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

had resolutely refused to play poker when he had no cash. This had become a blighting sorrow in the life of a naturally exuberant and very fair cook.

“An’ for how long?” demanded Johnny, a cold and calculating light glinting in his eyes.

“Oh, till supper’s ready,” replied Cookie with great carelessness.

“Nix; but you can wear it twenty minutes if you’ll get my grub quick,” he replied. “Got to meet Lucas at half -past five.” He cautiously dropped the match he had thoughtlessly produced.

The cook tried to look his belief and accepted the offer. Johnny’s remarkably clean face, plastered hair and general gala attire suggested that Lucas was a woman which Lucas profanely would have denied. Also, Johnny had been seen washing Ginger, and when a puncher washes a cayuse it’s a sign of insanity. Besides, Ginger belonged to Red, who also had owned that lone dollar. Red’s clothes did not fit Johnny.

“Goin’ to surprise Lucas?” inquired the cook.

“What you mean?”

Cookie glanced meaningly at the attire: “Er—you ain’t in th’ habit of puttin’ on war paint for to see Lucas, are you?”

Johnny’s mental faculties produced: “Oh, we’re goin’ to a dance.”

“Where ‘bouts?” exploded the cook.

“Way up north!” One’s mind needs to be active as a flea to lie properly to a man like the cook. He had made a ghastly mistake.

“By golly! I’ll give th’ boys cold grub an’ go with you,” and the cook began to save time.

Johnny gulped and shook his head: “Got a invite?”

Cookie caught the pan on his foot before it struck the floor and gasped: “Invite? Ain’t it free-fer-all?”

“No; this is a hightoned thing-a-bob. Costs a dollar a head, too.”

“Hightoned?” snorted the cook, derisively. “Don’t they know you? An’ I thought Red was broke. Show me that permit!”

“Lucas’s got it—that’s why I’ve got to catch him.”

“Oh! An’ is he goin’ all feathered up, too?”

“Shore, he’s got to.”

“Huh! He wouldn’t dress like that to see a fight. Has she got any sisters?” Cookie finished, hopefully.

“Now what you talkin’ about?”

“Why, Lucas,” answered the cook, placidly. “Lemme tell you something. When you want to lose me have a invite to a water-drinkin’ contest. An’ before you go, be shore to rub Hoppy’s boots some more; that’s such a pasty shine it’ll look like sand-paper before you get to th’ dance. You want to make it hard an’ slippery. An’ I’ve read som’ers that only wimmin ought to smell like a drug-store. You better let her do th’ fumigatin’.”

Johnny surrendered and dolefully whiffed the crushed violets he had paid two bits a pint for at El Paso—it was not necessary to whiff them, but he did so.

“You ought to hone yore razor, too,” continued the cook, critically.

“I told Buck it was dull, I ain’t goin’ to sharpen it for him. But, say, are you shore about th’ perfumery?”

“Why, of course.”

“But how’ll I git it off?”

“Bury th’ clothes,” suggested Cookie, grinning.

“I like yore gall! Which clothes are best, Pete’s or Billy’s?”

“Pete’s would fit you like th’ wide, wide world. You don’t want blankets on when you go courtin’. Try Billy’s. An’ I got a pair of socks, though one’s green but th’ boots’ll hide it.”

“I didn’t put none on my socks, you chump!”

“How’d I know? But, say! Has she got any sisters?”

“No!” yelled Johnny, halfway through the gallery in search of Billy’s clothes. When he emerged Cookie looked him over. “Ain’t it funny, Kid, how a pipe’ll stink up clothes?” he smiled. Johnny’s retort was made over several yards of ground and when he had mounted Cookie yelled and waved him to return. When Johnny had obeyed and impatiently demanded the reason, Cookie pleasantly remarked: “Now, be shore an’ give her my love, Kid.”

Johnny’s reply covered half a mile of trail.

Johnny rode alertly through Perry’s Bend, for Sheriff Nolan was no friend of his; and Nolan was not only a discarded suitor of Miss Joyce, but a warm personal friend of George Greener, the one rival Johnny feared. Greener was a widower as wealthy as he was unscrupulous, and a power on that range: when he said “jump,” Nolan soared.

The sheriff was standing before the Palace saloon when Johnny rode past, and he could not keep quiet. His comment was so judiciously chosen as to bring white spots on Johnny’s flushed cheeks. The Bar-20 puncher was not famed for his self-control, and, wheeling in the saddle, he pointed a quivering forefinger at Mr. Nolan’s badge of office, so conspicuously displayed: “Better men than you have hid behind a badge and banked on a man’s regard for th’ law savin’ ‘em from their just deserts. Politics is a h—l of a thing when it opens th’ door to anything that might roll in on th’ wind. You come down across th’ line tomorrow an’ see me, without th’ nickel-plated ornament you disgraces,” he invited. “Any dog can tell a lie in his kennel, but it takes guts to bark outside th’ yard.”

Mr. Nolan flushed, went white, hesitated, and walked away. To fight in defense of the law was his duty; but no sane man warred on the Bar-20 unless he must. Mr. Nolan was a man whose ideas of necessity followed strange curves, and not to his credit. One might censure Mr. Cassidy or Mr. Connors, or pick a fight with some of the others of that outfit and not get killed; but he must not harm their protege. Mr. Nolan not only walked away but he sought the darkest shadows and held conversation with himself. If it were only possible to get the pugnacious and very much spoiled Mr. Nelson to fracture, smash, pulverize some law! This, indeed, would be sweet.

