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

an outrage! It’s an outrage! I’ll have you hung for this day’s work, young man!”

“That’s right,” grinned Hopalong. “He shore deserves it. I told him more ‘n once that he’d get strung up some day.”

“Yes, and you, too!”

“Please don’t,” begged Hopalong. “I don’t wantt’ die!”

Tense as the past quarter of an hour had been a titter ran along the car and, fuming impotently, the portly gentleman fled into the smoker.

“I’ll bet he had a six-dollar gun, too,” laughed Red.

“I’ll bet he’s calling hisself names right about now,” Hopalong replied. Then he turned to reply to a woman: “Yes, ma’am, we did. But they wasn’t real badmen.”

At this a young woman, who was about as pretty as any young woman could be, arose and ran to Hopalong and, impulsively throwing her arms around his neck, cried: “You brave man! You hero! You dear!”

“Skinny! Red! Help!” cried the frightened and embarrassed puncher, struggling to get free.

She kissed him on the cheek, which flamed even more red as he made frantic efforts to keep his head back.

“Ma’am!” he cried, desperately. “Leggo, ma’am! Leggo!”

“Oh! Ho! Ho!” roared Red, weak from his mirth and, not looking to see what he was doing, he dropped into a seat beside another woman. He was on his feet instantly; fearing that he would have to go through the ordeal his friend was going through, he fled down the aisle, closely followed by Hopalong, who by this time had managed to break away. Skinny backed off suspiciously and kept close watch on Hopalong’s admirer.

Just then the brakeman entered the car, grinning, and Skinny asked about the condition of the conductor.

“Oh, he’s all right now,” the brakeman replied. “They shot him through the arm, but he’s repaired and out bossin’ the job of clearin’ the rocks off the track. He’s a little shaky yet, but he’ll come around all right.”

“That’s good. I’m shore glad to hear it.”

“Won’t you wear this pin as a small token of my gratitude?” asked a voice at Skinny’s shoulder.

He wheeled and raised his sombrero, a flush stealing over his face:

“Thank you, ma’am, but I don’t want no pay. We was plumb glad to do it.”

“But this is not pay! It’s just a trifling token of my appreciation of your courage, just something to remind you of it. I shall feel hurt if you refuse.”

Her quick fingers had pinned it to his shirt while she spoke and he thanked her as well as his embarrassment would permit. Then there was a rush toward him and, having visions of a shirt looking like a jeweler’s window, he turned and fled from the car, crying: “Pin ‘em on th’ brakeman!”

He found the outfit working at a pile of rocks on the track, under the supervision of the conductor, and Hopalong looked up apprehensively at Skinny’s approach.

“Lord!” he ejaculated, grinning sheepishly, “I was some scairt you was a woman.”

Red dropped the rock he was carrying and laughed derisively.

“Oh, yo’re a brave man, you are! scared to death by a purty female girl! If I’d ‘a’ been you I wouldn’t ‘a’ run, not a step!”

Hopalong looked at him witheringly: “Oh, no! You wouldn’t V run! You’d dropped dead in your tracks, you would!”

“You was both of you a whole lot scared,” Skinny laughed. Then, turning to the conductor: “How do you feel, Simms?”

“Oh, I’m all right: but it took the starch out of me for awhile.”

“Well, I don’t wonder, not a bit.”

“You fellows certainly don’t waste any time getting busy,” Simms laughed.

“That’s the secret of gun-fightin’,” replied Skinny.

“Well, you’re a fine crowd all right. Any time you want to go any place when you’re broke, climb aboard my train and I’ll see’t you get there.”

“Much obliged.”

Simms turned to the express-car: “Hey, Jackson! You can open up now if you want to.”

But the express-messenger was suspicious, fearing that the conductor was talking with a gun at his head: “You go to h—l!” he called back.

“Honest!” laughed Simms. “Some cowboy friends o’ mine licked the gang. Didn’t you hear that dynamite go off? If they hadn’t fished it out from under your feet you’d be communing with the angels ‘bout now.”

For a moment there was no response, and then Jackson could be heard dragging things away from the door. When he was told of the cartridge and Red had been pointed out to him as the man who had saved his life, he leaped to the ground and ran to where that puncher was engaged in carrying the ever-silenced robbers to the baggage-car. He shook hands with Red, who laughed deprecatingly, and then turned and assisted him.

Hopalong came up and grinned: “Say, there’s some cayuses in that grove up th’ track; shall I go up an’ get ‘em?”

“Shore! 1’ll go an’ get ‘em with you,” replied Skinny.

In the grove they found seven horses picketed, two of them being pack-animals, and they led them forth and reached the train as the others came up.

“Well, here’s five saddled cayuses, an’ two others,” Skinny grinned.

“Then we can ride th’ rest of th’ way in th’ saddle instead of in that blamed train,” Red eagerly suggested.

“That’s just what we can do,” replied Skinny.

“Leather beats car-seats any time. How far are we from Sandy Creek, Simms?”

“About twenty miles.”

“An’ we can ride along th’ track, too,” suggested Hopalong.

“We shore can,” laughed Skinny, shaking hands with the train-crew: “We’re some glad we rode with you this trip: we Ve had a fine time,”

“And we’re glad you did,” Simms replied, “for that ain’t no joke, either.”

