Chapter I: WAS a bit embarrassed next morning and wondered if I hadn’t overdone (1)

the thing.

I was waited on by a delegation in the crowded office of the Pride of the Prairie. Mayor David Ware headed the delegation and he introduced the half-dozen amiable gentlemen as leading members of the Breed City Chamber of Commerce. Then the mayor pulled me aside.

“You understand that I haven’t whispered a word of what you and I talked about last night. That’s to be buried between you and me, but there’s nothing like getting in sneck with the big boys of this town. It’ll be easier for me when I have to back you up--if it comes to that. I’ve explained that you’re a friend of mine who is West looking for prospects.”

“I’m glad to be called a friend of yours--and you told the truth about my business here, Mr Mayor. We start on a square basis.”

With the mayor, followed by the delegation, I was escorted through the main street of Breed City It seemed to afford the gentlemen honest gratification to follow along behind that plug-hat which I had freshly slicked that morning to the best of my ability. I was lunched at the Chamber of Commerce--a half-finished board structure; I was dined by the mayor at his own home; and I returned to the hotel in the evening to find the judge marooned in the office.

“Please don’t scowl at me that way,” I pleaded, humbly. “I was afraid you might drop something that would queer the whole proposition. You are looking over your shoulder as if you expected damnation to jump on to your back!”

“Damnation _is_ getting ready to jump on to our backs,” growled the old man. “One of ’em has got here. He came in on the stage to-night.”

“Which one?”

“The scalawag with the flashy clothes.”

I had looked for pretty quick action, but “Peacock” Pratt had got away sooner than I expected he would. He had been free with his money, I concluded.

I got down-stairs early the next morning, the judge tagging at my heels. But we were not ahead of Mr. Pratt. I didn’t have to hunt for him. He stood out like Jeff Dawlin’s “Peruvian cockatoo” would have shown up in a flock of crows. He followed us into the diningroom, and sat down at the same table and scowled at me with ugly fire in his little eyes above their pouches of flesh. Then he leaned across the table. We three were alone when the White Ghost had frisked away after our breakfasts.

“I’m here,” said he.

“Glad to see you,” said I.

“You’re a dog-eyed liar! You didn’t expect to see me. You thought you had the three of us canned till you could put something across here. It cost me a hundred dollars to grease the lock of that calaboose--and at that I couldn’t bring out the other two. But they’re coming! You needn’t worry any about that part, you punk-faced Piute!”

He dove a pudgy hand down into the breast pocket of his vest. He got his wallet out and banged it down on the table. It was a big wallet and it was well stuffed. Judge Kingsley gulped when he saw it and his hands worked like claws.

“That’s how I’m heeled, and I’ll spend it getting you, if it comes to that.”

He packed the big wallet back into his waistcoat, galloped down his eggs and bacon, and then banged away from the table. He called back over his shoulder, “I wish I hadn’t promised that I’d anchor you and wait for ’em, else I’d take you now and settle my breakfast with you.”

“Did you see that money?” gasped the old man. “It’s my money, There’s a lot of it. My God! I could hardly keep my hands off it.”

“It was a nice, fat wallet, Judge Kingsley. I was glad to see it. It all looks very encouraging.”

“Encouraging! Where do you see any encouragement? Two more men coming full of blood and thunder to join him--and you waiting here for them to get along! Anybody with sense would have that man grabbed by the police on my charges. I thought you told me you were bringing me out here to make the complaint? Now you’re only dillydallying. A man with, sense, I say--”

“Oh, I suppose a man with sense would never have come out here, at all.”

When I went out and stood on the hotel porch, my friend, the stage-driver, lounged up.

“I’ve knocked off for a few days’ vacation,” he explained, sociably. “Sent another man for my trip to Royal City yesterday. Mud was getting on to my nerves. You noticed how it was the day you rode out with me. I came nigh queering myself with you and spoiling one of the pleasantest friendships I ever made. I was mighty glad to see the mayor and the boys taking you around town yesterday.”

I told him I appreciated his regard.

“There’s another reason why I’m taking a few days off,” he confided. “I’ve got a hunch that ‘Dirty-shirt’ Maddox is about due here. And in the case of ‘Dirty-shirt’ Maddox it’s needful to be Johnny-on-the-spot when he hits town if I’m going to cash in on that grubstake I advanced to him.”

I handed him a cigar and he explained further.

“If I ain’t here to clap a hand over his mouth to keep the rum out and the news in, he’ll get four slugs of language-loosener into him inside of four minutes after striking the first board-walk here and then it’s brakes off, all into a gallop and hell-bent up the rise for that ‘Bright Eyes’ stock.”

At a little distance the stylish Mr. Pratt paced his way to and fro on the porch, scowling.

“Please take a good look at that fellow,” said I.

“I’ll do the best I can without smoked glasses,” promised the stage-driver. “I’ve seen him before--and I never liked his style.”

“His name is Pratt,” I said loud enough to be heard by that gentleman. “He seems to hold some kind of a grudge against me and is following me.”

Mr. Pratt let loose a torrent of cuss words that were fully as highly colored as his rig-out. He wound up by saying, “And, by the gods! I’ll get you, and get you fine and plenty!”

“Will you remember that?” I asked the stage-driver.

