The Man From Bar-20, Clarence E. Mulford [distant reading TXT] 📗

can take yore choice,” he offered, wiping his lips on the edge of the bar towel, both the action and the towel itself being vociferously described by his saddle-sitting friends as affectations, for everybody knew that a sleeve or the back of a hand was the natural thing. “Now, there’s th’ Circle S; but I dunno as they needs any more men. They could get along with less if them they has would work. Smith, of th’Long T, over in th’ southwest, could easy use more men; but he’s so close an’ allfired pe-nurious that I dunno as he’d favor th’ idear. He’s a reg’lar genius for savin’ money, Smith is. He once saved a dollar out of three cents, an’ borrowed them of me to start with. Then there’s th’ CL, over east in th’ Deepwater Valley. You might get something there; an’ Logan’s a nice man to work for, for a few days. He allus gives his men at least two hours sleep a night, averagin’ it up; but somehow they’re real cheerful about it, an’ they all swears by him ‘stead of at him. Reckon mebby it’s th’ wages he pays. He’s got th’ best outfit of th’ three. But, lemme tell you, it’s a right lively place, th’ CL; an’ you don’t have to copper that, neither. Th’ cards is all spread out in front of you take yore choice an’ foller yore nat’ral bend.”

“Logan,” mused the stranger. “Didn’t you say something about him before?” he asked curiously.

“I did,” grunted Pop. “You’ve got a mem’ry near as bad as OP Hiram Jones. Hiram, he once—”

“I thought so,” interposed the cowpuncher hastily, “What kind of a ranch is th’ CL?”

“Well, it was th’ fust to locate in these parts, an’ had its pick; an’, nat’rally, it picked th’ valley of th’ Deepwater. Funny Logan ain’t found no way to make th’ river work; it wouldn’t have to sleep at all, ‘cept once in a while in th’ winter, when it freezes over for a spell. It’d be a total loss then; mebby that’s why he ain’t never tried.

“But takin’ a second holt,” he continued, frowning with deep thought; “I dunno as I’d work for him, if I was you. You looks too much like him; an’ you got a long life of piety an’ bad whiskey ahead of you, mebby. An’, come to think of it, I dunno as I’d stay very long around these parts, neither; an’ for th’ same reason. Now you have a drink with me. It shore is th’ hottest spring I’ve seen in fifty year,” he remarked, thereoy quoting himself for about that period of time. Each succeeding spring and summer was to him hotter than any which had gone before, which had moved Billy Atwood to remark that if Pop only lived long enough he would find hell a cool place, by comparison, when he eventually arrived there.

“Sic ‘em, Towser!” shrilled a falsetto voice from somewhere. “I’ll eat his black heart!” Then followed whistling, clucking, and a string of expletives classical in its completeness. “Andy wants a drink! Quick!”

A green object dropped past the stranger’s face, thumped solidly on the pine bar, hooked a viciouslooking beak on the edge of the counter, and swore luridly as its crafty nip missed the stranger’s thumb.

The puncher swiftly bent his sinewy forefinger, touched it with his thumb, and let it snap forward. The parrot got it on an eye and staggered, squawking a protest.

Pop was surprised and disappointed, for most strangers showed some signs of being startled, and often bought the drinks to further prove that the joke was on them. This capable young man carelessly dropped his great sombrero over Andrew Jackson and went right on talking as though nothing unusual had occurred. It appeared that the bird was also surprised and disappointed. The great hat heaved and rocked, bobbed forward, backward, and sideways, and then slid jerkily along the bar, its hidden locomotive force too deeply buried in thought and darkness to utter even a single curse. Reaching the edge of the bar the big hat pushed out over it, teetered a moment and then fell to the floor, where Andrew Jackson, recovering his breath and vocabulary at the same instant, filled the room with shrill and clamorous profanity.

The conversation finished to his satisfaction, the stranger glanced down at his boot, where the ruffled bird was delivering tentative frontal and flank attacks upon the glittering, sharp-toothed spur, whose revolving rowel had the better of the argument Andrew sensed the movement, side-stepped clumsily and cocked an evil eye upward.

“You should’ve taught him to swear in th’ deaf an’ dumb alphabet,” commented the puncher, grinning at the bird’s gravity. “Does he drink?” he asked

“Try him, an’ see,” suggested Pop, chuckling. He reached for a bottle and clucked loudly.

Andrew shook himself energetically, and then proceeded to go up the puncher’s chaps by making diligent use of beak and claws. Reaching the low-hung belt, he hooked his claws into it and then looked evilly and suspiciously at the strange, suddenly extended forefinger. Deciding to forego hostilities, he swung himself upon it and was slowly lifted up to the bar.

Pop was disappointed again, for it was the bird’s invariable custom to deftly remove a portion of strange forefingers so trustingly offered. He could crack nuts in his crooked beak. Andy shook himself violently, craned his neck and hastened to bend it over the rim of the glass.

The stranger watched him in frank disgust and shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “So all you could teach him was vile cuss words an’ to like whiskey, huh?” he muttered. “He’s got less sense than I thought he had,” he growled, and, turning abruptly, went swiftly out to his horse.

Pop stared after him angrily and slapped the bird savagely. Emptying the liquor upon the floor, he shuffled quickly to the door and shook his fist at the departing horseman.

“Don’t you tell Logan that I sent you!” he shouted belligerently.

The stranger turned in his saddle, grinning cheerfully, and favored his late host with a well-known, twohanded nose signal. Then he slapped the black horse and shot down the street without another backward glance.

Pop, arms akimbo, watched him sweep out of sight around a bend.

“Huh!” he snorted. “Wonder what yo’re doin’ down here? Galivantin’ around th’ country, insultin’ honest, hard-workin’ folks, an’ wearin’ two guns, low down an’ tied! I reckon when you learns th’ lay of th’ country, if you stays long enough, you’ll wind up by joinin’ that gang up in th’ Twin Buttes country. I allus like to see triggers on sixshooters, I do.” He had not noticed the triggers, but that was no bar to his healthy imagination. Shuffling back to his seat, he watched the indignant Andy pecking at a wet spot on the floor.

“So you didn’t chaw his finger, huh?” he demanded, in open and frank admiration of the bird’s astuteness. “Strikes me you got a hull lot of wisdom, my boy. Some folks says a bird ain’t got no brains; but lemme tell you that you’ve got a danged good instinct.”