Hopalong and the others had mounted and were busy waving their sombreros and bowing to the heads and handkerchiefs which were decorating the car-windows.

“All aboard!” shouted the conductor, and cheers and good wishes rang out and were replied to by bows and waving of sombreros. Then Hopalong jerked his gun loose and emptied it into the air, his companions doing likewise. Suddenly five reports rang out from the smoker and they cheered the fat man as he waved at them. They sat quietly and watched the train until the last handkerchief became lost to sight around a curve, but the screeching whistle could be heard for a long time.

“Gee!” laughed Hopalong as they rode on after the train, “won’t th’ fellers home on th’ ranch be a whole lot sore when they hears about the good time what they missed!”

XI SAMMY FINDS A FRIEND

THE long train ride and the excitement were over and the outfit, homeward bound, loped along the trail, noisily discussing their exciting and humorous experiences and laughingly commented upon Hopalong’s decision to follow them later. They could not understand why he should be interested in a town like Sandy Creek after a week spent in the city.

Back in the little cow-town their friend was standing in the office of the hotel, gazing abstractedly out of the window. His eyes caught and focused on a woman who was walking slowly along the other side of the square and finally paused before McCalPs “Palace,” a combination saloon, dance and gambling hall. He smiled cynically as his memory ran back over those other women he had seen in cow-towns and wondered how it was that the men of the ranges could rise to a chivalry that was famed. At that distance she was strikingly pretty. Her complexion was an alluring blend of color that the gold of her hair crowned like a burst of sunshine. He noticed that her eyebrows were too prominent, too black and heavy to be Nature’s contribution. And there was about her a certain forwardness, a dash that bespoke no bashful Miss; and her clothes, though well-fitting, somehow did not please his untrained eye. A sudden impulse seized him and he strode to the door and crossed the dusty square, avoiding the piles of rusted cans, broken bottles and other rubbish that littered it.

She had become interested in a dingy window but turned to greet him with a resplendent smile as he stepped to the wooden walk. He noted with displeasure that the white teeth displayed two shining panels of gold that drew his eyes irresistibly; and then and there he hated gold teeth.

“Hello,” she laughed. “I’m glad to see somebody that’s alive in this town. Ain’t it awful?”

He instinctively removed his sombrero and was conscious that his habitual bashfulness in the presence of members of her sex was somehow lacking. “Why, I don’t see nothin’ extra dead about it,” he replied. “Most of these towns are this way in daylight. Th’ moths ain’t out yet. You should ‘a’ been here last night!”

“Yes? But you’re out; an’ you look like you might be able to fly,” she replied.

“Yes; I suppose so,” he laughed.

“I see you wear two of ‘em,” she said, glancing at his guns. “Ain’t one of them things enough?”

“One usually is, mostly,” he assented. “But I’m pig-headed, so I wears two.”

“Ain’t it awful hard to use two of ‘em at once?” she asked, her tone flattering. “Then you’re one of them two-gun men I’ve heard about, ain’t you?”

“An’ seen?” he smiled.

“Yes, I’ve seen a couple. Where you goin’ so early?”

“Just lookin’ th’ town over,” he answered, glancing over her shoulder at a cub of a cowpuncher who had opened the door of the “Retreat,” but stopped in his tracks when he saw the couple in front of McCall’s. There was a look of surprised interest on the cub’s face, and it swiftly changed to one of envious interest. Hopalong’s glance did not linger, but swept carelessly along the row of shacks and back to his companion’s face without betraying his discovery.

“Well; you can look it over in about ten seconds, from th’ outside,” she rejoined. “An’it’s so dusty out here. My throat is awful dry already.”

He hadn’t noticed any dust in the air, but he nodded. “Yes; thirsty?”

“Well, it ain’t polite or ladylike to say yes,” she demurred, “but I really am.”

He held open the door of the “Palace” and preceded her to the dance hall, where she rippled the keys of the old piano as she swept past it. The order given and served, he sipped at his glass and carried on his share of a light conversation until, suddenly, he arose and made his apologies. “I got to attend to something” he regretted as he picked up his sombrero and turned. “See you later.”

“Why!” she exclaimed. “I was just beginnin’ to get acquainted!”

“A moth without money ain’t no good,” he smiled. “I’m goin’ out to find th’ money. When I’m in good company I like to spend. See you later?” He bowed as she nodded, and departed.

Emerging from McCall’s he glanced at the “Retreat” and sauntered toward it. When he entered he found the cub resting his elbows on the pine bar, arguing with the bartender about the cigars sold in the establishment. The cub glanced up and appealed to the newcomer. “Ain’t they?” he demanded.

Hopalong nodded. “I reckon so. But what is it about?”

“These cigars,” explained the cub, ruefully. “I was just sayin’ there ain’t a good one in town.”

“You lose,” replied Hopalong. “Are you shore you knows a good cigar when you smokes it?”

“I know it so well that I ain’t found one since I left Kansas City. You said I lose. Do you know one well enough to be a judge?”

Hopalong reached to his vest pocket, extracted a cigar and handed it to the cub, who took it hesitatingly. “Why, I’m much obliged. I—I didn’t mean that you know.”

Hopalong nodded and rearranged the cigar’s twin-brothers in his pocket. He would be relieved