I realized that I had pretty good control of the movements of Mr. Pratt. For where I did go there went Pratt also. Mr. Pratt was decidedly on his job. Personal hatred moved him and he felt responsible, I suppose, for the interests of the two who were frothing behind the bars of the calaboose in Royal City. He seemed to be guarding me as a morsel for a feast of revenge at which three proposed to sit down. He stuck to me so closely that my big idea became firm enough to handle. The ability to move Pratt, and to be near Pratt at all times by Pratt’s own wish, suggested my scheme to me.

When the noon hour was at hand I led the way back to the hotel, and, while I tidied myself for dinner, taking my turn at the mirror in the wash-room, I had an eye for the manoeuvers of Pratt, who was preening and pluming himself, whisking all the stains of outdoors from his clothing, settling his gorgeous tie, smoothing his waistcoat across his expansive front.

I couldn’t help it--I grinned in his face when I thought of my plan.

I buttoned my frock-coat carefully and started for the dining-room--and Pratt followed close. On the threshold I cast a look within. The White Ghost was not there--he was in eclipse in the kitchen for the moment. I started through the big hall, toward the alcove, crossing near the swing doors. Pratt came on behind me and I halted and turned suddenly on him.

“I’m going to shoot you now and here in your tracks, where every one can look on,” I told him in a whisper--and I kept smiling. “Don’t you dare to pull a gun. I’ve got you covered. I’ve got a revolver in that hand that’s wrapped in the tail of this coat and it’s aimed at you. I’m going to shoot you while I’m smiling. There are men looking at me. I’ll say that the gun went off by accident. It’ll be believed, because we look so sociable. Hold on! Don’t you open that mouth to yell. You’ve got one chance for your life. I’ll tell you now--because I’ll never have a better chance to get you proper if you don’t take that chance I offer.”

I was stalling then, for I had not intended to talk so long. Mr. Pratt stood there as stiff as a wooden man.

He took a peep at my hand that was muffled in the skirt of my frock-coat. The unseen terrifies most. His face grew pale. He continued-to stare at the hidden thing that threatened his life. My smile broadened--it was no assumed smile--for my wrapped hand was empty.

“You may think that this is a queer place for me to hold you up”

If Pratt could have known what was passing in my mind at that moment he would have agreed. It would also have astonished Mr. Pratt to know that I was just then raking my soul in order to think of something to say next.

There seemed to be an infernally long time between the shuttlings of the White Ghost. I felt like an anarchist who has timed a bomb and finds his fuse faulty. Where in the devil’s name was the fool? I knew I couldn’t stand there and tell a serial story to Pratt. A dangerous light was coming into the man’s eyes. Astonishment had held him for the first few moments, then fear had chained him, but finally panic was plainly breaking out in him, and in such cases a victim will run amuck regardless of consequences. I felt that Pratt was getting ready to howl and leap upon me.

Where was the White Ghost?

The thought came to me that this prolonged absence hinted at one consolation--the White Ghost must be filling many orders--his tray would be heaped to the ceiling.

“Your one chance is--” said I--and then it happened!

Without warning, the swing doors burst open under the kick of the White Ghost’s foot and forth from the cavern of the kitchen came the thunderbolt. I had been waiting and listening, and was ready to dodge. The petrified Pratt never stirred a stump. There was a howl from warning diners--a collision, a terrific crash, and Pratt went down under the avalanche. The White Ghost was lugging one of the biggest loads of his career. There were deep plates in which hot and greasy soup swam, there were gravied meats, nappies of vegetables, tea, coffee, macaroni, pies, and puddings. Mr. Pratt was buried under dishes, hot soup blinded his eyes, macaroni was twined around his neck, pies plastered his shirt bosom, and his clothes sopped up liquids. He might have been labeled, “A dinner in eruption!” The White Ghost dove across him and skated along the floor on his nose.

I hurried to Pratt and began to paw the dishes from off him. And having planned just what I was going to do and knowing just where to seek for what I wanted, I dove a hand into Pratt’s inside vest pocket and yanked out the big wallet. Other men ran to help me, there was excitement, and in that mess of provisions which I was cuffing to right and left my handling of the wallet was noticed by no one. I was kneeling close beside Pratt and I shoved the wallet between my knees, and when I arose, slid it up under my coat.

There were plenty of volunteers whose hands were out to boost Mr. Pratt to his feet. His eyes were tightly shut and he was bellowing about the pain the soup was giving him. I took the rôle of close friend and ordered the rescuers to carry Mr. Pratt to the wash-room and give him first aid with towels and water. I followed close upon their heels and elbowed Kingsley along with the push. The judge had stood at some distance during our drama. I pulled his hand up under my coat and set it on the wallet.

“Grab it!” I whispered. “Slip it under your coat; get out of this hotel and around the corner. Jam the money into your stocking and stamp the wallet down into the mud. Be careful no one sees you.”

It was on me that Pratt’s eyes first opened--for I was swabbing the soup out of those eyes with the end of a wet towel.

But when he opened his mouth I swabbed the towel across his lips. Other volunteers were working away at the clothing of the victim with wet towels.

All at once Pratt began to slap himself on the breast and howl. His laments in regard to the hot soup in his eyes had been loud, but in contrast to his latest outburst they were as the voice of the chickadee compared with the roar of the lion. After he had beat upon his breast, he dove a greasy hand into his vest pocket. It was empty. His eyes goggled, his face grew purple, he shouted, he swore, and he raved.

