The Big-Town Round-Up Part 8

"That's right," reproached Clay. "Make fun of me because I'm a stranger and come right from the alfalfa country." He turned to Beatrice cheerfully. "O' course he bit me good and proper. I'm green.

But I'll bet he loses that smile awful quick when he sees me again."

"You're not going to--"

"Me, I'm the gentlest citizen in Arizona. Never in trouble. Always peaceable and quiet. Don't you get to thinkin' me a bad-man, for I ain't."

Jenkins came to the door and announced "Mr. Bromfield."

Almost on his heels a young man in immaculate riding-clothes sauntered into the room. He had the a.s.sured ease of one who has the run of the house. Miss Whitford introduced the two young men and Bromfield looked the Westerner over with a suave insolence in his dark, handsome eyes.

Clay recognized him immediately. He had shaken hands once before with this well-satisfied young man, and on that occasion a fifty-dollar bill had pa.s.sed from one to the other. The New Yorker evidently did not know him.

It became apparent at once that Bromfield had called to go riding in the Park with Miss Whitford. That young woman came up to say good-bye to her new acquaintance.

"Will you be here when I get back?"

"Not if our friends outside give me a chance for a getaway," he told her.

Her bright, unflinching eyes looked into his. "You'll come again and let us know how you escaped," she invited.

"I'll ce'tainly do that, Miss Whitford."

"Then we'll look for you Thursday afternoon, say."

"I'll be here."

"If the police don't get you."

"They won't," he promised serenely.

"When you're quite ready, Bee," suggested Bromfield in a bored voice.

She nodded casually and walked out of the room like a young Diana, straight as a dart in her trim slenderness.

Clay slipped out of the house by the back way, cut across to the subway, and took a downtown train. He got out at Forty-Second Street and made his way back to the clothing establishment of I. Bernstein.

That gentleman was in his office in the rear of the store. Lindsay walked back to it, opened and closed the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket.

The owner of the place rose in alarm from the stool where he was sitting. "What right do you got to lock that door?" he demanded.

"I don't want to be interrupted while I'm sellin' you this suit, Mr.

Bernstein," the cowpuncher told him easily, and he proceeded to unwrap the damp package under his arm. "It's a pippin of a suit. The color won't run or fade, and it's absolutely unshrinkable. You won't often get a chance at a suit like this. Notice the style, the cut, the quality of the goods. And it's only goin' to cost you fifty-five dollars."

The clothing man looked at the misshapen thing with eyes that bulged.

"Where is it you been with this suit--in the East River, my friendt?"

he wanted to know.

"I took a walk along Riverside Drive. That's all. I got a strong guarantee with this suit when I bought it. I'm goin' to give you the same one I got. It won't shrink or fade and it will wear to beat a 'Pache pup. Oh, you won't make any mistake buyin' this suit."

"You take from me an advice. Unlock that door and get out."

"I can give you better advice than that. Buy this suit right away.

You'll find it's a bargain."

The steady eyes of the Westerner daunted the merchant, but he did not intend to give up fifty-five dollars without a murmur.

"If you don't right avay soon open that door I call the police. Then you go to jail, ain't it?"

"How's yore heart, Mr. Bernstein?" asked Clay tenderly.

"What?"

"I'm askin' about yore heart. I don't know as you're hardly strong enough to stand what I'll do to you if you let a single yelp out of you. I kinda hate to hurry yore funeral," he added regretfully, still in his accustomed soft drawl.

The man beside the stool attempted one shout. Instantly Clay filled his mouth with a bunch of suit samples that had been lying on the desk.

With one arm he held the struggling little man close to his body. With his foot and the other hand he broke in two a yardstick and fitted the two parts together.

"Here's the programme," he said by way of explanation. "I'm goin' to put you over my knee and paddle you real thorough. When you make up yore mind that you want to buy that suit for fifty-five dollars, it will be up to you to let me know. Take yore own time about it. Don't let me hurry you."

Before the programme had more than well started, the victim of it signified his willingness to treat with the foe. To part with fifty-five dollars was a painful business, but not to part with it was going to hurt a good deal more. He chose the lesser of two evils.

While he was counting out the bills Clay bragged up the suit. He praised its merits fluently and cheerfully. When he left he locked the door of the office behind him and handed the key to one of the clerks.

"I've got a kinda notion Mr. Bernstein wants to get out of his office.

He's actin' sort o' restless, seems like."

Restless was hardly the word. He was banging on the door like a wild man. "Police! Murder! Help!" he shouted in a high falsetto.

Clay wasted no time. He and the fifty-five dollars vanished into the street. In his haste he b.u.mped into a Salvation Army la.s.sie with a tambourine.

She held it out to him for a donation, and was given the shock of her life. For into that tambourine the big brown man crammed a fistful of bills. He waited for no thanks, but cut round the corner toward Broadway in a hurry.

When the girl reached headquarters and counted the contribution she found it amounted to just fifty-five dollars.

CHAPTER VI

CLAY TAKES A TRANSFER

From the top of a bus Clay Lindsay looked down a canon which angled across the great city like a river of light.

He had come from one land of gorges to another. In the walls of this one, thousands and tens of thousands of cliff-dwellers hid themselves during the day like animals of some queer breed and poured out into the canon at sunset.

Now the river in its bed was alive with a throbbing tide.

Cross-currents of humanity flowed into it from side streets and ebbed out of it into others. Streams of people were swept down, caught here and there in swirling eddies. Taxis, private motors, and trolley-cars struggled in the raceway.