Bat Wing Bowles Part 24

He drew out a money-order ring that he had won in a mountain poker game, and flashed the stone in the sun.

"It's a genuwine, eighteen-carat diamond," he announced. "Come over hyer and let's see which finger it fits. If it fits yore third finger, you know----"

"Well, I like your nerve," observed Dixie Lee, smiling tolerantly with Gloomy Gus. "'Come over hyer!' eh? It's a wonder you wouldn't come over here--but I don't want your old ring, so don't come."

"W'y, what's the matter?" inquired Hardy Atkins, who loved to do his courting in public. "You ain't goin' back on me, are you, Dix?"

"Well, if I went very far back on _your_ trail," answered Dixie, "I reckon I'd find where you _got_ that ring. What's the matter? Wouldn't she have it? Or did that other girl give it back?"

She turned away with a curl on her lips, and when he saw that she meant it, Hardy Atkins was filled with chagrin. From a man now, that would be a good joke; but from Dixie--well, somebody must have blabbed! He turned a darkly inquiring eye upon Bowles, and looked no farther; but Henry Lee had spoken, and all that rough work was barred. Still there were ways and ways, and after thinking over all the dubious tricks of the cow camp he called in his faithful friends and they went into executive session.

"Now, hyer," expounded the ex-twister, as they got together over the butchering of a beef, "the way to b.u.mp that Hinglishman off is to make a monkey of 'im--skeer 'im up and laugh 'im out o' camp. He's so stuck on himse'f he cain't stand to be showed up--what's the matter with a fake killin'? Here's lots of blood."

He cupped up a handful of blood from the viscera of the newly killed beef, and his side partners chuckled at the thought.

"Let me do the shootin', and I'll throw in with ye," rumbled Buck Buchanan.

"I'll hold the door on 'im," volunteered Poker Bill.

"Well, who's goin' to play dead?" grinned Happy Jack. "Me? All right.

Git some flour to put on my face, and watch me make the fall--I done that once back on the Pecos."

So they laid their plans, very mysteriously, and when the big poker game began that night there was no one else in on the plot. Buck had the pistol he had killed the beef with tucked away in the slack of his belt; Jack had changed to a light s.h.i.+rt, the better to show the blood; and Hardy Atkins was a make-up man, with bottled blood and a pinch of flour in his pockets to use when the lights went out.

The game was straight draw poker, and the prize a private horse. Ten dollars apiece was the price of a chance, and it was freeze-out at four-bits a chip. That served to draw the whole crowd, and as the contest narrowed down to Buck Buchanan and Happy Jack, the table was lined three deep.

"How many?" asked Buck, picking up the deck.

"Gimme one!" said Jack, and when he got it he looked grave and turned down his hand, the way all good poker players do when they have tried to fill a flush and failed.

"I bet ye ten!" challenged Jack.

"Go you--and ten more!" came back Buck.

"Raise ye twenty!"

"What ye got?" demanded Buck, shoving his beans to the center, and then, with a sudden roar, he leaped up and seized the stakes. "Keep yore hands off that discyard!" he bellowed, hammering furiously on the table. "You lie, you----"

_Whack!_ came Happy Jack's hand across his face, and Buchanan grabbed for his gun. Then, as the crowd scattered wildly, he thrust out his pistol and shot a great flash of powder between Happy Jack's arm and his ribs.

"Uh!" grunted Jack, and went over backward, chair and all.

Then Hardy Atkins blew out the lamp, and the riot went on in the dark.

Bowles was only one of ten frantic punchers who struggled to get out the door; Brigham Clark was one of as many more who burrowed beneath the beds; and when Hardy Atkins lit the lamp and threw the dim light on Happy Jack's wan face he was just in time to save his audience. True, the older punchers had been in fake fights before; but they had been in real ones, too--where the bullets flew wide of the mark--and this had seemed mighty real. In fact, if one were to criticize such a finished production, it was a little too real for the purpose, for the conduct of Bowles was in no wise different from the rest. There had been a little too much secrecy and not quite enough team-work about the play, but Poker-face Bill was still at his post and the victim was caught in the crowd.

"Oh, my Gawd!" moaned Hardy Atkins, kneeling down and tearing aside Jack's coat. "Are you hurt bad, Jack?"

The red splotch on his s.h.i.+rt gave the answer, and the room was silent as death. Then Poker Bill began to whisper and push; delighted grins were pa.s.sed and stilled; and, moving in a ma.s.s, with Bowles up near the front, the crowd closed in on the corpse.

"He's dead!" rumbled Buck Buchanan, making a fierce gesture with his pistol. "I don't make no mistakes. You boys saw him cheat," he went on, approaching nearer to the crowd. "And he slapped me first! You saw that, didn't you, Bowles?"

"Oh, hush up!" cried Hardy Atkins, tragically shaking his fallen friend; and then as he worked up to the big scene where Happy Jack was to come to life and run amuck after Bowles, the door was kicked open and gloomy Gus strode in.

"What's the matter with you fellers?" he demanded, his voice trembling with indignation at the thought of his broken sleep, and then, at sight of Jack, he stopped.