He had been done, trimmed, robbed, frisked, touched--so were his bellowings! He searched his soul for synonyms with which to announce to the world that his wallet had been stolen. And then he accused me--accused me with violence and profanity.

“Just one moment, sir,” I suggested, taking advantage of a moment when Mr. Pratt was choking. “You are sure those dishes didn’t crack your skull a bit and injure your brain?”

After spitting many oaths, Mr. Pratt declared that he was all right and knew what he was talking about.

“You’ll have to back that up,” I told him. “Fifty men were looking at you when that thing happened. I have not been out of the sight of those men since. You say it was a large wallet.” I unbuttoned my coat and slung it open. “Will any gentleman present kindly search me?”

“He is going too far when he shoots off his mouth about a gent like you,” declared somebody in the crowd. “We all saw you. All you did was try to help the son of a gun out of his mess--and that’s all the thanks you get!”

“Mistakes are bound to occur. I demand that some gentleman make sure that I have no wallet on my person. My own money is in a roll in my trousers pocket.”

A solid-looking citizen searched me, uttering apologies. “There ain’t any wallet on this gent, and you’d better ask his pardon for remarks offered,” suggested the citizen.

But Pratt only raved the louder.

“I’d like to say a word just here,” called a voice. The stage-driver pushed to the front. “You all know me and you know I ain’t any liar. This gent, here, is a friend of mine and he wouldn’t do dirt to anybody. He’s a friend of our mayor, too.” He put his hand affectionately on my shoulder. “But as for that other cuss, there, in the piebald clothes, I heard him make threats not longer ago than this morning that he would get my friend, and get him good and plenty.”

“Maybe you think I arranged to have those seventeen dinners dumped over me so as to make the plot a good one, you pie-eyed horse-walloper, you,” squealed Pratt, beginning to “weave” in his fury like a caged bear.

“I wouldn’t wonder a mite,” replied the driver, coolly. “When I heard you threatening to get my friend you was mad enough to try on most anything.”

“He got my money, I tell you. I felt him at my pocket while I was trying to get my senses back. Blast you all for infernal fools, I’ve been robbed right before your eyes and you’re backing up the thief.”

There was a stir at the door and the crowd glanced that way and parted respectfully. It was His Honor the Mayor of Breed City. He stood for a few moments and listened to the language Pratt addressed to me. Then he broke in with authority:

“Just a moment, citizens! There’s a lot about this affair, here, that I know and cannot tell. As for that knave who accuses Mr. Mann, I declare on my honor that he is a dangerous foe to this city. He has come here to try to ruin it if his scheme works.”

Mr. Pratt at this point managed to control the amazement that was provoked by the appearance of this new champion.

“I tell you, Mayor,” he shouted, “you’ve got the wrong dope about me. Dragg tried to get me into the scheme, but I----”

“You are convicting yourself right now out of your own mouth,” broke in the mayor. He marched up to Pratt, finger upraised: “You are as dangerous here as a dynamite bomb. I’ll allow you thirty minutes to get out of town. Get to those other two knaves and warn them that they’ll be lynched if they show up here--and I’ll lead the lynching-bee.”

There was immediate change in Mr. Pratt’s demeanor and the mayor and the bystanders listened to him. The fat face was lined with grief, and tears ran down his cheeks and mingled with the grub stains.

“I’m not lying about that wallet, gents. I’ve lost my bundle. It has been stolen. That’s a nice word to go out about Breed City--that a visitor to town loses his wad and the mayor backs up the man who stole it!”

“Silence!” said the mayor.

“Then I’ll simply say that I’ve lost my money--and how about law and order in a city that will let a man be trimmed in that style? Hold on one minute, Mr. Mayor! It isn’t merely a case of my own money! If it was, I’d shut up now and pass on. But I had along with mine the money of a good friend who trusted me with his roll. I left him in the calaboose back on the trail and I brought out his money to take care of it for him, for he was afraid they’d get to him for it. That’s God’s truth, Mayor.”

In a crowd there may be found champions for the under dog--even when a mayor has turned down his thumb. I heard murmurs. One voice suggested that the matter better be looked into--the good name of Breed City demanded it.

“I haven’t much to say in this business, even though this man has accused me,” I said in the silence that followed. “Now that you are on the subject of your money, Mr. Pratt, and are making such a squeal in regard to the loss of it, will you allow me to ask you how much of it was money you stole in the East--especially from Zebulon Kingsley of Levant?”

If I had struck “Peacock” Pratt between the eyes the effect could not have been more noticeable. Most of those men who were present had been trained to gauge the human expression in that region of plain and mountain where life itself sometimes depends on the ability to judge between bluff and resolve. His fat cheeks flushed and then they grew pale. That a stranger in the Far West should be able to cast in his teeth one of his latest exploits staggered him. He tried to speak and couldn’t.

“Pratt, you have twenty-two more minutes left of that half hour,” stated the mayor, after silence had continued for some moments.

“I suppose that has to go for to-day,” said Pratt. “But it doesn’t go for to-morrow--nor for next day if my friends and I can get back here, Mr. Mayor! Lynch or no lynch!”

