Curly Part 27

And now the whirlwind had dropped him on the doorstep of a 'dobe shack to think the matter over quietly and have a look at himself. He was an orphan now, poor as a wolf, hunted, desperate, herded with thieves. What was the use of trying to earn an honest living when the first respectable person he met would begin the conversation by shooting him all to pieces?

Then he heard McCalmont calling him: "Say, can yo' lawds.h.i.+p oblige me with the loan of a pin?"

His lords.h.i.+p! The poor chap remembered now that he was Viscount Balshannon, Baron Blandon, and several different sorts of baronets.

"Yo' lawds.h.i.+p!"

"McCalmont," he howled, "you brute!"

Then he heard Curly telling her father to behave himself, and his mind went off grazing again over the range of his troubles. There was that Curly, the famous desperado, the fighting frontiersman, the man who had saved his life--and all of a sudden he had to think of him--of her--as a poor girl crazy with pain. Jim had to face a fact which had hit his very soul, turned the world upside down, and left him wriggling. It was no use being hostile or disappointed; he couldn't make believe he was glad. Curly didn't feel like a chum or a partner now; he couldn't imagine her as any sort of sister or friend. She just filled his life until there was nothing else to care for on earth, and it made his bones ache.

Then McCalmont began to work with some sort of surgical instruments, probing her wound for the bullet. He heard her make little moans, whimpers, and stopped his ears with his fingers. Then she screamed.

Jim was shaking all over, but with that scream he knew what had happened to himself. He had fallen head over ears in love with that same Curly.

After a long time McCalmont came out of the shack and sat down alongside of Jim. The robber was white as a ghost; he was trembling and gulping for breath.

"Here," he cried, "you take this."

Jim took the thing in his hand--a flattened bullet, all torn around the edges and streaked with blood.

For some time he just sat staring at that bullet, scared by his own thoughts. "Captain," says he at last, "Curly's not dying?"

"Why, not to any great extent, my son." McCalmont lay back on a dirt floor, and yawned. "He's sleeping a whole lot now, and if you'll stay around in case he wakes, I'll take a few myself; I'm kinder tired."

The robber dropped off to sleep, and Jim sat watching beside him. At noon the boys off duty in the yard called him to dinner, but McCalmont slept far into the afternoon. Then of a sudden he started broad awake, his hand on his gun, staring out at the blazing heat of the desert.

"That's all right," says he; "three hours' rest is enough for hawsses and robbers, so I reckon I've took more'n my share."

"Curly's still sleeping," says Jim.

"I'll catch some lunch, then."

Jim watched him ranging about the yard, bread in one hand, meat in the other, eating his dinner while he hustled his men to work. He kept three young robbers busy until the camp gear was stowed for travel, and all the litter was hid away out of sight. Then he made them bury the ashes of the camp fire, and smooth over all the tracks until the ground looked as though there had been no visitors for a week.

After that he brought a pencil and notebook for Jim.

"I want you to write," he said; "scrawl yo' worst, and put down all the spellin' ignorant. Write:--'Dere Bill, I'm gawn with the buckboard for grub. Back this even.'--B. Brown.' Yes, that will do."

He took the book from Jim, tore out the leaf, and hung it on the door conspicuous.

"Thar's times," he said, "when sheriffs and marshals, and posses of virtuous citizens gets out on the warpath in pursuit of robbers. They comes pointing along mighty suspicious, and reads the tracks on the ground, and notes the signs, and sniffs the little smells, and in they'r ignorant way draws false concloosions. Meanwhile the robbers has adjourned."

Jim's face was as long as a coffin. "Captain," says he, "I've been thinking."

"I'm sorry yo're took bad, my son." The robber sat down beside him. "Let me see yo' tongue."

"Don't laugh at me. Will you mind, Captain McCalmont--if--if I speak of Curly--just this once--as--as a woman?"

"Turn yo' wolf loose, my son, I'm hearing."

"I love her, sir."

"Same here, Jim."

"Do you mind, though?"

"My boy, when I wanted to marry her mother, I jest up an' asked her."

"I'm not good enough for her."

"That's so, and yet I reckon Curly's been dead gentle with you-all. Why, she sure sits on all our haids."

"I'm afraid she doesn't care for me yet."

"I expaict, Jim, that an eye-doctor is what you need."

"And you'll consent?"

"If Curly consents, on one condition. You get her safely out of this country, you take her to civilised life, whar she can stay good, away from us--thieves. Take her to the Old Country."

"To starve!"

"I'll see to that. I've left enough wealth with Chalkeye to give you a start in life. He came down yesterday mawning to see you-all at La Morita--you were out."

"Do you suppose," says Jim, getting hot, "that I'd take your money?"

"If you take my child, yo're not above taking my money, Lord Balshannon!"

Jim pawed his gun--"I take no stolen money!"

"Yo're speaking too loud," says McCalmont, "come over by the corral."

He walked over to the bars of the corral, Jim following.

"And now," McCalmont's voice went softer than ever, "I may allude to the fact that if any cur insults my daughter or me, there is apt to be some unpleasantness."

"Don't you think," says Jim, his hand on his gun, "that we had better go a little further off--so that Curly won't be disturbed when we fire?"

"Why, boy, air you proposin' to dispense yo' gun at me?"

"As you please! You called me a cur--and you'll eat your words or fight!"

"And you only called me a thief? Wall, I sh.o.r.ely am for a fact, and you're not a cur--no. I reckon I was some impulsive in saying that.

Come, we won't quar'l, for I like you a whole lot for yo' playing up against me that-a-way. What are yo' plans?"

Jim was breathing hard and acting defiant still. "I want to join your gang!"

"Which I accepts you glad, for I ain't refusing shelter to any hunted man."