear fellow, the simplest way out of the difficulty is for me to injure myself—"

"Here!" Glass hopped to his feet and dove through the blankets. "None of that! Have a little regard for me. If you go lame it's my curtain."

All that day the trainer stayed close to his charge, never allowing him out of his sight, and when, late in the afternoon, Speed rebelled at the espionage, Glass merely shrugged his fat shoulders. "But I want to be alone—with her. Can't you see?"

"I can, but I won't. Go as far as you like. I'll close my eyes."

"Or I'll close them for you!" The lad scowled; his companion laughed mirthlessly.

"Don't start nothin' like that—I'd ruin you. Gals is bad for a man in trainin' anyhow."

"I suppose I'm not to see her—"

"You can see her, but I want to hear what you say to her.
No emotion till after this race, Wally."

"You're an idiot! This whole affair is preposterous—ridiculous."

"And yet it don't make us laugh, does it?" Glass mocked.

"If these cowboys make me run that race, they'll be sorry—mark my words, they'll be sorry."

Speed lighted a cigarette and inhaled deeply, but only once. The other lunged at him with a cry and snatched it. "Give me that cigarette!"

"I've had enough of this foolishness," Wally stormed. "You are discharged!"

"I wish I was."

"You are!"

"Not!"

"I say you are fired!" Glass stared at him. "Oh, I mean it! I won't be bullied."

"Very well." Glass rose ponderously. "I'll wise up that queen of yours, Mr. Speed."

"You aren't going to talk to Miss Blake? Wait!" Speed wilted miserably. "She mustn't know. I—I hire you over again."

"Suit yourself."

"You see, don't you? My love for Helen is the only serious thing I ever experienced," said the boy. "I—can't lose her. You've got to help me out."

And so it was agreed.

That evening, when the clock struck nine, J. Wallingford Speed was ready and willing to drag himself off to bed, in spite of the knowledge that Fresno was waiting to take his place in the hammock. He was racked by a thousand pains, his muscles were sore, his back lame. He was consumed by a thirst which Glass stoutly refused to let him quench, and possessed by a fearful longing for a smoke. When he dozed off, regardless of the snores from the bunk-house adjoining, Berkeley Fresno's musical tenor was sounding in his ears. And Helen Blake was vaguely surprised. For the first time in their acquaintance Mr. Speed had yawned openly in her presence, and she wondered if he were tiring of her.

It seemed to Speed that he had barely closed his eyes when he felt a rough hand shaking him, and heard his trainer's voice calling, in a half-whisper: "Come on, Cull! Get up!"

When he turned over it was only to be shaken into complete wakefulness.

"Hurry up, it's daylight!"

"Where?"

"Come, now, you got to run five miles before breakfast!"

Speed sat up with a groan. "If I run five miles," he said, "I won't want any breakfast," and laid himself down again gratefully—he was very sore—whereat his companion fairly dragged him out of bed. As yet the room was black, although the windows were grayed by the first faint streaks of dawn. From the adjoining room came a chorus of distress: snores of every size, volume, and degree of intensity, from the last harrowing gasp of strangulation to the bold trumpetings of a bull moose. There were long drawn sighs, groans of torture, rumbling blasts. Speed shuddered.

"They sound like a troop of trained sea-lions," said he.

"Don't wake 'em up. Here!" Glass yawned widely, and tossed a bundle of sweaters at his companion.

"Ugh! These clothes are all wet and cold, and—it feels like blood!"

"Nothin' but the mornin' dew."

"It's perspiration."

"Well, a little sweat won't hurt you."

"Nasty word." Speed yawned in turn. "Perspiration! I can't wear wet clothes," and would have crept back into his bed.

This time Glass deposited him upon a stool beside the table, and then lighted a candle, by the sickly glare of which he selected a pair of running-shoes.

"Why didn't you leave me alone?" grumbled the younger man. "The only pleasure I get is in sleep—I forget things then."

"Yes," retorted the former, sarcastically, "and you also seem to forget that these are our last days among the living. Saturday the big thing comes off."

"Forget! I dreamed about it!" The boy sighed heavily. It was the hour in which hope reaches its lowest ebb and vitality is weakest. He was very cold and very miserable.

"You ain't got no edge on me," the other acknowledged, mournfully. "I'm too young to die, and that's a bet."

Suddenly the pandemonium in the bunk-house was pierced by the brazen jangle of an alarm-clock, whereat a sleepy voice cried:

"Cloudy, kill that damn clock!"

The Indian uttered some indistinguishable epithet, and the next instant there came a crash as the offending timepiece was hurled violently against the wall. In silence Glass shoved his unsteady victim ahead of him out into the dawn. In the east the sun was rising amid a riotous splendor. At any other time, under any other conditions, Speed could not have restrained his admiration, for the whole world was a glorious sparkling panoply of color. The tumbled masses of the hills were blazing at their crests, the valleys dark and cool. In the east the limb of the sun was just rearing itself, the air was heady with the scent of growing things, and so clear that the distances were magically shortened; a certain wild, intoxicating exuberance surcharged the out-of- doors. But to the stiff and wearied Eastern lad it was all cruelly mocking. When he halted listlessly to view its beauties he was goaded forward, ever forward, faster and faster, until finally, amid protests and sighs and complaining joints, he broke into a heavy, flat-footed jog-trot that jolted the artistic sense entirely out of him.

CHAPTER XII

It was usually a procedure not alone of difficulty but of diplomacy as well, to rout out the ranch-hands of the Flying Heart without engendering hostile relations that might bear fruit during the day. This morning Still Bill Stover had more than his customary share of trouble, for they seemed pessimistic.