"Jack's dead," said Hardy Atkins, trying hard to give Gus the wink; but the cook was staring at the corpse. Perhaps, being roused from a sound sleep, his senses were not quite as acute as usual; perhaps the play-acting was too good; be that as it may, his rage was changed to pity, and, he took the center of the stage.

"Ah, poor Jack!" he quavered, going closer and gazing down upon him.

"Shot through the heart. He's dead, boys; they's no use workin' on 'im--I've seen many a man like that before."

"Well, let's try, anyway!" urged Atkins, in a desperate endeavor to get rid of him. "Go git some water, Gus! Haven't you got any whisky?"

"Oh, he's dead," mourned the cook; "they's no use troublin' him--it's all over with poor old Jack. You'll never hear _him_ laugh no more."

A faint twitch came over the set features of the corpse at this, and Hardy Atkins leaped desperately in to s.h.i.+eld his face.

"He was a good-hearted boy," continued Gloomy Gus, still intent upon his eulogy--and then Happy Jack broke down. First he began to twitch, then a snort escaped him, and he shook with inextinguishable laughter. A look went around the room, Brigham Clark punched Bowles with his elbow and pulled him back, and then Gus glanced down at the corpse. His peroration ceased right there, and disgust, chagrin, and anger chased themselves across his face like winds across a lake; then, with a wicked oath, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun away from Buck and struggled to get it c.o.c.ked.

"You young limb!" he raved, menacing Happy Jack with the pistol and fighting to break clear of Buck. "You'll play a trick on me, will ye--an old man and punched cows before you was born! Let go of that gun, Mr.

Buchanan! I'll show the blankety-blank----" And so he raged, while the conspirators labored to soothe him, and Brig dragged Bowles outside.

CHAPTER XXI

A CALL

There is a regrettable but very well defined tendency in human nature which prompts the author of a miss-fire revenge to take it out on the dog. Certainly there was no more innocent party to the inveigling of Gloomy Gus than Bowles, and yet for some reason Hardy Atkins and his comrades in crime chose to gaze upon him with a frown. After laboring far into the night they had finally persuaded the cook that it was all a mistake; that no insult was intended to his years; and that it would be contrary to those high principles of Southern chivalry of which he had always been such an ill.u.s.trious exponent to report the fake fight to the boss. Then they had busied themselves in the early morning with chopping wood and packing water, and similar ingratiating tasks, with the result that, when Henry Lee came down after breakfast, there was no complaint from anybody. But when he had let it pa.s.s, and started off for Chula Vista, it was cloudy in the south for Bowles.

But your true lover, with the wine of ecstasy in his veins, and haunting feminine glimpses to catch his eye, is not likely to be scanning the horizon for a cloud the size of a man's hand. Bowles' troubles began that evening when, after an arduous day in the saddle, he returned to his own social sphere. For two months and more Samuel Bowles had been a cow-hand. He had slept on the ground, he had eaten in the dirt, and when luck had gone against him he had learned to swear. But now, as he was riding past the gate, Mrs. Lee, in a charming house-gown, had waylaid him with a smile; he paused for a friendly word, and his breeding had prompted him to linger while she chatted; then she had invited him to dinner--not supper--and he had forgotten his lowly part. Forgotten also was the warning of Hardy Atkins, now so sullen in his defeat, and everything else except the lure of dainty living and the memory of a smile. So, after a hasty shave and a change to cleaner clothes, he stepped out boldly from the ranks and walked up to the big white house.

The chill and gusty days of early spring had pa.s.sed and the soft warmth of May had brought out all the flowers. Along the gallery the honeysuckle and the Cherokee climbers were fragrant with the first blossoms of summer, and Bowles was glad to tarry beneath them when Mrs.

Lee met him hospitably at the stoop. In the far west the Tortugas were pa.s.sing through the daily miracle of sunset, and the hush of evening had settled upon all the land.

"Ah, Mrs. Lee," sighed Bowles, as he contemplated with a poet's eye the beauties of nature, "now I understand how you can live here for thirty years and never go back to New York. Such illumination--such color! And from the hill here, it is so much more glorious! Really, in spite of the loneliness, I almost envy you those thirty years!"

"Yes," admitted Mrs. Lee, leading him to a rawhide chair beneath the honeysuckle, "it _is_ beautiful. I like it--in a way--but still, I can never forget New York. It offers so much, you know, of music and art and society; and yet--well, Henry needed me, and so I stayed. But I have tried to give my daughter what advantages I could. I have a sister, you know, living in New York--Mrs. Elwood Tupper--perhaps you know her?"

"Why, the name seems familiar," returned Bowles glibly.

"Yes, she's my sister," resumed Mrs. Lee, after glancing at him curiously. "Dixie was with her all last winter--I thought perhaps you might have met her there?"

Once more she gazed at him in that same inquiring way, and Bowles wondered if she had heard anything, but he was quick to elude the point.

"Hmm," he mused, "Tupper! No, I hardly think so. When I return, though, I shall be glad to look her up--perhaps I can convey some message from you. Your daughter must find it rather close and confining in the city, after her fine, free life in the open. Really, Mrs. Lee, I never knew what living was until I came out here! Of course, I'm very new yet----"

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Lee, who knew a few social sleights herself, "Dixie did complain of the confinement, but she----_O Dixie_!"