Curly Part 29

The breaking out of evil pa.s.sions between the cowboys and the Grave City citizens opened my eye to the fact that this city was getting a whole lot obsolete since the mines began to peter out. Its population of twelve thousand a.s.sorted criminals had shrunken away to mere survivals living to save the expense of funeral pomps. Counting in tramps, tourists, and quite a few dogs, expected visitors and the dear departed, these ruins claimed a population of one thousand persons, mostly escaped from penitentiary. It made me feel lonesome to think of such a tribe with its mean ways, distorted intellects, and narrow views about me.

On the other hand, there was Bisley, a sure live mining town in the Mule Pa.s.s, where the people were youthful, happy, and sympathetic. After that melancholy victory of mine at La Morita I came b.u.t.ting along to Bisley, where I reckoned I could have a gla.s.s of lager beer without being shot to any great extent. Besides that, United States Marshal Hawkins lives there, who's always been a white man and a good friend to me. I found his house away up the gulch, above Bisley City, and he being to home, just whirled right in, telling him how sick my heart was, and how my fur was all bristles.

He said he was disgusted with me for getting mixed up with local politics and robbers.

Naturally I explained how I'd only been acting as second in a duel between Balshannon and that Ryan.

He agreed I was modest in the way I put my case, and that I ought to be hanged some in the public interest.

"How about the robbers?" says he.

"Is there robbers about?" says I. "Is thar really now?"

He snapped out news of the La Morita raid that very morning, and I own up I was shocked all to pieces when he told me what had happened to those fragile guards.

"Why, man," says he, "it's all your doing, and I had to wire for the dog-gone cavalry."

"Cavalry?" says I. "Pore things; d'you reckon they'll get sore feet?"

"I opine," says the Marshal, "that you'll get a sore neck soon and sudden, you double-dealing, cattle-stealing, hoss thief. Whar do you think you'll go to when you're lynched?"

So he went on denouncing around until it was time to eat, then asked me to dinner. After that Mrs. Hawkins was plenty abusive, too, close-herding me until supper, when the Marshal came home. Hawkins, thoughtful to keep me out of mischief, made me bed down for the night in his barn; and I made no howl because here at Bisley, close to the boundary, I would get the first news of Jim and Curly. It made me sick to think how helpless I was to find them. In the morning a squadron of cavalry arrived by rail, had coffee in town, and trailed off in their harmless way to patrol the boundary for fear of somebody stealing Mexico. I lay low, but mended a sewing machine which had got the fan-tods, according to Mrs. Hawkins. I treated the poor thing for inflammation of the squeam until it got so dead I couldn't put it together any more. My mind was all set on my lost kids out yonder in the desert, but Mrs. Hawkins grieved for the dead machine, and chased me out of the house.

Just then came the Marshal swift back from Bisley town on a bicycle.

"Say, Chalkeye," he yelled, "I want you to saddle my mare, and get mounted yourself! _p.r.o.nto!_"

When I came out with the horses I found him fondling his shot-gun, so I buckled on my guns, and inquired for the name of my enemy.

"You know c.o.c.ky Brown?" he asked, as we rode down street.

"I know he makes a first-rate stranger," says I.

"His dog-gone son is here in Bisley drunk, and lets out that old c.o.c.ky is getting rent for La Soledad."

"Who is the locoed tenant--some poor tourist?"

"It's that dog-gone McCalmont and his robbers!"

"And yet, Mr. Hawkins, you laid the blame on me for raiding La Morita!

It makes me sick!"

"For raiding La Morita? Why, of course--McCalmont's robbers--the same gang which shot up the 'Sepulchre' crowd at Grave City. That explains everything! Wall, I'm sure sorry, old friend, that I laid the blame on you."

"Mr. Hawkins," says I, "hadn't you better tell the pony-soldiers that they're barking up the wrong tree?"

"I will, and get their help in surprising that dog-gone McCalmont at La Soledad. A good idea."

That was his idea, not mine, and I disown it. Suppose that Jim and Curly were hid up there at La Soledad?

"We can get them or'nary hold-ups," says I indignant, "without being cluttered with a heap of military infants. Why, your half-fledged, moulting cavalry would just get right in our way by tumbling all over theirselves."