Carara, for instance, breathed a Spanish oath as he combed his hair, and when the foreman inquired the reason, replied:

"I don' sleep good. I been t'ink mebbe I lose my saddle on this footrace."

Cloudy, whose toilet was much less intricate, grunted from the shadows:

"I thought I heard that phonograph all night."

"It was the Natif Son singin' to his gal," explained one of the hands. "He's gettin' on my nerves, too. If he wasn't a friend of the boss, I'd sure take a surcingle and abate him considerable."

"Vat you t'ank? I dream' Mr. Speed is ron avay an' broke his leg," volunteered Murphy, the Swede, whose name New Mexico had shortened from Bjorth Kjelliser.

"Run away?"

"Ya-as! I dream' he's out for little ron ven piece of noosepaper blow up in his face an' mak' him ron avay, yust same as horse. He snort an' yump, an' ron till he step in prairie-dog hole and broke his leg."

"Strange!" said Willie.

"What?"

"My rest was fitful and disturbed and peopled by strange fancies a whole lot. I dreamp' he throwed the race!"

A chorus of oaths from the bunks.

"What did you do?" inquired Stover.

"I woke up, all of a tremble, with a gun in each hand."

"I don't take no stock in dreams whatever," said some one.

"Well, I'm the last person in the world to be superstitious,"
Still Bill observed, "but I've had sim'lar visions lately."

"Maybe it's a om-en."

"What is a om-en?" Carara inquired.

"A om-en," explained Willie, "is a kind of a nut. Salted om-ens is served at swell restaurants with the soup."

In the midst of it Joy, the cook, appeared in the doorway, and spoke in his gentle, ingratiating tones:

"Morning, gel'mum! I see 'im again."

"Who?"

"No savvy who; stlange man! I go down to spling-house for bucket water; see 'im lide 'way. Velly stlange!"

"I bet it's Gallagher."

"Vat you tank he vants?" queried Murphy.

"He's layin' to get a shot at our runner," declared Stover, while Mr. Cloudy, forgetting his Indian reserve, explained in classic English his own theory of the nocturnal visits. "Do you remember Humpy Joe? Well, they didn't cripple him, but he lost. I don't think Gallagher would injure Mr. Speed, but—he might—bribe him."

"Caramba!" exclaimed the Mexican.

"God 'lmighty!" Willie cried, in shocked accents.

"I believe you're right, but"—Stover meditated briefly before announcing with determination—"we'll do a little night-ridin' ourselves. Willie, you watch this young feller daytimes, and the rest of us'll take turns at night. An' don't lose sight of the fat man, neither—he might carry notes. If you don't like the looks of things—you know what cards to draw."

"Sixes," murmured the near-sighted cow-man. "Don't worry."

"If you see anything suspicious, burn it up. And we'll take a shot at anything we see movin' after 9 P.M."

Then Berkeley Fresno came hurriedly into the bunk-house with a very cheery "Good-morning! I'm glad I found you up and doing," he said blithely. "I thought of something in my sleep." It was evident that the speaker had been in more than ordinary haste to make his discovery known, for underneath his coat he still wore his pajama shirt, and his hair was unbrushed.

"What is it?"

"Your man Speed isn't taking care of himself."

"What did I tell you?" said Willie to his companions.

"It seems to me that in justice to you boys he shouldn't act this way," Fresno ran on. "Now, for instance, the water in his shower- bath is tepid."

There was an instant's silence before Stover inquired, with ominous restraint:

"Who's been monkeying with it?"

"It's warm!"

"Oh!" It was a sigh of relief.

"A man can't get in shape taking warm shower-baths. Warm water weakens a person."

"Mebbe you-all will listen to me next time!" again cried Willie, triumphantly. "I said at the start that a bath never helped nobody. When they're hot they saps a man's courage, and when they're cold they—"

"No, no! You don't understand! For an athlete the bath ought to be cold—the colder the better. It's the shock that hardens a fellow."

"Has he weakened himself much?" inquired the foreman.

"Undoubtedly, but—"

"What?"

"If we only had some ice—"

"We got ice; plenty of it. We got a load from the railroad yesterday."

"Then our only chance to save him is to fill the barrel quickly.
We must freeze him, and freeze him well, before it is too late!
By Jove! I'm glad I thought of it!"

Stover turned to his men. "Four of you-all hustle up a couple hundred pounds of that ice pronto! Crack it, an' fill the bar'l." There was a scramble for the door.

"And there's something else, too," went on Berkeley. "He's being fed wrong for his last days of training. The idea of a man eating lamb-chops, fried eggs, oatmeal, and all that debilitating stuff! Those girls overload his stomach. Why, he ought to have something to make him strong—fierce!"

"Name it," said Willie, shortly.

"Something like—like—bear meat."

"We ain't got no bear." Willie looked chagrined.

"This ain't their habitat," added Stover apologetically.

"Well, he ought to have meat, and it ought to be wild—raw, if possible."

"There ain't nothin' wilder 'n a long-horn. We can git him a steer."

"You are sure the meat isn't too tender?"

"It's tougher 'n a night in jail."

"There ain't no sausage-mill that'll dent it."

"Good! The rarer it is the better. Some raw eggs and a good strong vegetable—"

"Onions?"

"Fine! We'll save him yet!"

"We'll get the grub."

"And he'll eat it!" Willie nodded firmly.

Stover issued another order, this time to Carara. "You 'n Cloudy butcher the wildest four-year-old you can find. If you can't get close enough to rope him, shoot him, and bring in a hind quarter. It's got to be here in time for breakfast."