He buttoned his waistcoat, took a mournful look at himself in the wash-room mirror, and headed for a livery-stable which a sarcastic bystander recommended. I knew that threat to come back wasn’t mere talk. Mr. Pratt had good reason to take the risks!

I took my first chance and escaped from the populace of Breed City to hunt up Kingsley in the little room in the hotel.

“How much?” I was all a-tremble.

“A little over six thousand dollars. Mostly five-hundred-dollar bills. Part of it is tied up in a separate package and marked with Dawlin’s name.” The judge was not very enthusiastic.

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“In order to be on the right side and make allowance for delays here and there, we ought to leave here tomorrow, Judge Kingsley. And even then we’d be having hours for a margin--not days. I felt pretty good when I heard Pratt say that he had Dawlin’s money along. I figured there would be more between the two of ’em.”

“Then it’s all over, is it? We’re beaten, eh?”

“What do _you_ think?”

“I think we are.”

“Well, sir,” I said, “you and I have always seemed to make more progress when I take the opposite side in an argument. I predict that we shall win out. Please hand over that money.”

“The money is mine--it was stolen from me. You’re too reckless to handle money. We’re beaten, I tell you. I’ll send that money home to my wife and daughter. It’s something for them to live on. I’ll kill myself out here.”

Judge Kingsley put both hands over his breast pocket. He was hysterical. There was no reasoning with him and so I rose from the bed, walked across the room, and snapped a finger under his nose. Zebulon Kingsley must not have money in his pocket--in that case I could not handle him or trust him to stay with me!

“Give--me--that--money!”

He stared and groaned and obeyed.

I divided the bills into packets, tucked them into my various pockets, and walked out of the room.

“This money needs an airing,” I informed the judge. “I’ll take it outdoors and give it one. It has been in some mighty bad company.”

XXII--MONEY ON THE GALLOP

IN most circumstances, being padded with bills to the amount of six thousand dollars would be comfortably warming. But in my case the possession of that sum only provoked irritation.

I had set out to save Zebulon Kingsley’s name and the peace of mind of his family. The sum I had replevined by my scheme of justice fell far short of what we needed--and there was the promise I had given Dodovah Vose, as well.

From the hotel porch I saw my friend, the stage-driver, humping it toward me.

“I have tripped, tied, and gagged him. That was the only thing to do! He got here and he got two drinks into himself before I could slip the bridle on him. In another two minutes he would have been jumping clear off’n the ground, head and tail up, snorting out everything he knows. But I got to him--and I’ve laid him away, tied and gagged. Go to it, Mr. Mann, go to it, I tell you!”

He certainly was some excited!

“Are you talking about a man or a cayuse?” I asked. “I’m talking about ‘Dirty-shirt’--he’s just in from Blacksnake Gully ahead of the news. Say, they’ve struck a brown crumble in ‘Bright Eyes’ with gold set into the mush like raisins in a drunken cook’s pudding. You’re a sport and a friend of mine. I’m letting you in. Come along!”

He ran away a little distance and whirled and halted with the eager air of a dog who is inviting his master to follow. I’ll bet if he had had long ears he would have perked them; if he had had a tail he would have wagged it.

“You’re a sport--and I know it. Come along,” he called.

Along the street came loafing the individual who had tried to sell me “Bright Eyes” stock, and he heard that call.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, pard,” he advised the driver. “He’s no sport. I have tried him out. He won’t take a chance. I gave him a chance on some mining shares.”

“What shares?” asked the stage-driver.

“‘Bright Eyes’ in the Blacksnake.”

My friend was truly a good actor. He showed no interest.

“Shift the name to ‘blacked eyes.’ Yes, and both of ’em closed at that. No good!”

“I tell you there’s something in the air,” insisted the other. “It’s a fair gamble at twenty-five cents a share.” He pulled out some papers and walked up to me.

“You look like ready money, my friend. I’d rather play the wheel just now than be rich. I’m tied in here by the mud and it’s getting on to my nerves. Take ten thousand at twenty-five cents. I’ll close out to you.”

“Hold on!” sang out the driver, and he managed to smuggle a wink to me while he was tugging papers out of his pocket on his way back to join us. “If you’re in the market for ‘Bright Eyes,’ Eastern fellow, here’s ten thousand shares for fifteen cents a share.”.

“Don’t you come butting in on my market,” protested the prospector, elbowing the driver away. “I got to this gent first.”

“Those shares have been used all over this section for counters in poker games when beans got too expensive,” sneered the driver.

The prospector pulled out more papers.

“If you’ll take twenty thousand at ten cents a share I’ll pass ’em over. I was intending to hold on to ten thousand shares for a gamble. I tell you there’s something, somehow, somewhere, that says the hunch is out for ‘Bright Eyes.’ But I’ll let go for ten cents if you’ll take the bunch.”

“That’s no better offer than you made the other night,” I stated.

“I was pretty drunk, then, and I didn’t mean to make it. I’m daffy now, I reckon, or I wouldn’t be doing it over again.”

I stood there and looked them over and for the first time I gave a little real thought to that gold-mine proposition. Up to then the matter had been mere sound, shooting into one ear and out the other. I had been having plenty to think about in other lines.