Meanwhile Johnny, having watched the sheriff slip away, loosed a few more words into the air and went on his way, whistling cheerfully. Reaching the Joyce cottage he was admitted by Miss Joyce herself and at sight of her blushing face his exuberant confidence melted and left him timid. This he was wont to rout by big words and a dashing air he did not feel.

“Oh! Come right in,” she invited. “But you are late,” she laughed, chidingly.

He critically regarded the dimples, while he replied that he had drawn rein to slay the sheriff but, knowing that it would cost him more valuable time, he had consented with himself to postpone the event.

“But you must not do that!” she cried. “Why, that’s terrible! You shouldn’t even think of such things.”

“Well, of course if yo’re agin’ it I wont.”

“But what did he do?”

“Oh, I don’t reckon I can tell that. But do you really want him to live?”

“Why, certainly! What a foolish question.”

“But why do you? Do you like him?”

“I like everybody.”

“Yes; an’ everybody likes you, too,” he growled, the smile fading. “That’s th’ trouble. Do you like him very much?”

“I wish you wouldn’t ask such foolish questions.”

“Yes; I know. But do you?”

“I prefer not to answer.”

“Huh! That’s an answer in itself. You do.”

“‘I don’t think you’re very nice tonight,” she retorted, a little pout spoiling the bow in her lips. “You’re awfully jealous, and I don’t like it.”

“Gee! Don’t like it! I should think you’d want me to be jealous. I only wish you was jealous of me. Norah, I’ve just got to say it now, an’ find out—”

“Yes; tell me,” she interrupted eagerly. “What did he do?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Nolan, of course.”

“Nolan?” he demanded in surprise.

“Yes, yes; tell me.”

“I ain’t talkin’ about him. I was goin’ to tell you something that I’ve—”

“That you’ve done and now regret? Have you ever ever killed a man?” she breathed. “Have you?”

“No; yes! Lots of ‘em,” he confessed, remembering that once she had expressed admiration for brave and daring men. “Most half as many as Hopalong; an’ I ain’t near as old as him, neither.”

“You mean Mr. Cassidy? Why don’t you bring him with you some evening? I’d like to meet him.”

“Not me. I went an’ brought a friend along once, an’ had to lick him th’ next day to keep him away from here. He’d ‘a’ camped right out there in front if I had n’t. No, ma’am; not any.”

“Why, the idea! But Mr. Greener’s very much like your friend, Mr. Cassidy. He’s very brave, and a wonderful shot. He told me so himself.”

“What! He told you so hisself! Well, well. Beggin’ yore pardon, he ain’t nowise like Hoppy, not even in th’ topics of his conversation. Why, he’s a child; an’ blinks when he shoots off a gun.

Here can he show a gun like mine?” and forthwith he held out his Colt, butt foremost, and indicated the notches he had cut that afternoon. A fleeting doubt went through his mind at what his outfit would say when it saw those notches. The Bar-20 cut no notches. It wanted to forget.

She looked at them curiously and suddenly drew back. “Oh! Are they are they?” she whispered.

He nodded: “They are. There is plenty of room for Nolan’s, an’ mebby his owner, too,” he suggested. “Can’t you see, Norah?” he asked in a swift change of tone. “Can’t you see? Don’t you know how much I “

“Yes. It must be terrible to have such remorse,” she quickly interposed. “And I sympathize with you deeply, too.”

“Remorse nothin’! Them fellers was lookin’ for it, an’ they got just what they deserved. If I hadn’t ‘a’ done it somebody else would.”

“And you a murderer! I never thought that of you. I can hardly believe it of you. And you calmly confess it to me as though it were nothing!”

“Why, I—I—”

“Don’t talk to me! To think you have human blood on your hands. To think—”

“Norah! Norah, listen; won’t you?”

“that you are that sort of a man! How dare you call here as you have? How dare you?”

“But I tell you they were tryin’ to get me! I just had to. Why, I didn’t do it for nothin’. I’ve got a right to defend myself, ain’t I?”

“You had to? Is that true?” she demanded.

“Why, shore! Think I go ‘round killin’ men, like Greener does, just for th’ fun of it?”

“He doesn’t do anything of the kind,” she retorted. “You know he does n’t! Didn’t you just say he blinks when he shoots off a gun?”

“Yes; I did. But I didn’t want you to think he was a murderer like Nolan,” he explained. Even Cookie, he thought, would find it hard to get around that neat little effort.

“I’m so relieved,” she laughed, delighted at her success in twisting him. “I am so glad he doesn’t blink when he shoots. I’d hate a man who was afraid to shoot.”

Johnny’s chest arose a little. “Well, how ‘bout me?”

“But you’ve killed men; you’ve shot down your fellow men; and have ghastljr marks on your revolver to brag about.”

“Well say but how can I shoot without shootin’ or kill without killin’?” he demanded. “An’ I don’t brag about ‘em, neither; it makes me feel too sad to do any braggin’. An’ Greener’s killed ‘em, too; an’ he brags about it.”

“Yes; but he doesn’t blink!” she exclaimed triumphantly.

“Neither do I.”

“Yes; but you shoot to kill.”

“Lord pity us don’t he?”

“Y-e-s, but that’s different,” she replied, smiling brightly.

Johnny looked around the room, his eyes finally resting on his hat.

“Yes, I see it’s different. Greener can kill, an’ blink! I can’t. If he kills a man he’s a hero; I’m a murderer. I kinda reckon he’s got th’ trail. But I love you, an’ you’ve got to pick my trail does it lead up or down?”

“Johnny Nelson! What are you