The Bandit of Hell's Bend, Edgar Rice Burroughs [good novels to read txt] 📗

AS THE stage swirled through the dusty street of Hendersville an hour later and drew up before The Donovan House the loiterers about the hotel and the saloons gathered about it for the news and the gossip from the outer world. Gum Smith, sheriff, was among them.

“Stuck up again, Gum, at the gap,” the driver called to him. “They bored Mack.”

Mary Donovan and the little old gentleman were assisting the messenger from the stage, though he protested that he was all right and required no assistance. As the woman’s eyes alighted upon the sheriff, she turned upon him, her arms akimbo.

“Sure, yese a fine spicimin uv a sheriff, Gum Smith, that ye are-not!” she yelled in a voice that could be heard the length of the single street. “Three holdups in the two months right under yer nose, and all ye do is ‘depatize’ an’ ‘depatize’ an’ ‘depatize.’ Why don’t ye git out an’ git ‘em-ye ould woman,” she concluded scornfully, and then turned to the wounded man, her voice instantly as soft as a lullaby.

“Get inside wid ye, ye poor b’y, an’ Mary Donovan’ll be after makin’ ye comfortable ‘til we get hould uv the ould saw-bones, if he’s sober, which he ain’t, or I’m no lady, which I am. Come on now, aisy like, there’s a good b’y,” and she put a motherly arm about the lad and helped him to the porch of the hotel, just as Diana Henders appeared from the interior, attracted by the sounds from without.

“Oh, Mrs. Donovan!” she exclaimed. “What has happened? Why, it’s Mack! The Black Coyote again?” she guessed quickly.

“Shure an’ it was none other. I seen him wid me own eyes-the black silk handkerchief about the neck uv him an’ another over his ugly face. An’ his pardner-sure now I couldn’t be mishtaken wid the rollin’ walk uv him-if it wasn’t that dhirty greaser, Gregorio, me name’s not Mary Donovan, which it is.”

Together the two women helped the messenger into a bedroom where Mary Donovan, despite the embarrassed protests of her patient, undressed him and put him to bed while Diana Henders went to the kitchen for hot water and cloths.

Mack had an ugly flesh wound in his side, and this they had cleansed as best they could by the time the doctor arrived-a drink-broken old man who had drifted in from the East. His knowledge and skill were of the first rank and Hendersville boasted that it owned the best doctor in the Territory-when he was sober.

In Gum’s Place-Liquors and Cigars-the male population was listening to the account of the holdup as expounded by the little old gentleman and the other passenger, the latter being a stranger in the community.

It was he who had the floor at the moment.

“I never laughed so much in my life,” he averred, “as when the old woman calls the old man here the ‘ould woman with the artillery.’”

The little old gentleman was standing at the bar with a glass of whiskey in his hand. Apparently with a single movement, so swift was he, he dashed the glass and its contents in the face of the stranger, whipped out both guns and commenced shooting.

A stream of lurid profanity accompanied his act, yet through the flood of incoherent obscenity the nub of an idea occasionally appeared, which was to the effect that “no blankety, blank tin-horn could git gay with Wildcat Bob.” Almost instantly, as if a magician had waved his wand, the room, that had been comfortably filled with men, became deserted, as far as human eye could discern, except for the little old gentleman with the tobacco-dewed whiskers.

The front door had accommodated some, while heavy pieces of furniture and the bar accounted for the rest-all but the stranger with the ill-directed sense of humor. He had gone through the back window and taken the sash with him.

The shooting over, the company reappeared, grinning. Most of them knew Wildcat Bob. It had been the stranger’s misfortune that he had not.

“I’d orter ‘a’ bored him, the dinged pole-cat,” growled the little old gentleman, filling a fresh glass; “but I guess I larnt him his lesson. The idear of him a-speakin’ of Mrs. Donovan disrespectful-like like that-callin’ her the ‘old woman’! Why, she’s the finest lady ever drew breath.

“An’ says she to me, says she, Mister Bob, says she, ‘It’s such a relief to have a man like you along when there’s danger,’ says she, but she can’t stand bloodshed, bein’ that timid and shrinkin’ and she begged me not to start shootin’ at the varmints, otherwise than which I shore would of messed them up somethin’ awful,” interspersed with which were quite two oaths or obscenities to each word.

The shooting over and quiet restored, Gum Smith made his belated appearance. At sight of the little old gentleman he smiled affably.

“Doggone my hide if it ain’t Bob,” he exclaimed, crossing the room with extended hand. “Have a drink on the house, Bob.”

Wildcat Bob ignored the proffered hand. “I got the dust to cover my own drinks, Mister Sheriff,” he replied, “an instid of loafin’ around here buyin’ drinks why ain’t you-all out scoutin’ after that there Black Coyote hombre? You’re shore a hell of a sheriff, you are, Gum Smith.”

“Don’t git excited, Bob,” urged the sheriff, flushing. “Give a man time. Ah got to git me a posse, ain’t Ah? Thet’s jest what Ah was allowin’ to do right now, an’ Ah’ll start by depatizin’ yo.”

“You’ll deputize me-hell, you will, Gum Smith,” returned the old man with a snort of disgust. “I ben out with you-all before. When you thinks danger’s north you heads south. I had all the travelin’ I wants today.”

The sheriff mumbled something beneath his breath and turned away. Some half-hour later he rode out of town with a posse consisting of half a dozen of his cronies and leisurely took his way toward the gap.

In Mrs. Donovan’s sitting room Mary Donovan sat rocking comfortably and chatting with Diana Renders. Mack had been made as comfortable as circumstances permitted. The doctor had assured them that he was in no danger and had gone his way-back to Gum’s Place-Liquors and Cigars.

“And what are you doin’ in town this day, Diana?” inquired Mrs. Donovan.

“I rode in with Hal Colby, he’s foreman now,” replied the girl. “I wanted to buy a few things while Hal rode on over to the West Ranch. We have some horses over there. He ought to be back any minute now.”

“So Colby’s foreman. What’s become of Bull-quit?”

“He got drunk again and Dad broke him. I’m so sorry for him.”

“Don’t be after wastin’ your pity on the loikes ov him,” advised Mary Donovan. “There’s not the wan ov thim’s fit to black your boots, darlin’.”

“I don’t understand Bull,” continued the girl, ignoring the interruption. “Sometimes I think he’s all right and then again I’m afraid of him. He’s so quiet and reserved that I feel as though no one could ever know him, and when a man’s like that, as Hal says, you can’t help but think that maybe he’s done something that makes him afraid to talk, for fear he’ll give himself away.”

“So Hal Colby was after sayin’ that? Well, maybe he’s right an’ maybe he’s wrong. It’s not Mary Donovan that’ll be sayin’ as don’t know. But this I do be after knowin’-they’re both ov thim in love with ye, and”

“Hush, Mrs. Donovan! The boys all think they’re in love with me, but I hate to hear anyone else say it seriously. It’s perfectly silly. They’d be just as much in love with any other girl, if she chanced to be the only girl on the ranch, as I am, and pretty nearly the only girl in the county, too. There’s Hal now. I must be going. Good-bye, Mrs. Donovan.”

“Good-bye darlin’, an’ be after comin’ over again soon. It’s that lonesome here, you never could imagine! An’