It struck me that I was being played for a sucker by a couple of mighty awkward amateurs. Talk about Zebulon Kingsley buying a gold brick! That affair had been well buttered by some slick operators. What those two chaps were trying on me was truly raw work. That stage-driver--I didn’t even know his name--must have a healthy hate for me hidden deep down in him! I have cuffed a dog in my life and had him show more affection afterward, but I couldn’t believe that such treatment helped to mellow love in a human being. I knew it wouldn’t improve my own disposition any. In my thoughts I had some excuse for the two. They had probably been brought up to believe that the ordinary Easterner who had not already bought some punk gold-mine stock was thriftily saving up to buy some.

“There’s one of ’em born every minute,” I remarked to the stage-driver, “but I didn’t know I looked so much like one. Run away, the two of you, and fan yourselves with that stock; that’s the only way you’ll ever raise any wind with it.”

“You ain’t talking to me, are you--to me--Wash Flye?” inquired the driver.

“I am, if that’s your name--and it seems to fit you! But you are not fly enough!”

He opened eyes and mouth on me, stepped back a few feet, and visibly swelled.

“Well, my-y-y Ga-a-awd!” he wailed. “If that ain’t using the butt end of the whip on a willing friend, may I never sort webbin’s again!”

There was truly something sincere in his distress. But that sudden warming-up to me on the prairie after I had manhandled him, his unaccountable friendliness, his jacking his job for a few days in order to dog me about Breed City--the whole thing was too openly a plant.

“You’re a good actor. No wonder you’re in the stage business, Flye,” was my poor joke.

He looked at me for a full minute. Then he turned on the other man.

“It’s you, you horn-gilled wump, with your sashay prices and your drunken man’s gab--it’s you that has put me in wrong with a friend,” he squealed. “He thinks I’m like you are! He thinks I’m in mush with you on a brace! I’ll show him and you!” He leaped forward and began to kick the prospector with fury. The latter was a big and rather torpid person and he seemed to be in a sort of daze at first, and stood still while Mr. Flye kicked him. Then he turned and knocked Mr. Flye down; he picked him up and knocked him down again.

It struck me that if this were acting between friends it was getting too realistic. The driver’s face was bloody and he lay where he fell, his eyes closed.

I jumped between and pushed the prospector away. He struck at me and I was obliged to hit him a clip or two before he would hold off. We had a fairly good audience, but fisticuffs in Breed, when the muddy season made tempers short, seemed to stir only mild interest.

I found Mr. Flye on his knees and “weaving” weakly when I turned to him.

“I ain’t no fighter--I don’t pretend to be a fighter,” he mumbled. “I knew he was going to lick me if I kicked him. But that’s all right! There’s three teeth loose and my eyes are bunging! I can feel ’em! But it’s all right. If anybody thinks it was a scuffle between friends, he’d better take another think. I’ve took a licking to show some folks that there’s such a thing as being mistook in a man.”

I hadn’t straightened out my opinions, exactly, but I felt sudden pity and new respect for Mr. Flye, and some emotion even deeper. I helped him to his feet and took him into the wash-room of the hotel and fixed him up as best I could.

“I don’t blame you so very much,” he kept assuring me, whimpering through his bruised and bleeding lips. “It probably hasn’t seemed natural to you--it hasn’t seemed natural to me. This world is full of crooks and I s’pose you’ve been up against a lot of ’em. I done one crooked thing myself once when I kept water away from a drove of hogs for two days and then let ’em drink all they could hold just before I sold ’em live weight to a Snake River drover. But that drover had stolen two cayuses off’n my uncle! I didn’t know what I could do to show you, sir! Probably what I have done don’t show you. But I’ve done my best. It was all I could think of on short notice. I’ll let a dozen men beat me up if you will only understand that I ain’t going to do you or try to do you!”

That spirit of humble martyrdom was certainly getting to me!

“Look here, Mr Flye,” I blurted, “I don’t understand at all. Why in blazes are you taking all this interest in me?”

He gazed at me out of those pathetic, pale-blue eyes around which blue-black circles were settling. It was a lingering and wistful gaze.

“I don’t know, sir. It came over me all of a sudden. It ain’t often I take to anybody. It just came over me. You’re a real gent--you knowed just how to handle me. You know how to handle me now! Ain’t you doing the friendly act, hey?”

We were alone in the wash-room; the guests of the hotel flocked there only at meal-time.

“You can see how it looked to me--a stranger here--you two fellows chasing me up!”

“I don’t blame you, sir,” he agreed, meekly. “This world is full of crooks.”

“I have some money with me. It isn’t mine. I need more in a hurry--it’s to save a man’s name--save him from death, perhaps!” I couldn’t hold in. “It’s to save his daughter, too. I’m in love with her. I have been for years! It’s all I can think about. When you spoke of ‘Bright Eyes’ I felt--I felt--” I stopped and gulped.

“I reckon I know how you feel,” stated Mr. Flye, wagging that mussed-up head of his. “I know a girl. There’s hardly a minute when I ain’t thinking about her. She hasn’t paid no attention to me, but I’m going to her after I make my clean-up on ‘Bright Eyes’! It makes ’em think twice when there’s money. I ain’t much--”

“I’m desperate--I’m half crazy, Flye! This mine! Are you fooling me?”

He straightened and put his hand up like a man taking the oath. .