In the town we found the citizens surging around for encouraging liquors before they hit the trail. They were all bristling with pocket-flasks and artillery, some on mules, some on sore-back plugs from the livery stable. Besides that there were heroes in sulkies, and dog-traps, and buckboards, warriors on bicycles, and three on a pioneer motor-car, which blew up with a loud explosion in front of the Turkish Divan. Mixed in with that milling herd were seven of my La Morita raiders, howling for robbers' blood, and ga.s.sing about the disgracefulness of molesting frontier guards. Then they circled round a tenderfoot on a pinto horse, and told him how the robbers fed red-hot coals to a prisoner.

"Wall, I admire!" says the shorthorn.

"Oh, you needn't believe me," says Lying Ike, "ask Chalkeye here. He's truthful."

"Stranger," says I, "allow me to introduce you to Mr. Lying Ike. He has an impediment in his truth, but otherwise will survive until he's lynched. Now, seh, the Marshal over yonder says that he yearns for your advice."

That tenderfoot loped off joyful to teach the United States Marshal, while I spoke to my cowboys like a father.

"You moth-eaten bookworms," says I, "your stories is prehistoric, and your lies is relics. Now you want to encourage them pore toorists, 'cause we needs them. Toorists graze out slothful on the trail, they're noisy to warn their prey, and they flit like bats as soon as a robber shoots. Send all the toorists you can to tell good advice to Marshal Hawkins quick. As to the real folks who kin ride and shoot, beguile 'em to feed, lead 'em up against the fire-water, scatter 'em, delay! This Marshal needs our help, you blighted sufferers. Do you want the Marshal to get Jim and pore Curly McCalmont, you idiots?"

So we scattered to help the Marshal, sending him earnest talkers while his fighting-men went off and lost themselves.

Did I act mean? I wonder sometimes whether I done right for Jim, for Curly.

Dog-gone Hawkins was as mad as a wet hen, too hoa.r.s.e for further comments when, after a couple of hours, he rode off alone to hunt robbers; so we had to follow to save the old man from being shot. I came up abreast as soon as I could, and in a voice all hushed into whispers, he just invoked black saints and little red angels to comfort me on a grid.

I reckon it was four o'clock when our circus, all hot and dusty after a ten-mile ride, charged down upon La Soledad. The place looked so blamed peaceful that the Marshal stared pop-eyed.

"Wall, I'll be dog-goned!" says he, and let us riders traffick around innocent, trampling out all the ground sign. When he saw c.o.c.ky's memorandum on the door of the shack he couldn't bear it any longer.

"Chalkeye," says he, "I'll be dog-goned if that ain't--'Gawn with the buckboard for grub.' If that ain't enough to scorch a yaller dawg!"

"And yet," says I, "you blamed us for hanging back!"

"Wall," he groaned, "the drinks is on me this time. Let's go home."

But I knew Jim's handwriting, I knew that he and Curly were with the buckboard, I knew that the brains of McCalmont himself were behind a play like this.

I looked up the Grave City trail, the way to my ranche, the way that the buckboard had gone with my kids.

"You may go home, sir," says I, "but I'm off to my home before you leads me any more astray, corrupting my pure morals."

Dog-gone Hawkins froze me with his eyes. "Ef your soul," he says, "were to stray out on to your dog-goned cheek it would get lost!"

I'm always getting misunderstood like that by people who ought to know better. You see, I had to shock old Hawkins, or he would notice at once that I aimed to follow the buckboard.

"Cyclists," says I, "dawg-traps, sulkies, buggies, waggons, sore-back horses, mules, tenderfoot--look at yo' circus and say if that ain't enough to corrupt a long-horn's mortals. h.e.l.lo, look at that!"

A man was coming down from the north, lickety-split on a roan with a rangy stride. He wore sombrero, s.h.i.+rt, shaps with streaming fringes, a brace of guns to his belt. He rode with a cowboy swing to his broad shoulders, and his face was black with rage as he pulled up facing our crowd--guns drawn for war.

"Boys," he shouted, "whar's yo' sheriff?"

I followed Hawkins as he rode up to confront the stranger.