“I wanted you to get in because I liked you, sir. That’s why I was after you. But now that you say that you need money I’m begging and imploring you! If money will do what you say it will in your case, I say ’fore God you’ll commit a sin if you don’t grab in! I know it! It has come. ‘Dirty-shirt’ don’t know how to lie about it. The strike has been made. Take my word,” he pleaded.

“I’ll do it,” I told him. “I believe you’re trying to do an honest turn for me.” I put out my hand and he took it.

“Thank the Lord!” he said, and there was a lot of manliness about Mr. Wash Flye at that moment. “That licking was a good investment.” He said it devoutly.

“But will that fellow sell now?”

“Can you handle his twenty thousand shares at ten cents--two thousand dollars?”

“Yes.”

“When I offered at fifteen I was trying to beat him down to ten. Don’t give a cent more. Go show him the money and say you’re willing to be buncoed once in your life. And hurry--for the love of Sancho, hurry!”

I found the prospector watching a roulette game with the sour gaze of a busted gambler. He went into the corner with me when I jerked invitation with my chin.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he growled, when I mentioned the stock. “And I wouldn’t do business with you anyway, you--”

I unfolded four five-hundred-dollar bills. He stopped his declaration as suddenly as if I had pinched his throat.

“Money is money, I suppose,” said he, “though your shin-plasters from the East are poor things alongside the good hard coin.”

“There’s the bank across the street, and they’ll give you the good hard coin, mister.”

He pulled out his packet and I verified the amount of the certificates.

I went to the bank in his company, for he seemed to be bothered with the notion that those five-hundred-dollar bills needed me as introducer and sponsor. Then he hotfooted out, weighted with the coin. In spite of myself and of my fresh faith in Mr. Flye, my heart sank considerably when I saw that money take legs. The cashier was one of the amiable citizens I had met in the delegation from the Chamber of Commerce.

“Making a little investment?” he inquired, sociably.

“A foolish one, I am afraid. But an Easterner who hasn’t had a flier in a gold-mine at least once in his life gets to feeling lonesome after a time. That chap has been chasing me around with stock and a story and I have tossed a little spare change to him.”

The cashier peered through the wicket and beamed with new respect on a man who could speak of two thousand dollars as spare change.

“There are mines--and then there are mines,” he suggested.

I thought I might as well try my new tune over on this piano.

“It’s a proposition called ‘Two Bright Eyes.” I tried to seem indifferent, but my heart was only about an inch below my larynx and I could hardly get the words out.

I thought he would never speak. He scratched his nose and fiddled with his ear. I wanted to reach in and shake him so that he would say something, even if he would only say that I had been nicely fooled.

“The property had rather a promising outlook at one time, sir. It was located by good prospectors and afterward two or three other claims were taken in. The section is first-rate!”

Not wildly encouraging.

“But the stock hasn’t been much thought of in these parts--it has been footballed around a lot. Still”--he twisted his mustache and waited a few moments--“well, I’ll tell you this confidentially, if I wasn’t a bank man--and you know we have to move in grooves of caution--if I could afford to do a little gambling I think I would have picked up a small bunch of this loose stock. I got a flicker of a hint from a mining engineer who banks here. Nothing definite--they can’t talk much. But I know they have been running new leads. The first development wasn’t very scientific, I understand.”

“Does a--When they make a real strike--do prices run up pretty sudden?” I managed to ask.

He smiled. “I see you have never been in a mining town when a bonanza toots. Everybody goes crazy. They’ll climb over one another to buy stock. Those who can’t buy stock go racing off to see what they can grab in the way of adjacent claims. Very exciting, sir! Wish we might show you a circus of that kind while you’re in town.”

When I went out on the street I found Mr. Flye waiting around the corner.

“You traded?” he gasped. “He’s over there tossing away twenty-dollar gold pieces!”

“I’ve got twenty thousand shares,” I said, dolefully.

“Then I’m going to let ‘Dirty-shirt’ loose. He’ll swell up and bust if I don’t get that gag out of his mouth.”

“But will anybody believe what he says?”

Honestly, a gold-mine was unreal to me! I had Eastern prejudices.

“You go over there and stand on the hotel porch, sir! You’ll see almighty sudden how news hits a mining town. ‘Dirty-shirt’ Maddox don’t have to bring a gold-mine down into Breed City. He’s the bulletin, that’s all. There’ll be proof enough pretty close on his heels.”

So I went over on the tavern porch. Five minutes later I realized that the bulletin was loose. “It” came whooping around a corner of the street.

Mr. Maddox’s nickname fitted him perfectly; in fact, he was well caked with mud from head to feet. Plainly he had not stopped to pick dry spots in his rush down to Breed City. He was shaking a canvas bag over his head with one hand and in the other flourished a handful of stock certificates.

“Who’s got ‘Bright Eyes’? They’ve hit it! High grade from Buffalo Hump clear through the earth to Chiny! Whoosh! Who wants ‘Bright Eyes’? Here’s some that’s loose. And there ain’t much loose, gents! They have been picking it up! High grade and pockets full of crumble!”

He shook the canvas bag and opened it when men went crowding about him.

“There he is,” announced Mr. Flye at my side.

“Looks the part,” said I.

“After I had rubbed his jaws where the gag had hurt,” confided my friend, “he told me that he ain’t more’n four jumps ahead of the boss engineer expert who is bringing out the samples for the report. All you’ve got to do now, sir, is to sit tight and look wise!”

My unlucky friend could not do much looking for his part; his eyes were swelled so badly that he could hardly open them.

“Look here, Mr. Flye,” I said, with a lot of repentance, “I must seem to you like pretty much of a crab. I don’t know how--”

“It was only a gold-mine guess, according to your notion, sir. And I know how an Easterner must feel on that point. But when I have a friend and make up my mind to let him in on a good thing I propose to do it, even if I have to apologize to him afterward for being almighty fresh. So I--”

“Don’t make me feel worse than I am feeling!”

There was a crowd in the street of Breed City by that time and Mr. Maddox, in the center of it, had worked himself into a frenzy of excitement and was offering “Bright Eyes” stock at a million dollars a share.

“Don’t mind that kind of talk,” advised Mr. Flye. “He’s half tight, and his coco ain’t just right when he gets to talking in a crowd, but you needn’t worry but what his news is all right. And you can see for yourself!”

Several men were larruping cayuses up the street, bags dangling from saddle-bows.

“It’s the first of the rush for the ‘Bright Eyes’ section. Some of the critters out this way can beat firemen for quick action,” stated Mr. Flye. Perhaps to emphasize the fact that now at last he felt himself on a footing of intimate friendship with me, he plucked a cigar from my vest pocket and lighted up.

“I see you don’t smoke--you probably chaw,” he suggested, and he handed his plug to me.

When I state here that I promptly took the plug, whittled off a chunk, palmed it, and put some gum into my mouth, the depth of my esteem for Mr. Flye may be understood. I would rather have chewed that tobacco than hurt his feelings by refusing a friendly offer.

While we stood there a bearded man rode down the street, mud-covered.

“And there’s the man who will back me up!” squealed Maddox. “There comes the boss engineer! He knows what’s under cover in ‘Bright Eyes’!”

But the bearded man rode right through the crowd without answering questions. He alighted in front of the bank and went in, tugging something in his hand.

As a new, and somewhat heavy, stockholder in “Bright Eyes” gold-mine, I reckoned I’d try to get a little information from that engineer--I was quite sure that an Eastern capitalist who wore a silk hat and had a friend in the bank cashier might expect a little more attention than a street bystander. Therefore, with a word to my friend Flye I went over to find out the best or the worst.

XXIII--THE CLEAN-UP

AFTER I had been properly indorsed by the cashier, the mining engineer gave me some mighty comforting information, though I did not understand the technical lingo very well. He was conservative; he was not at all excited. We could hear “Dirty-shirt” still orating.

“Of course that old lunatic doesn’t know what he is talking about,” said the engineer. “There are always some of that sort to run and rant and stir up excitement and start poor fools off on a wild-goose chase.”

He opened a sack and showed me ore and hunks of crumbly rock which looked like nothing special. I had rather expected to see nuggets. He explained that the crumbly stuff was high grade, very much so, but there were only scattered pockets of it in the “Bright Eyes” claim.

“The parties who first located the property,” said he, “simply skim in for what pockets they were able to open. They had to pack all their ore out on cayuses and ship it to Tacoma, and there was no profit to speak of unless the ore yielded over a couple hundred dollars a ton. So when they quit the job the mine seemed to be played out.” Then he went on with his technical talk, and about all I could do was to blink and try to look wise.

“You can be sure that Newell knows what he is talking about,” put in the cashier.

I wished _I_ knew. I wanted to butt in with some excited questions. ‘But I did understand that the men who had gathered up most of the stock of the mine were going to build a smelter and tackle the thing right end to. There was plenty of ore and the mine would pay after development was the comforting information handed to me at last.

“I beg your pardon, but how many shares went to you in that trade you just made?” asked the cashier. “That is, if you’re willing to tell me.”

“Twenty thousand--I bought for ten cents a share.” The engineer showed some surprise.

“I didn’t think so much of the loose stuff was corralled in one bunch; we thought what we hadn’t picked up was scattered so wide that we wouldn’t bother to chase it,” said he. “How did you happen to grab in on it?”

I didn’t propose to betray Mr. Flye.

“Oh, it was just a gamble! A fellow kept following around after me and I bought to get rid of him.”

“Some of you Eastern Yankees certainly can use your noses for something else than to talk through,” said the engineer.

“If I smelled a bargain when I bought that stock I reckon it must have been hunch instead of knowledge.”

“Well, stick by and stand your assessment for the smelter and you won’t be sorry.”

Mayor Ware and several other citizens came hurrying to have the news about “Bright Eyes” confirmed. I stood at one side for a time, listening and meditating. When the cashier told them of my lucky strike they were immensely tickled.

“But you know we Easterners never can make a goldmine seem real,” I said.

“In most cases where they’re selling stock East the mines are not real. But you’re West, now, and you happened in on the ground floor,” said the mayor. “I am sorry I’m not there, too.”

“You can be,” I promptly informed him. “I’m called back home. I’m in a hurry. I don’t know anything about gold-mines. I can’t come back here to watch my interests. You folks out here know all about mines and values. My stock is for sale if anybody wants it.”

“What price?” inquired the mayor. “We might make up a little syndicate. How much do you want for the stock?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed, frankly. “It’s all new to me. I paid ten cents a share. When a gold-mine gets to paying I don’t know how much it pays.”

“It depends on the mine,” stated the engineer. “We can do a pretty good job of guessing in our line, but we can’t see all that’s underground.”

I pulled out my packet of stock.

“I tell you honestly, gentlemen, this seems more or less like a joke to me--and that being the case I’ll sell cheap.”

“It’s really worth par--or it will be in time, I’m sure,” stated the mayor, in honest fashion. “We are under great obligations to you, sir, and we don’t want to take advantage of you in any way.”

“And I feel just that same way toward you, gentlemen,” I assured them. “There’s always the element of a gamble in mining, I’m sure, though I don’t know much about it. Your mine may flush out. I’ll tell you what I’ll do--I’ll meet you on a half-way basis. I’ll sell for half price--fifty cents on a dollar. Give me ten thousand dollars and you own the stock.”

They stepped aside and conferred.

“I suppose you’ll be in town a few days longer!” suggested the mayor.

“If I can get out of here to-night I want to go. I must go.”

“I say again, we don’t want to take any advantage of you because you are obliged to leave in such a hurry. This may seem like queer talk for business men to make--to offer more than the price asked. But we want you to remember that Breed City is grateful.”

“I really am not asking for any presents,” I said.

That was jackass talk for me to make, and I knew it. Lord! we needed all the money we could scrape. But a funny sort of pride swelled up in me. I did not propose to be outdone in politeness. Never had I had municipal attentions shown to my humble self before I came to Breed City. They did not realize all the good it had done me.

“This is no proposition of that sort,” declared the mayor. “But we are so sure of Newell’s judgment that we know we shall make big profits on this stock. There are six of us. We propose to give you twelve thousand dollars, so that the amount you have paid for the stock will be handed back to you also. We’d like you to remember that Breed City was good to you to the extent of ten thousand dollars’ clear profit.”

That asinine pride was prompting me to split the difference with them. But across the street just then I saw the old judge peering about, evidently in a panic of anxiety about me because I had been gone so long with all that money. Another memory jogged me at that moment. I was morally bound to hand Dodovah Vose some profit on his five hundred dollars. Haggling with those enthusiastic citizens of Breed would be feeding my fool pride at the expense of two old men.

“It’s a trade, gentlemen, with all thanks to you!”

The mayor was president of the bank and I guess the rest were directors; at any rate, the cashier, in about two minutes, was asking me how I would have it!

I asked for currency--big bills. I had a boyish, eager hankering to lug the money to the judge, to show it to him, to have him count it and feel it and know that he could face the taxpayers of Levant, even if he couldn’t satisfy all his creditors. But even bankruptcy, thought I, was not State prison; my uncle would be cheated out of that part of his revenge. My fingers itched and my eyes shone while the cashier nipped at the comers of the bills with moistened fingers. He wrapped them in oiled paper and I sunk them carefully in my clothes!

I made as quick a getaway as politeness would allow.

As I remember it, I left a promise to come back to Breed City and settle down!

I caught Judge Kingsley by the arm and hurried him down-street and into the hotel.

The moment we were in our room I began jamming packages of money into his hands.

“Look at it! Feel of it! Smell of it!” I urged. “Judge, I took that money out for an airing and the junket did it lots of good.”

He did not understand. I guess he thought I’d merely brought back the Pratt money and had gone crazy while I was out with it.

“There’s sixteen thousand dollars net and clear for us, Judge Kingsley! And I reckon we won’t hunt up Pratt and hand back the thousand that’s over and above his graft from you. He’s a liberal gentleman and he ought to be willing to pay our expenses and for wear and tear. Now pack up, sir!” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I can’t stop to tell you the story just yet. We’ll have it on the way.”

I began to pack the money into my pockets.

He was deathly white when he stood up, and he staggered against the wall.

“On the way! Where?” he gasped.

“Home!” I yelled, frolicking like a lad. “Home! And we’ve got to make a race of it if we propose to head Uncle Deck Sidney under the wire!”

Ten minutes later I was humping around Breed City, trying to find out how I could escape.

The stage would not leave till morning. And that stage would take us to Royal City, and blamed if I wanted to go through Royal City.

I knew well enough, of course, that Pratt had gone back there to join his forces and I could hardly hope that the forces were still in jail.

On the new railroad which they were building into Breed only a part of the rails were down; they were not operating trains. There was no stage line through the broken country in that direction.

The Buffalo Hump Mountains were to the south, and to the east the Bitter Root range raised obstructions.

I had the judge on my back, as it were! I couldn’t wake him up to what had happened. He appeared to be mentally and physically prostrated. I myself could have straddled a cayuse and ducked out over the broken country. But the judge must have wheels under him when he was moved.

There seemed to be nothing to do but smash through Royal City, taking our chances. I felt that the citizens there wouldn’t see us murdered on the street, but they could not be expected to go along and guard us all the way home. We would have three buzzards on our trail!

I was mighty blue and some scared. I was wishing that I had not indulged that boyish impulse to carry my fortune in cash. I would be fine picking for those devils! Take that money and the judge, and I had two pretty heavy parcels to tug back to the East. The dusk came down on Breed before I had braced myself to make the jump.

No, there was nothing else to it!

In order to catch trains and get to Levant ahead of calamity we must go back across Callas prairie and run the gantlet of those three renegades.